Like many other followers of the higher education scene, I weighed in on the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program last week, concluding that it was bad for America. In one iteration, I listed seven words beginning with the letter “I” to describe the policy action: illegal, inflationary, immoral, inequitable, irresponsible, irrational, and idiotic. This […]
Read More
Over the past 20 years, trans activism has become more prominent at universities. As many academics know, this is one of those “third rail” subjects that can cause you serious trouble. Women like Selina Todd, Ann Henderson, and Kathleen Stock have discovered that one’s physical safety—not psychological or cultural safety—can be jeopardized when challenging this […]
Read More
The notion that states have been cutting funding for higher education, commonly referred to as state disinvestment, is widespread within academia and the media. These cuts are alleged to be responsible for much of what ails higher education, especially the rise in tuition. Consider, for example, some recent statements from education leaders: • James Kvaal, […]
Read More
“Professors believe they should be free to express their opinions and free of penalties for themselves and their institutions. That is asking quite a lot. If we could decrease our entanglement in contemporary policy issues, whether by anonymity or self-discipline, we would not invite the often-correct suspicion that professional knowledge was being used for partisan […]
Read More
When five black middle schoolers attacked their white classmates and were arrested for hate crimes this past March, some may have concluded that these “antiracism” initiatives had failed. In reality, those initiatives had actually succeeded, exactly as our nation’s enemies had hoped they would. Despite efforts to ignore the evidence, what we now call “antiracism” […]
Read More
In response to a question about the Minneapolis policy to first fire white teachers before BIPOC teachers, the Democrat-affiliated panelist replies, “Diversity is our strength!” She would have actually answered the question if she had said, “Racism is our strength!” This panelist was in good company with her assertion that “Diversity is our strength!” Many […]
Read More
Historian David McCullough, who passed away on Aug. 7, spent his life telling stories that his fellow citizens should know. He wrote well-known biographies of John Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and the Wright Brothers. He got his start chronicling the Johnstown Flood before turning to the creation of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama […]
Read More
A new poll from NBC News that looked at second-year college and university students is generating attention after revealing that, “nearly half of college students wouldn’t room with someone who votes differently.” More specifically, the poll found that 54 percent of sophomores would “definitely” or “probably” be open to living with someone who supported the […]
Read More
Yesterday, Joe Biden announced a plan to write off $10,000 in student loans for most people who haven’t paid off their student loans — and $20,000 in student loans for people who received Pell Grants. Biden’s plan will increase inflation, inequality, tuition, and the national debt. News articles have estimated the cost of Biden’s plan […]
Read More
The Biden administration just announced its long-anticipated student loan forgiveness plan. The plan would forgive $10,000 for borrowers making less than $125,000 per year ($250,000 if married) and $20,000 for Pell grant recipients. On the bright side, the Biden plan could have been worse, such as wiping out all debt with no income restrictions. But […]
Read More
Last Thursday, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker from the North District of Florida issued a preliminary injunction halting enforcement of the employment provisions in Florida’s newly codified Individual Freedom Act (IFA). On the same day, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) submitted a lawsuit challenging the IFA, also known as the Stop the […]
Read More
The social costs of the COVID-19 pandemic are not limited to the disease, but also include the ideologically driven response to it. At every level of government, politically motivated school closures cost children years of education, while forced closures of businesses increased poverty and economic dislocation. In Los Angeles, where public health is a political […]
Read More
In a recent interview, Richard Hanania and Gail Heriot note how the legal concept of disparate impact—that any difference in group outcomes is evidence of discrimination—essentially makes everything illegal. This, in turn, gives the government the authority to do whatever it wants by selectively choosing which cases to bring: Literally any practice you can think […]
Read More
Miseducation and the Law in America, Part II (Read Part I here.) As Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism stalked the globe in the 1950s, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835/40) boosted morale in the U.S. by defending freedom without whitewashing the lack of civil rights in the South. Tocqueville’s defense of American democracy was solid, and […]
Read More
America’s colleges are so left-wing that even a progressive doctor who once headed Planned Parenthood is facing calls that she be canceled as a speaker. The College Fix reports on how public-health professors are trying to cancel her speech: More than 400 public health professionals and “allies” wrote a statement calling for the cancellation of […]
Read More
In their zeal to create “safe” campus environments, universities have coddled, nurtured, and shielded from any criticism students from approved victim groups. So-called hate speech—which now includes any expression that contradicts the prevailing progressive orthodoxy on campuses—is said to be harmful, even violent, by those forced to listen to others’ ideas. Not content with simply […]
Read More
For years progressives have been trying to close an imaginary loophole regarding the 90-10 rule and the GI Bill. Colleges are subject to the 90-10 rule, which requires that no more than 90% of their revenue can come from federal financial aid. Meanwhile, Congress has consistently passed GI Bills, which provide funding for servicemembers and […]
Read More
Regular Americans are growing more and more aware that our universities are broken. Tuition costs are out of control. Lowered admission standards have collapsed academic standards. Too many degrees and credentials are awarded, diluting their value in the eyes of employers and the public at large. And all of this is to say nothing of […]
Read More
As I have mentioned in a couple of books and numerous media epistles, late in life the great economist Milton Friedman told me he wasn’t sure whether universities should be subsidized or taxed by governments. This was a change in position: In his Capitalism and Freedom (1962), in which he generally argued for a very […]
Read More
What is the state of academic history? Take a look at the latest issue of the American Historical Review, the flagship journal of the academic discipline. It doesn’t publish bread-and-butter research articles; those go to specialist journals and fill published essay collections. Instead, its articles illustrate entire schools of historiography, using research as an entrée […]
Read More