Minding The Campus - Page 2 of 119 -

Campus Sex Cases, Cross-Examination, and the University of Michigan

March 25, 2020
By KC Johnson

For years, under Title IX, a student charged with sexual assault was not permitted to face their accusers and cross-examine them. The rationale by feminists was that confronting the accuser was equivalent to another sexual assault. This policy violated due process, even though some innocent students’ reputations and careers have been ruined. The Chronicle of […]

Transgender symbol. Trans gender sign. Abstract night sky background

Court Rules Free Speech Must Yield to ‘Woke’ Speech

March 23, 2020
By George Leef

Shawnee State University in southern Ohio (cross the bridge and you’re in Kentucky) is an open-admissions school that opened in 1986. It’s very little known, but the school’s administrators are as politically attuned to progressive sensibilities as any across the nation. A case that has arisen at Shawnee threatens to set a terrible precedent for […]

The 85 Universities that Discriminate on the Basis of Sex

March 17, 2020
By E. Everett Bartlett

The Title IX Equity Project today is releasing a list of 85 colleges and universities in the nation with severe violations of the federal Title IX law that bars sex discrimination in schools. These 85 institutions offer at least ten more scholarships for female students, compared to the number of scholarships for male students. The […]

The University of Texas Succumbs to the ‘Social Justice’ Pandemic

March 9, 2020
By Mark Pulliam

The latest racket in higher education, evident at my alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, is the disturbing proliferation of “social justice” as a degree program, a course topic, an academic emphasis, and even as a prerequisite in campus job descriptions. “Social justice” is a seemingly innocuous term with no established definition. Many […]

The Power of Liberal Peer Condemnation on Conservatives

March 2, 2020
By Mark Bauerlein

Now we know that the conquest of academia by political correctness is complete. A repressive system succeeds when the overlords of it no longer must exert any pressure. Instead, the group that is the target of the repression censors and harasses itself. This is the finding of a study by two professors at UNC-Chapel Hill. […]

The Real Reason for Racial Achievement Gaps

February 26, 2020
By Hans Bader

Progressive policies cause the racial achievement gaps that progressives spend so much time lamenting. That’s the conclusion of Minnesota lawyer and think-tank president John Hinderaker, based on recent educational research. He cites a report from Brightbeam, “The Secret Shame: How America’s Most Progressive Cities Betray Their Commitment to Educational Opportunity For All.” The report is authored by Chris […]

Colleges Give Up on Western Civilization

February 24, 2020
By Mark Bauerlein

The humanities have become such a minor activity on college campuses that it is almost unimaginable that 30 years ago a change in a humanities course was a national controversy. That’s what happened, though, when an article appeared in The New York Times on Jan. 19, 1988 with the headline “In Dispute on Bias, Stanford Is Likely to Alter Western Culture Program.” […]

Another Attempt to Undermine Religious Freedom

February 19, 2020
By Anne Hendershott

Less than a decade after the Supreme Court issued its 2012 ruling in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, giving religious organizations wide latitude in selecting their employees, the Court has agreed to review yet again whether two Catholic K-12 schools should be able to hire and fire their own […]

Jordan Peterson: Torture by Bad Journalism

February 14, 2020
By Mark Bauerlein

The news that Jordan Peterson has entered an addiction facility in Russia is no surprise to those of us who have watched the interviews, discussions, and debates for the last four years. The immediate cause is his dependence on an anti-anxiety medication, but it is certainly the case that since 2016 an army of students, […]

Are Elite Universities Getting Too Chummy With China and Russia?

February 13, 2020
By editor

Two American elite universities, Yale and Harvard, are now in the crosshairs of the Education Department. Why? They accepted money from foreign countries like China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran and not reporting the gifts or contracts, which federal investigators estimate to be at least $6.5 billion. The story, which appears in The Wall Street […]

‘Woke’ Journalists Undermine America’s Newsrooms

February 5, 2020
By John Tierney

Suppose you’re the editorial-page editor of a college newspaper, contemplating the big news on campus: protesters have silenced an invited speaker and gone on a violent rampage. Should you, as a journalist whose profession depends on the First Amendment, write an editorial reaffirming the right to free speech? If that seems like a no-brainer, you’re […]

When Meeting Racial Quotas Is Impossible

February 4, 2020
By Mark Bauerlein

Several years ago, I was a visiting professor at a large public university beyond the Mississippi. Early on, I introduced myself to a few of the colleagues in the department, some of whom proved to be vigorous liberals unhappy with the social state of things on campus. One of them said to me as I […]

Survey Confirms Unfairness of Campus Title IX on Due Process

February 3, 2020
By KC Johnson

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently indicated that the process for creating fairer Title IX regulations has reached its final stages. As the new rules loom, the higher-ed establishment has demonstrated an almost uniform opposition to creating fairer Title IX procedures. The most recent example came from NASPA, the organization of student affairs officials. Few organizations […]

Playing Politics With History

January 29, 2020
By John S. Rosenberg

At the American Historical Association’s recent annual meeting, the program’s abundance of panels were devoted to issues of social justice. Perhaps its name should be changed to the Activists Historical Association. Here are a few examples: Historically Informed Present-Day Activism in the City Activism, Academics, and the Academy African Americans and Chinese Activists in World […]

Will Leonardo, Van Gogh or Warhol Survive the Art History Purge at Yale?

January 27, 2020
By editor

Yale is ending the teaching of one of its most storied courses—a survey of Western Art history from the Renaissance to the present. The Yale Daily News called the action a result of the latest student uneasiness over an idealized Western “canon” a product of an overwhelmingly white, straight, European and male cadre of artists.” […]

Victoria’s Secret Sex Changes

January 23, 2020
By Charlotte Allen

In the fall of 2019, Victoria’s Secret, the iconic purveyor of scanty, lacy women’s underthings, announced that it was canceling its annual December fashion show, a staple of network television since 1995. The show, airing first on CBS and later on ABC, was famous for its bevy of top-earning supermodels—such famous names over the years […]

The Humanities Throw in the Towel

January 21, 2020
By Peter Wood

The humanities are troubled – and that means the way of looking at the world is also distressed. Broadly conceived, the humanities are a filter to one’s view of the world, a way that emphasizes and celebrates what it means to be human. As a collection of academic departments that cover history, English, foreign languages, […]

The Trans Agenda Could Make You Choose Your Pronouns

January 16, 2020
By Janet Lighthouse

In early December, Merriam-Webster named “they” the 2019 Word of the Year. Anyone who spends time on a university campus was not surprised by their choice: personal pronouns are having a moment. At my own university, one can choose to have their personal pronouns displayed in the public directory: choices include “they/them” and “ze/hir.” For […]

State-Funded Colleges Are Still Well Funded

January 14, 2020
By Andrew Gillen

I have a confession to make. My recent study on state funding of higher education was about the simplest piece of research I’ve done in a dozen years. So was the finding; there’s been no trend of state disinvestment in higher education. But what a ruckus it caused. The key finding entailed simply downloading and […]

Why the NY Times’ 1619 Project Fails the Truth Test

January 7, 2020
By KC Johnson

Earlier this year, the New York Times published the ambitious “1619 Project,” an effort to reinterpret U.S. history as one dominated by the legacies of slavery and racism—thereby, according to the Times, “tell[ing] our story truthfully.” The Project’s lead essay, from Nikole Hannah-Jones, set the agenda: “Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the […]

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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

If You Love Anti-American Riots, Thank Our Universities

Open Access and Intellectual Freedom: Linked Meditations

On Gene Editing and the Free Market