Why Can’t This Public University Stay Out of Court?
Located just north of Atlanta, Kennesaw State University is a school enrolling some 35,000 students. Arguably, the most noteworthy thing about it is the fact that its officials keep making decisions...
View ArticleWhat Can We Do About Degree Inflation?
In his recent book The Case Against Education, Professor Bryan Caplan argues that most Americans derive little benefit from their years of schooling in terms of skill and knowledge. What they get...
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Princeton Prof Thinks Free Speech Is in Serious Trouble
After months of clashes with angry students, the university decided that the young professor it hired had to go. From the day of his first class on campus, protesters had disrupted his lectures. Police...
View ArticleCan Public Universities Practice Ideological Discrimination?
If a university were to state that it will not hire people applying for a faculty position because of their race, sex, or religion, that would be clearly illegal. No school would dare to disregard...
View ArticleThe New Head of the Office for Civil Rights Charts a Very Different Course
Last month, the Senate voted to confirm Kenneth L. Marcus as assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education. The vote was 50-46, with not one Democrat supporting him—a point I will...
View ArticleA Professor’s Tough Examination—Of Our Higher Education System
There are lots of people in our higher education system who claim that it is “the envy of the world” and just needs more money to graduate more young Americans with the degrees that are supposedly in...
View ArticleThe McAdams Case Ends in Victory for Contractual Rights and Academic Freedom
At last, McAdams v. Marquette University is over, and the outcome is heartening for Americans who cherish free speech and adherence to contracts. Conversely, it has those who believe that speech that...
View ArticleHow Does a University Advance an ‘Athlete-friendly’ Curriculum?
Remember the huge University of North Carolina athletics scandal, whereby the university’s athletics department managed to arrange for star football and basketball players to get preferential treatment...
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Universities and the ‘Coddling’ of the American Mind
In 2015, Greg Lukianoff (president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) and Jonathan Haidt (professor of ethical leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business) wrote an...
View ArticleSocial Justice Teaching Has Invaded Business Schools
Many professors cannot resist the temptation to smuggle their personal beliefs into the courses they teach. As long as those beliefs are “progressive,” there is little chance that higher-ups in their...
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Exposing the Harms of the ‘Diversity Delusion’
On November 7, 2006, Michigan voters passed Proposition 2, a measure that banned the use of racial preferences throughout state government and state universities. The next day, University of Michigan...
View ArticleHigher Education and the Threat of Fascism
In a recent essay published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley is haunted by a spectre—the spectre of American universities aiding the rise of fascism. (The...
View ArticleWhat Do College ‘Chief Diversity Officers’ Accomplish?
Over the last few decades, the number of college administrators has grown far more than the numbers of students and faculty. Amid this administrative bloat, the greatest growth has been in “diversity”...
View ArticleThe Democrats Retake the House; Now What for Higher Ed?
Back in the summer, it seemed that the Republican/conservative vision for higher education reform was building momentum. A House GOP bill called the PROSPER Act was on the verge of moving toward...
View ArticleWhy Shouldn’t College Students Have the Equivalent of Miranda Rights?
Colleges and universities need rules defining unacceptable behavior and how students accused of infractions of those rules will be treated. Because determinations of guilt can have serious,...
View ArticleThe Professor Who Was Harassed for Pointing Out the Truth
That famous line from the movie A Few Good Men—“You can’t handle the truth!”—applies more and more to the world of higher education. If you doubt that, consider the case of professor Samuel Abrams of...
View ArticleHow Nike Transformed the University of Oregon
While money is not the root of all evil, it is undeniably responsible for the transformation of the University of Oregon (UO). It changed from a typical state flagship where athletics were a nice...
View ArticleTitle IX Administers Another Flogging to Campus Free Speech
When Congress wrote the 1972 amendments to the Education Act, it meant to prevent colleges and universities that received federal money from discriminating against students based on sex. Title IX...
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Former University President Nails Many of Higher Education’s Ills
Often, the strongest criticisms of higher education come from insiders. One insider is Daniel Johnson, who retired as president of the University of Toledo in 2006 after an academic career that...
View ArticleHow Bad Is For-Profit Higher Education, Actually?
For about fifteen years, from 1995 to 2010, enrollments grew rapidly in the for-profit higher education sector, but since then have fallen substantially. The reason for the decline is mainly the overt...
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