Minding The Campus - Page 2 of 121 -

COVID-19 and Online Education’s Stealth Expansion

August 26, 2020
By Glenn Ricketts

Last spring semester began with my five courses offered in the usual classroom setting and ended with all of them converted to an online format. My community college, along with virtually all of higher education, went into complete lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and all of our courses were either canceled or taught […]

A New Academy, A New History, and A New Language

August 22, 2020
By Wight Martindale Jr.

When Robert Taft and Adlai Stevenson faced off in the 1952 presidential race, I don’t remember any proposal to overhaul the humanities. Both candidates loved America but had differing political views. Universities were not yet on the front lines of the culture war—institutions had their own leanings, but these views were largely limited to the […]

Dear Black Lives Matter: What is the alternative to the nuclear family?

August 20, 2020
By Gabriel Andrade

If Black Lives Matter were actually about protecting and enriching black lives, then it would be a praise-worthy organization—but it’s not. BLM’s stated goals have little to do with black lives and more to do with social revolution. One of the movement’s founders, Patrisse Cullors, once described BLM’s members as “trained Marxists.” Indeed, they are. […]

Anti-Racism’s Threat to Academic Freedom

August 18, 2020
By John S. Rosenberg

Medpage Today reports that “a paper advocating against affirmative action in cardiology programs is melting under a blast of Twitter heat.” Melting is more wishful thinking than reporting—the substance of the paper was untouched by the firestorm, which was instead inflamed by the author’s opinions—but the assault has indeed been vicious. It also raises an ominous […]

The Failure of Higher Ed Accreditation

August 15, 2020
By Chauncey M. DePree & Rebecca K. Jude

American higher education is failing. There are numerous reasons for this, such as the pervasive deconstructionism in the academy exampled by young rioters destroying monuments to the very heroes who in the past supported similar causes to those of our modern-day “revolutionaries.” Rarely discussed, however, are the negative externalitiesof careless accreditation. Accreditors are supposed to assess the […]

Faculty Demand a Racism Star Chamber at Princeton

August 13, 2020
By Richard L. Cravatts

The death of a black man under the knee of a brutal police officer in Minneapolis sent shock waves of racial guilt throughout America. Protestors, led principally by Black Lives Matter, took to the streets to malign America’s troubled history with race and reignite the conversation about how to atone and pay for the country’s […]

UVa Task Force Doubles Down on “Anti-Racism”

August 12, 2020
By James A. Bacon

The University of Virginia’s Racial Equity Task Force has released its final report, recommending 12 initiatives to promote “systemic change” and racial equity, and it’s everything you’d expect it to be. Reflecting the blinkered thinking of the academic Left, the report provides a lot of navel-gazing, virtue-signaling and window dressing while doing nothing to change […]

150 Law School Deans Ask ABA to Mandate Anti-Racism Training

August 11, 2020
By Hans Bader

As lawyers like Barack Obama have noted, law school is already a year too long, with lots of nonessential classes. As a result, law students often graduate with over $150,000 in student-loan debt. Yet law students may soon be required to take more unnecessary classes. 150 law school deans have asked the American Bar Association […]

Birth of an Activist: How A Historian of 30 Years “Woke” Up

August 10, 2020
By David Richardson

If anyone had told me thirty years ago, when I was earning my master’s degree in history from California State University, Fresno, that someday, I would be starting an online petition to try and save the newly erected statue of Gandhi in the Fresno State Peace Garden, I would have thought they were crazy would […]

Music Education in the Age of COVID-19

August 8, 2020
By Benjamin Whitcomb

Quite a bit has been written about the relative merits of online education versus in-person instruction. Before this year, most online courses around the country were taken voluntarily, but when the COVID-19 shutdown occurred in mid-March, thousands of instructors found themselves forced to hurriedly convert their classes to an online format, for better or worse. […]

Teacher Unconstitutionally Fired for Facebook Post Rejecting Concept of ‘White Privilege’

August 7, 2020
By Hans Bader

An Illinois high school teacher was fired on July 16 for a Facebook post rejecting the idea of “white privilege.” That violated the First Amendment, even if some people viewed her Facebook post as racially inflammatory. Speech doesn’t become punishable just because it offends members of minority groups. For example, in Thompson v. Board of Education of Chicago (1989), […]

University Removes Director for Mild Criticism of Affirmative Action, Violating Free Speech

August 7, 2020
By Hans Bader

The University of Pittsburgh has removed a program director at its medical center because he published a scholarly, peer-reviewed white paper discussing the pitfalls of affirmative action for black and Hispanic students. This violated the First Amendment, which protects even harsh criticism of affirmative action. The white paper was gentle in its criticism of racial preferences, merely […]

The Invention of ‘Systemic Racism’

August 6, 2020
By Philip Carl Salzman

It is now the official view in government, industry, and education that African Americans and certain other “people of color” perform poorly in schools and the workforce, but nonetheless must be treated as if they perform well. The statistically weak performance of African Americans, according to the official view, is not their fault; it is […]

Dr. Welfare Queen, Ph.D.

August 5, 2020
By Robert Weissberg

Military disasters such as Pearl Harbor often warrant official investigations. But another one is sure to come. Decades from now, an official inquiry will look into how American universities collapsed into madness during the early twenty-first century. Unfortunately, when that day finally arrives, very few of us who survived that insanity will be around to […]

Biden ‘Racial Equity Plan’ Would Enrich Wealthy Lawyers at Employers’ Expense

July 30, 2020
By Hans Bader

Joe Biden released his “racial equity plan” on Tuesday. Some of it deals with racial issues, like a major expansion of affirmative action and lots of race-related government spending. But it also contains radical changes to America’s employment laws that have little to do with race. Under his plan, even the tiniest employers with only […]

Minute 14 for Robin DiAngelo

July 29, 2020
By Stanley K. Ridgley

What happens when a non-psychologist sets up a small and shoddy human psychological experiment in a university almost two decades ago—an experiment in which the eight subjects are repeatedly lied to, in which she brings in hand-picked collaborators to commit a deception scripted by critical racialist ideology, and all while she sits and watches the […]

George Mason University May Discriminate Based on Race in Unconstitutional Ways

July 27, 2020
By Hans Bader

As part of a new “anti-racism” push, George Mason University plans to discriminate based on race in favor of faculty of color. On July 23, Dr. Gregory Washington, the president of GMU, announced that “We will develop specific mechanisms in the promotion and tenure process that recognize the invisible and uncredited emotional labor that people of color […]

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations at Rutgers

July 25, 2020
By Richard L. Cravatts

A stunning letter titled, “Department actions in solidarity with Black Lives Matter,” written by Rebecca L. Walkowitz, chair of Rutgers’ English Department, affirms how deeply academia is now in the thrall of racism hysteria, particularly after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a brutal police officer in Minneapolis. The letter is steeped […]

Reality-Based Research on Racism Now Under Assault in Academia

July 23, 2020
By Hans Bader

Academic freedom is under assault. Faculty are being told that their research and courses must promote a particular ideology: that racial disparities are due to racism, rather than other causes, such as the voluntary choices made by individuals. The Supreme Court has said that racial disparities are not presumptively due to racism, because reality shows […]

Misreading Polling Data on Race

July 20, 2020
By John S. Rosenberg

Caught up as we still are in the post-Floyd hysteria, the nation is seemingly transfixed on rooting out “systemic racism,” whatever and wherever that is. And with both the upcoming presidential election and a Black Lives Matter-like Proposition 16 to revive racial preferences on the November California ballot, accurate polling and survey data on racial […]

« Previous 1 2 3 4 … 181 Next »

What Students Really Learn at University

Perhaps no one has written more about the plague of identity politics on America’s college campuses than MTC's contributor, Philip Carl Salzman. Salzman, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McGill University, and a contributor to many public policy organizations, has now published some of his most powerful essays in an e-Book collection called Universities Today. Salzman writes, "Since the 1980s, universities have increasingly turned away from producing and disseminating knowledge and taken up as their objective neo-Marxist radical social reform, often labeled ‘social justice.’ Today, universities focus on political propaganda and activism and are increasingly like closed religious cults."

Attention Middle Easterners! You Don’t Have to Be White Anymore

So says Harvard University in a convoluted explanation of race, identity, culture and white privilege. According to Harvard, “Since 1944, Middle Eastern- and North African-Americans have been legally “white,” having to check the “white” box on demographic surveys like the U.S. census.” OMG—what a burden! Well, fear no more my Lebanese and Syrian friends, my pals from Iraq and Iran—you no longer have the burden of being white—you can be a MENA! A middle-eastern north African. What a joy to shed the mantle of white privilege once and for all. How wonderful to have such a joyous moniker of peace, achievement, cultural contribution, and tolerance to wrap around oneself.

If You're On Time, You're a White Supremacist

The National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education, or NCORE, will feature a “pre-conference” session led by an educational consultant who believes being on time is a form of “white supremacy.” The story appears in The College Fix. NCORE is a function of the University of Oklahoma’s Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies. This year, Heather Hackman of the Hackman Consulting Group will speak about “…Racism and Whiteness and Achieving Racial Justice.” Hackman is a former professor of multicultural education at St. Cloud University who, at 2016’s “White Privilege Conference,” informed attendees that “the racial narrative of White” includes “making sure you’re not tardy.” Individualism, honesty, discipline, and rigor were other factors.

Peggy Noonan on the Coming Fall of ‘Woke’ Progressives

"The past decade saw the rise of the woke progressives who dictate what words can be said and ideas held, thus poisoning and paralyzing American humor, drama, entertainment, culture and journalism. In the coming 10 years someone will effectively stand up to them. They are the most hated people in America, and their entire program is accusation: you are racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic; you are a bigot, a villain, a white male, a patriarchal misogynist, your day is over. They never have a second move. Bow to them, as most do, and they’ll accuse you even more of newly imagined sins. They claim to be vulnerable victims, and moral. Actually, they’re not." -- The Wall Street Journal, January 4 -5

Let's Ban the SAT and ACT!

That's what a coalition of civil rights lawyers wants to do in California in order to end discrimination based on merit for Latinos and African Americans. According to a report in The New Yorker, the only tests the lawyers would allow are Advanced Placement exams. The shell game of accepting test results, then distorting them to achieve a "racially balanced outcome," has been known for years at some of the most prestigious schools in the country. But two events have prompted this action in California: One is the ongoing challenge by Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard to level the playing field for Asian students, who score high on grades and tests. The other is the changing makeup of the Supreme Court, which has become more conservative in the last few years. Does anyone care that American students continue to decline in global matchups against other developed countries?

If You're White, You're Wrong

Following a growing trend in higher education, a Dartmouth professor called for mandatory white privilege courses. Dr. Emily Walton wrote an op-ed in USA Today calling for all students to take courses in white privilege and black history. She accuses white people of being afflicted with "white blindness" or a state in which racial privilege is invisible. She also claims the K-12 public schools perpetuate "white blindness" (read discrimination) by not mandating ethnic studies classes. To top it off, she equates the meritocratic system of hard work with white discrimination against minorities.

In response to "Wanna Teach? Submit a Killer 'Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion' Statement"

I am a long-retired public school teacher. Last fall, I submitted a letter to the editor of Education Week (unpublished), providing data on public education’s devotion to social justice issues.

To the editor:

A subscriber since the founding of Education Week in 1981, I’ve noticed a persistent theme: the “achievement gap.” In the 12-11 issue, for example, two commentaries were on that topic. Looking towards the next four decades, entertain a possibility: A fixation on performance “gaps” and on assigning blame may be unhealthy.

Evidence of fixation? At Edweek.org, I searched 24 terms associated with the achievement gap to gauge frequency. Assume 36 issues per year of Education Week over 38 years. That’s 1,368 issues. Divide “mentions” below by 1,368 for the average number of times one is likely to encounter a particular term in a random issue of Education Week:

“equity” – 7,334 mentions (5.9 times per issue)
“achievement gap” – 4,930
“discrimination” – 3,740
“desegregation” – 3,090
“social justice” – 3,020
“desegregate” – 3,063
“segregation” – 1,968
“segregate” – 1,498
“discriminate” – 1,396
“racism” – 1,380
“slavery” – 520
“racial discrimination” – 431
“racial bias” – 265
“mandatory busing” – 235
“Jim Crow” – 168
“implicit bias” – 166
“cultural competence” – 91
“forced busing” – 90
“white privilege” – 85
“institutional racism” – 76
“systemic racism” – 51
“busing for racial balance” – 51
“redlining” or “red-lining” – 38
“structural racism” – 27

Consider two changes-of-direction for the next 38 years:

1) America is among the least racist nations in the world. Endlessly beating itself up over racial disparities ill serves everyone.

2) Groups focus differently; people are individuals. All 64 starting NFL cornerbacks are Black and have been for 17 years. That gap alarms no one. Bringing some of that tolerance to educational performance may produce happier results than four more decades obsessing over gaps.
Individuals are key. Overlap among and variation within groups is enormous. While upholding meritocratic standards, why not incentivize individuals to move where they can, possibly “testing out” of graded systems. Adjusting compulsory attendance and child-labor laws might better accommodate enormous variation among individuals.

Tom Shuford, Lenoir, NC

How Political Correctness on Race Fuels Polarization

Data-Driven Accountability is Coming to Higher Ed

In Review: Michael Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit