May 08, 2024
1 min read
Sammy Feldblum
Chronicle of Higher Education
Excerpt: The American Association of University Professors has denounced the militarized response to student dissent: “At this critical moment,” the organization writes, “too many cowardly university leaders are responding to largely peaceful, outdoor protests by inviting law enforcement in riot gear to campus and condoning violent arrests. These administrators are failing in their duty to their institutions, their faculty, their students, and their central obligation to our democratic society.”
In an interview for The Review, I spoke with Irene Mulvey, president of the AAUP. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Read More May 07, 2024
1 min read
Paul Alivisatos
Was Street Journal
Excerpt: As president of the University of Chicago, I ended the encampment that occupied the University’s Main Quad for more than a week. The Tuesday morning action resulted in no arrests. Recent months have seen tremendous contention over protests on campuses, including pressure campaigns from every direction. That made this a decision of enormous import for the university.
Read More May 02, 2024
1 min read
PFS found this video on May 2; it was filmed on April 23
Video filmed at London’s Conway Hall
Niall Ferguson
Excerpt: I know these words sound nice and nobody wants to be against them, but I have to tell you that in George Orwell’s 1984, words mean the opposite of what they appear to mean.
What diversity, equity, inclusion turned out to mean at Harvard was uniformity of thought, no equity, no due process for anybody who fell foul of the inquisition, and exclusion of conservatives and indeed anybody who is deemed to be too far to the right, including classical liberals.”
Read More May 02, 2024
1 min read
Abigail Shrier
The Free Press
Excerpt: A police officer who pulls over speeding black motorists—and only black motorists—isn’t protecting “law and order.” He’s engaging in invidious discrimination. So too the university administrators who suddenly discover they are free speech absolutists only when student protesters call for the death of their Jewish classmates.
Read More May 01, 2024
1 min read
Michael Brendan Dougherty
National Review
Excerpt: Conservatives have sought to prevent the encampments from spreading by drawing strong distinctions between free-speech protections for the students and standards of manners, anti-harassment regulations, and the like. This may be what is legally required of state universities like the University of Florida, where Ben Sasse made those distinctions as clear as possible.
But it’s entirely inadequate for the role that Columbia and the other Ivy League colleges want to play in our republic. The standard is not just free speech, or more speech to counter bad speech, but truthful speech.
Read More May 01, 2024
1 min read
Ted Balaker
The Coddling of the American Mind Movie, Substack
Excerpt: Most of our “DVD extras” are paywalled, but we’re making this one available to everyone. In it, Jonathan Haidt touches on the role universities, specifically administrators, play in encouraging students to think in binary terms, to see the world as battle between good and evil.
Jon references the work of Samuel Abrams, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College. Abrams conducted a national survey of college administrators who work directly with students. He found that “liberal staff members outnumber their conservative counterparts by the astonishing ratio of 12-to-one.” That makes administrators the most left-lopsided group on campus
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