By Duke Cheston Originally Posted from the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy About a year and a half ago, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro attempted to hire a new chief diversity officer. The university sought an administrator who would focus on increasing appreciation for racial differences on campus–even though UNCG already had […]
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For a half century I’ve vehemently opposed racial preferences in higher education. Opposition was partially ideological–I believe in merit–and partly based on sorrowful firsthand experience with affirmative action students and faculty. Though my principles remain unchanged I am now ready to concede defeat, throw in the towel and raise the white flag. Abolishing racial preferences […]
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A few weeks ago, controversy erupted after a diversity report prepared by two CUNY committees identified a “White/Jewish” category among the university’s faculty. (There was and is absolutely no reason to believe that this new designation reflected the thinking of either Chancellor Matthew Goldstein or the Board of Trustees, nor was there any reason to […]
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By any ordinary standard, Teresa Sullivan is the kind of university president conservatives love to hate. In 2010, after the Board of Visitors unanimously elected her the first female president of the University of Virginia, one of her first acts was to endorse and publish the UVA Diversity Council’s statement expressing commitment in–what else?–diversity. Sullivan […]
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Stuart Taylor and Richard Sander have filed a fascinating amicus brief in the Fisher case, hoping to bring some of the relevant social science research to the attention of the Court, and (they fervently hope)–to break through the closed-minded atmosphere through which most colleges consider “diversity” issues. Taylor’s and Sander’s arguments doubtless won’t persuade racial […]
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In a secret ballot, faculty delivered a decisive “no” to the prospect of a diversity requirement at UCLA. For readers who want to know more, pre-voting pro and con arguments are here and a sample of the proposed courses is here.
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Anyone who doubts that affirmative action stigmatizes those who receive it should read — in fact, be required to read — “Not Just a Diversity Number” at Inside Higher Ed. The author is identified only as “an assistant professor at a liberal arts college,” and the fact that Prof. Anonymous is afraid to sign his […]
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Peter Wood’s latest blog at the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Leftist Nostalgia for Academic Standards,” is a must read. Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, weaves a fascinating commentary about two unexpected cracks in the current (and ruinous) regime of higher education: one a lament about the impact of literary theory by one […]
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Listen closely and you can hear the sound of “diversity” crumbling, this week mixed with laughter over the news that the City University of New York has created two more official diversity groups–“white/Jewish” and “Italian-Americans.” Critics of the new Jewish category claim that “the creation of a label for Jewish professors could be used to […]
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It’s “diversity” in higher education gone mad: An embarrassed City University of New York system (CUNY) yesterday hastily denied a report that it had set up a separate “minority” designation for its Jewish faculty. As CUNY professors joked about “yellow stars” for their Jewish colleagues and Jewish Press columnist Yori Yanover wrote that CUNY’s chancellor, […]
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Those of us who were disappointed when a divided Supreme Court upheld the distribution of burdens and benefits based on race in Grutter are hopeful that decision might be overturned — or that at least its most deleterious effects might be reined in — when the Court revisits affirmative action next fall in Fisher v. […]
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The Boston Globe has a long article revealing in excruciating detail the extent of Harvard’s publicizing of Elizabeth Warren’s self-identified Cherokeness, as well as her lame claim that she was oblivious to the use and usefulness of her alleged ethnicity to her employer. The article reveals one delicious new item, namely that “[t]he administrator responsible […]
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The recent flap over Elizabeth Warren’s claimed Cherokeeness has both raised and obscured a question at the core of debates over affirmative action: just who should receive the preferential treatment it bestows? The standard answer to that question preferred by those who support the current regime of racial preference is “underrepresented minority,” or URM, a […]
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Philip W. Semas, president and editor in chief of the Chronicle of Higher Education, is irritated at the Wall Street Journal. On May 9, the Journal ran an editorial castigating the Chronicle for “craven-ness” in firing conservative blogger (and former Wall Street Journal editor) Naomi Schaefer Riley. She had argued in the Chronicle that college […]
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Posted by Mark Bauerlein and Richard Vedder The removal of Naomi Shaefer Riley from the blogging staff of the Chronicle of Higher Education has been widely circulated in the cybersphere and the press, including Riley’s own account in the Wall Street Journal and many of our own contributors at Minding the Campus. All of them […]
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The mainstream media seem to be studiously ignoring Naomi Schaefer Riley’s summary banishment on May 7 as a blogger for the Chronicle of Higher Education. She had written a post severely criticizing black studies programs at universities and suggesting that they be eliminated. But some media people who cover the media online, though they are […]
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The controversy over the Chronicle essay by Naomi Schaefer Riley provided an unusually rich insight into the mindset of defenders of the academic status quo. Over and over again, Riley’s critics advocated either a blatant double standard or transparently absurd positions. Take a few examples: On the double-standard front, in a twitter exchange with FIRE’s […]
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Mona Charen, The Corner This is a test of integrity. Naomi Schaefer Riley has been fired by the Chronicle of Higher Education for expressing views that some liberals find uncongenial. That’s it. Just uncongenial (she critiqued the doctoral theses of candidates in black studies). Not “offensive.” Not even that weasel word “insensitive” — far less […]
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Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, which used to be the pre-eminent publication covering higher education, the inmates are now running the institution. Editor Liz McMillen’s disgraceful capitulation to the mob demanding the head of Chronicle blogger Naomi Schaefer Riley for having the temerity to criticize the field of black studies ironically demonstrates the […]
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Taking note of a posting by Naomi Schaefer Riley, John Rosenberg took a hard look at what passes for cutting-edge scholarship in Black Studies–and wasn’t impressed with what he found. Rosenberg’s post became all the timelier when the Chronicle announced that it had removed Riley from the Brainstorm blog. In an editor’s note that could […]
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Here’s the answer to the Elizabeth Warren problem: DNA testing. If you believe you are just 1/32nd or 1/64th minority, a simple test–costing just $195–could garner you that elusive admission to an elite college that you may not be qualified for at all. Several commercial products are on the market including Ancestry by DNA and […]
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Now that the world of higher education’s twitter (or is that now tweeter?) over Elizabeth Warren’s keen sense of her own Cherokee-ness is dying down, the two leading monitors of academic fads have each recently found and amplified new interest in black studies. The Chronicle of Higher Education has recently published two pieces glorifying the […]
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http://www.examiner.com/article/elizabeth-warren-milked-racial-preferences-for-her-own-gain
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What is it with universities in California? Financially strapped, troubled by protesters making impossible demands, and worried about the declining value of their academic programs, many of the state’s great universities decide to…redouble their commitment to a fast-fading political ideology. The latest example is the impending vote by the faculty of UCLA’s College of Letters […]
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From what has been revealed so far, it appears that Elizabeth Warren, Harvard law professor and likely Democratic candidate against Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts, gave herself status as a Native American in the past, which led Harvard and a leading legal directory to identify her as such, but recently she has claimed that she […]
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Cross-posted from Open Market. Diversity training doesn’t work, according to an article in Psychology Today. In it, Peter Bregman notes, “Diversity training doesn’t extinguish prejudice. It promotes it.” But don’t expect it to stop. Government regulations often require that a school be accredited, a condition that accreditors like the American Bar Association use to force […]
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“Diversity,” as everyone surely knows by now, is the sole remaining justification for racial preference in higher education allowed by the Supreme Court. Defenders seem to regard it as even more essential to a good education than books in the library or professors behind the podium. But a funny thing has been happening on the […]
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As the most important higher-education case in a decade makes its way to the Supreme Court–the Fisher case on racial preferences–UCLA law professor Richard Sander had an excellent series of posts at the Volokh Conspiracy summarizing one critical argument that his research has helped to highlight: that even the ostensible beneficiaries often are harmed (or […]
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Inside Higher Ed reports this morning (April 9) about a new study of “holistic” admissions at selective institutions by Rachel Rubin, a doctoral student at the Harvard School of Education, that will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association later this week. Her study confirms, albeit reluctantly, what you already […]
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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (I am tempted to say even the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) has once again recognized that treating people without regard to race does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. In an opinion released April 2, a three-judge panel reaffirmed in no uncertain terms a 1997 Ninth Circuit decision holding […]
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