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Catherine E.F. Previn
Harvard Crimson
Excerpt: Harvard students have gotten too comfortable.
Last week, Harvard released its report on grade inflation. Among several concerning metrics was the statistic that 60.2 percent of all grades in all courses are now solid A’s. Administrators have pledged to confront this trend, and the report offers several explanations.
But one line stood out to me above all: The College noted that one faculty member described the shift as instructors offering “emotional support” instead of “critical feedback.” This sentiment captures the cultural zeitgeist driving academic complacency: Harvard’s post-pandemic culture of well-intentioned leniency.
Douglas Belkin
Wall Street Journal
Excerpt: President Trump has made an example of Ivy League universities, attacking, cajoling and fining them in brisk succession. There’s a notable exception: Yale University. In New Haven, Conn., the school’s conspicuous absence from the crosshairs has become a subject of intense campus speculation—among professors, students and even parents.
During a talk with moms and dads, university President Maurie McInnis was asked why Yale had been spared. She said there was no obvious answer, according to the Yale Daily News.
Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: House Republicans have accused George Mason University president Gregory Washington of lying to Congress about diversity practices at his institution, ratcheting up pressure on the president to step down.
Washington has denied breaking the law through efforts to diversify GMU’s faculty and staff, telling Congress that the university did not practice illegal discrimination under his leadership.
Nick Gillespie
Reason Magazine
Excerpt: Nick Gillespie speaks with Dr. Wolf von Laer of Students for Liberty, and Sean Themea of Young Americans for Liberty about how campus activism may change after the murder of Charlie Kirk. They discuss how the tragedy has affected their organizations, what it means for the future of student organizing, and how libertarian ideas about free expression and individual rights fit in today's campus climates.
Jeff Yass
The Free Press
Excerpt: I am giving $100 million to the University of Austin because the feedback mechanisms of higher education are broken.
Almost every system that works, works because of feedback. Evolution works because helpful mutations survive while harmful ones die off. Democracy works because voters support effective leaders and remove ineffective ones. Markets work because prices tell producers when to ramp up or scale back. Science works because the data from an experiment tells the scientist how likely their hypothesis is to be false.
Graham Piro
FIRE
Excerpt: FIRE has previously argued for colleges and universities to adopt institutional neutrality, both as a boon for the campus climate and as an insurance policy for the university. By declaring itself neutral on major political and social issues, a university ensures that it does not chill potential dissenters on campus by constantly taking official positions on unresolved topics.
But recently, two public universities demonstrated that they misunderstand what institutional neutrality entails. They used the principle to restrict student speech under the guise of protecting university neutrality.
