Attaching Strings to “Free” College Education Makes No Sense
Recently, several states have adopted policies that ostensibly make college education free to their residents, but with strings attached to this benefit. The most famous program is undoubtedly New...
View ArticleWhy the Woman Appointed to a Top Education Department Post Is Under Fire
During Barack Obama’s administration, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights was staffed with “progressives” who were intent on pushing federal policy in ways that advanced their visions of...
View ArticleCourt Ruling in the McAdams Case: A Body Blow to Free Speech and Tenure
The Martin Center has been covering the Kafkaesque case of Marquette University professor John McAdams since it first broke several years ago. Professor Howard Kainz first wrote about it in “Firing...
View ArticleCan the Feds Do Something to Protect Campus Free Speech? Should They?
That free speech on college campuses is under attack cannot be denied. We find invited speakers being disinvited or shouted down, “bias incident” reporting systems that encourage students to complain...
View ArticleDuke Assails Free Speech So It Can “Protect and Value Diverse Perspectives”
American college campuses are becoming more and more like the old communist states where people enjoyed freedom of speech—but only so long as they didn’t question some aspect of the official orthodoxy....
View ArticleMeet the Professor Who Has Been Punished for Denouncing Tenure
For most professors, the quest for tenure is an all-consuming obsession. It confers security against job loss and cements your position at the college or university. With tenure, you’ve “made it” in...
View ArticleProfessors Should Write Books That Seek Truth, Not Inflame Passions
The academic enterprise is supposed to be about truth. Those who are entrusted to teach are expected to convey knowledge to their students, not their opinions. And when academics write books, they...
View ArticleStudent Free Speech Suffers a Defeat
Since launching its Stand Up for Free Speech project in 2014, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has had a great deal of success in defeating college officials when they interfere...
View ArticleNo, Professor, Words Are Not Violence
The excuse we have often heard for raucous campus protests over the last few years is that they are justified as a way of countering the “violence” of speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos and Charles...
View ArticleWhat’s the Alternative to a Mountain of College Debt?
Meet Sarah, a very bright student in her junior year in high school. She excels in math and science and thinks that an engineering career of some kind would be her cup of tea. She wants to go to a...
View ArticleSecretary DeVos Begins to Rectify the Title IX Mistake
It is very rare for a federal agency to admit having made a mistake and rarer still for the secretary of a cabinet department to announce a U-turn in policy in a heavily publicized speech. But that is...
View ArticleThe Chinese Don’t Like Academic Freedom, So American Schools Should Avoid...
Academic freedom has long been a guiding principle for American colleges and universities: Neither faculty nor students should be told what to say or punished for saying whatever they think. That...
View ArticleThe Campus Free Speech Problem Worsens and Washington Finally Acts
The turnabout in federal policy towards higher education has been dramatic. Back on September 7, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that her department was rescinding the 2011 “Dear...
View ArticleWhy Is It Such a Struggle to Reform Our Colleges?
Former Harvard University president Derek Bok can’t stop thinking and writing about higher education. Ten years ago, he wrote Our Underachieving Colleges, in which he lamented that on the whole,...
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Liberal Arts Education Is Not (Necessarily) a Waste of Time
Harvard history professor Jill LePore tells this story. She was hosting an event in her home for new students, promoting the university’s history and literature program. One of the students there was...
View ArticleThe Good and the Bad for Higher Ed in the Republican Tax Proposal
On November 2, House Republican leaders unveiled their tax reform plan. A number of its provisions affect higher education. While this is only a proposal, it’s worth looking into those provisions....
View ArticleIf There’s a College Affordability Crisis, What Should We Do About It?
In last year’s campaign for the presidency, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tried to attract votes with promises of free college. In the British elections earlier this year, one reason for the...
View ArticleThe One Instance Where the Feds Should Spend More on Higher Education
The federal government has no constitutional authority to spend money on higher education, to give or lend students money for it, to direct how colleges will function, or anything else. By far the best...
View ArticleWhen a Black Student Dares to Speak Up for Free Speech
Zachary Wood is a remarkable young man. He’s black, attends a predominantly liberal elite college (Williams) and believes that robust and civil arguments are vital to America’s continuing success. He...
View ArticleThe ‘Right’ to Disrupt Free Speech on Campus Doesn’t Exist
When students (and others) disrupt events where speakers are trying to make arguments they dislike, they say that their conduct is justified. Most commonly, the disrupters maintain that they are merely...
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