On June 1, 1774, Britain’s Parliament gave assent to the Boston Port Act. By mandating the complete shutdown of Boston’s port, prohibiting any loading, unloading, or transportation of goods within the town and its harbor, Parliament believed it was sending a powerful signal of its authority to the rebellious Bostonians who had dumped tea into […]
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Fraud was uncovered last week at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, the world’s biggest science fair, put on by the non-profit group Society for Science. The 17-year-old winner beat out nearly 1,700 competitors to take home a $50,000 cash prize, along with an additional $5,000 bonus, the hopeful start of an impressive science […]
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Forty years ago, when I was an undergraduate in the California State University system, it was pounded into my admittedly mushy brain that one of the mortal sins in academia was not giving someone else credit for their work. If a student failed to cite or improperly cited someone else’s work, whether it be statistics, […]
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Jeane Kirkpatrick was the American Ambassador to the United Nations during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. A brilliant and principled woman, she was famous for her pithy characterizations of the surreal, indecorous nature of politics at the UN. She once said, for example: “What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either […]
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How can professors be prevented from indoctrinating their students? And, how can it be done in ways that protect academic freedom? Trying to stifle classroom proselytizing is futile. Today’s ideologues are unstoppable. Instead, a more effective strategy is ensuring students know what to expect before enrolling. This prior knowledge serves as an implicit contract. If […]
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Author’s Note: Allow me to establish two points: First, I believe the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have crossed a morally acceptable line in their response to the October 7th pogrom. Second, the claim that George Soros is the main architect of the current mayhem seems too conspiratorial to me. Let’s examine the keffiyeh, a garment […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was updated on June 1, 2024, to correct an inaccuracy regarding Sarah Lawrence College’s 2024 graduation ceremony. Initially, it was stated that graduating students were seen in an Instagram post chanting “from the river to the sea” during the commencement address. Instead, students held anti-Israel signs, and the chanting, initially thought […]
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If you’re headed off to college this fall, beware: there’s a virus circulating on campuses nationwide. And no, I’m not talking about COVID-19 or flu, but about something much more virulent and destructive, a pathogen that attacks your brain rather than your lungs, leaving you unable to think clearly or behave rationally. I’m talking about […]
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It’s time again for the Minding the Campus (MTC) Trofim Lysenko Award for the Suppression of Academic Speech. Named after the notorious Stalinist pseudoscientist whose crackpot agronomist theories—and persecution of those with the temerity to challenge them—led to the deaths of millions, the MTC Lysenko Award calls attention to those in academia who promote or advocate […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal on May 13, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. Universities are continuing to navigate the challenges and opportunities posed by artificial-intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT. While many are wary of its power and capacity to enable student cheating, others point […]
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There are multiple reasons the University of Southern California (USC) Academic Senate might act to censure USC President Carol Folt. The faculty could censure her for her relatively anemic fund-raising performance over the past five years—see Contribution Revenue in USC’s Annual Reports—including her poorly received attempts to reorganize volunteer alumni and alumnae supporters; for her […]
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Men are increasingly an endangered species on American college campuses. Between 2015 and 2022, the National Center of Educational Statistics says male enrollment fell by 10.4 percent, while the decline of female enrollment was far less than one-half of that (4.4 percent). By the latter year, 38 percent more women were on campus than men. […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal on May 17, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. Not that long ago, college sports were relatively predictable. Like the U.S. passenger airlines, trucking fleets, and freight railroads regulated by government entities before President Jimmy Carter’s deregulation efforts in the late […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal on May 22, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. Clearly, the most newsworthy story in American collegiate life recently has been the widespread eruption of pro-Palestinian protests over the war between Israel and Hamas. A central demand of pro-Palestinian demonstrators has […]
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“If critics have a problem with the goal of diversity, they should say so,” writes law professor Stacy Hawkins in a vigorous counterattack against critics of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) mandates. Well, here I am. Hawkins notes that even some DEI critics acknowledge the value of racial and ethnic diversity. But they are wrong: […]
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As angry crowds of student protesters gathered at elite universities across the nation to call for a ceasefire—and, in many cases, to echo the Hamas demands for the destruction of Israel—many are no doubt inspired by the vision of earlier student protesters who brought an end to the senseless violence that resulted from American intervention […]
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Editor’s Note: This series is adapted from the new paper Higher Education Subsidization: Why and How Should We Subsidize Higher Education? Part 1 explores the justifications and rationales that have been used to subsidize higher education. Higher education has long been subsidized by the government in America, but the reasons used to justify subsidization have […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal on May 16, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. The Martin Center opposes the Biden administration’s new loan-forgiveness rules for two basic reasons: They are outside of the Department of Education’s authority, and they will have adverse consequences. Legal Authority Economists […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Law & Liberty on May 16, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. The summer of 2020, when George Floyd’s murder inspired America’s “racial reckoning,” seems a distant memory. Although talk of a right-wing backlash is often overstated, we have witnessed some effective pushback against left-wing identity politics from the […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Brutal Minds on May 14, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. American higher education is, in its best incarnation, both a place and an endeavor where rigorous and demanding instruction occurs for America’s best and brightest students in a passing-on of the best that has been thought, written, and […]
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