Phi Beta Cons on National Review Online

Phi Beta Cons on National Review Online http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com National Review Online’s Phi Beta Cons blog offers viewers the RIGHT take on higher education. This blog is written by conservative professors, students, and analysts who are dedicated to rebalancing the political scales both in the classroom and on the campus. en-us © National Review Online 2009. All Rights Reserved webmaster@nationalreview.com (NRO Webmaster) Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:40:06 -0500 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:40:06 -0500 NRO RSS Generator v1.0 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 5 http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/nro_rsslogo.jpg Phi Beta Cons on National Review Online http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com 144 80 National Review Online Fiscal Responsibility vs. Equal Opportunity -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjA2ZDdmM2NhZjYzNDEyNTZmZTg1NjUwYjg2NWVhZDA= The NYT has <a href="http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/haves-vs-have-nots-at-public-universities/#richard">a symposium on the topic</a> featuring Richard Vedder. I especially like Alfonso Trujillo's response: <blockquote> Subsidizing top-tier universities in the hope of getting more underprivileged students to attend is tantamount to subsidizing top-tier department stores in the hope that some underprivileged consumers will be clothed. In the end, both results are predictable: higher prices, higher status for those who purchase the product, and an inefficient method of helping the poor. If those who protest the University of California fee hikes are sincere in their concern for the education prospects of the poor, then why don’t they instead back a program that truly does help the poor: means-tested vouchers? </blockquote> <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDhiN2FjY2UxNzVhYjNiZjhkMzllZTQxNjE4ZDM3YWY=">Subsidize the consumer</a>! (If you subsidize at all.) <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjA2ZDdmM2NhZjYzNDEyNTZmZTg1NjUwYjg2NWVhZDA= Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:16:54 -0400 Teaching Students How to Write -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWYxNzQ4NWRjODM4OWUyODMwZDMyMWU5Yjk4NWIzYjk= Many students go through their K-12 years without much solid, diligent instruction on writing. The old-fashioned teachers who went through cartons of red pens every year, making comments on student essays and paper have been replaced by younger teachers who for the most part are not very good at writing themselves and willingly take the path of least resistance: Just tell the kids that they're doing fine. Besides, all those fussy rules about grammar, punctuation, organization -- they just oppress kids and stifle their creativity! So say educational "progressives" anyway. Therefore, when students get into college, few write competently. That has given rise to efforts to improve the writing instruction they get in college. Writing Across the Curriculum is such an effort. Much ink has been devoted to it, but does it accomplish its objectives? My Pope Center colleague David Koon takes a critical look in a <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2262">piece</a> released today. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWYxNzQ4NWRjODM4OWUyODMwZDMyMWU5Yjk4NWIzYjk= Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:49:31 -0400 America's Terror-Soft 'Poisoned Lives' -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjA4ZjQ3ZjMyZDJmYWZiMzk2Y2I2YzI3MGMwNTE0NDI= AlfonZo (yes, that's how it's written) Rachel at PJTV <a href="http://www.pjtv.com/video/AlfonZo_Rachel_Presents%3A_ZoNation/Poisoned_Ivies%3A_American_Academia_Educates_and_Excuses_Terrorists/2714/">harangues</a> with gusto against academic al-Qaeda apologists who permit terrorists to receive a U.S. education and condone their evil deeds. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjA4ZjQ3ZjMyZDJmYWZiMzk2Y2I2YzI3MGMwNTE0NDI= Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:18:14 -0400 Thought Reform at the University of Minnesota? -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTU3ZDRmYzBmNTg3ZTEwYWZmZGJhZTE4NzZlOTE1Yzc= If you attend a public university or work for a public employer, and you ever hear the term "cultural competence," it's time to get your <a href="http://www.speakupmovement.org/Home/University">favorite constitutional lawyers</a> on speed dial. Thought reform is incoming. Faced with stubborn educational achievement gaps, it looks like the University of Minnesota's "Race, Culture, Class, and Gender Task Group" believes the answer lies in <a href="http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/70662162.html?page=1&c=y">forcing teachers to adopt </a>a radically Leftist view of society (hat tip: <a href="http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/70662162.html?page=1&c=y">Katherine Kersten</a>): <blockquote> The [Task Group's] report advocates making race, class and gender politics the "overarching framework" for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep. The first step toward "cultural competence," says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize -- and confess -- their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the reeducation camps of China's Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi. </blockquote> And how does one create cultural competence? The first step is to confess your own sins: <blockquote> The task group recommends, for example, that prospective teachers be required to prepare an "autoethnography" report. They must describe their own prejudices and stereotypes, question their "cultural" motives for wishing to become teachers, and take a "cultural intelligence" assessment designed to ferret out their latent racism, classism and other "isms." They "earn points" for "demonstrating the ability to be self-critical." The task group opens its report with a model for officially approved confessional statements: "As an Anglo teacher, I struggle to quiet voices from my own farm family, echoing as always from some unstated standard. ... How can we untangle our own deeply entrenched assumptions?" </blockquote> If this program (as conceived) weren't hideously unconstitutional, it would be breathtakingly silly (I suppose it can be both). For example, the ultimate goal <blockquote> is to ensure that "future teachers will be able to discuss their own histories and current thinking drawing on notions of white privilege, hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity, and internalized oppression." </blockquote> I suppose that achievement gaps aren't caused by broken families, violence, and community cultures that sometimes stigmatize academic success as much as they are by teachers trapped in their own "heteronormativity." No thought control would be complete without a bit of compelled speech: <blockquote> The task force recommends requiring "our future teachers" to "articulate a sophisticated and nuanced critical analysis" of this view of the American promise. In the process, they must incorporate the "myth of meritocracy in the United States," the "history of demands for assimilation to white, middle-class, Christian meanings and values, [and] history of white racism, with special focus on current colorblind ideology." </blockquote> And, finally, remediation for noncompliance: <blockquote> What if some aspiring teachers resist this effort at thought control and object to parroting back an ideological line as a condition of future employment? The task group has Orwellian plans for such rebels: The U, it says, must "develop clear steps and procedures for working with non-performing students, including a remediation plan." </blockquote> As university officials consider this proposal, I would urge them to respect the fundamental First Amendment rights of their students and consider the <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=319&invol=624">admonition of the Supreme Court</a> that if there is any "fixed star" in our "constitutional constellation," it is that "no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." Otherwise, you may want to beef up the "attorneys fees" line item in the school budget. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTU3ZDRmYzBmNTg3ZTEwYWZmZGJhZTE4NzZlOTE1Yzc= Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:46:43 -0400 Have British Scientists Been Fooling with Mother Nature? -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmM5M2UwYTRhNmFmNGI3MDY5YjQ4MGVjMTNjNTNjODI= It remains to be verified that leading U.K. scientists indeed have deceptively massaged data, unearthed by a hacker, to "hide" a temperature decline in order to support their anthropogenic theory of global warming. Such manipulation would amount to fraud and a grand conspiracy, and Brent Tantillo at Democracy Project is mad as blazes about it. He <a href="http://democracy-project.com/?p=3780">waxes</a> both political and theological on this potentially huge academic scandal: <blockquote> I would say these fellas have some answering to do, especially considering a former Vice President basically used this graph to obtain a Nobel Prize, Congress is considering taxing the hell out of American business using a “cap and trade” system based on this data, and Americans are supposed to start living like serfs in the Medieval age for fear of what Global Warming is doing to our environment. . . . I am no rape and pillage the earth type of guy, but I am mad as hell that scientists are manipulating data for their “Deep Ecology” agenda which puts nature over man. Good environmentalism is about saving our planet for us, so that we can enjoy the bounty that the Creator provided. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmM5M2UwYTRhNmFmNGI3MDY5YjQ4MGVjMTNjNTNjODI= Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:15:55 -0400 The Huge Tuition Hike in California -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzkwY2ZlYWY5NWE0MmM1NDBmNTUzOGNjZDBhY2VmYmQ= Students are vigorously protesting the planned 32 percent hike in tuition at the University of California, but as Neal McCluskey observes <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/11/20/california-grubbing/">here</a>, that increase is from a very low (that is, heavily subsidized) rate. Why do California students think they're entitled to college education that is overwhelmingly paid for by others? Most probably aren't explicitly taught to believe that. Rather, this is another instance of the general phenomenon Frederic Bastiat identified -- the belief that government makes it possible for everyone to live at the expense of everyone else. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzkwY2ZlYWY5NWE0MmM1NDBmNTUzOGNjZDBhY2VmYmQ= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:55:08 -0400 Why I'll Never Be A University President -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjBhMmZkNTA4N2E1YTRhMDJkMmMyYzZlM2UzNzk4YzQ= George, thanks so much for <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGUxN2NlZjQ1NTVlODRlYWFkZDEwOWM1YjgxZTNmNmY=">posting</a> on the latest <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704204304574543812279796516.html">diversity tempest</a> at NYU. Reading the NYU president's simpering response to his "marginalized" Muslim students makes me wish that, for one day at least, I could be president of NYU. If I were, here's what I would say: <blockquote> Dear offended students, </blockquote> <blockquote> In response to your recent expressions of outrage, I have read Professor Tunku Varadarajan's <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/08/fort-hood-nidal-malik-hasan-muslims-opinions-columnists-tunku-varadarajan.html">recent column</a> in Forbes regarding the Fort Hood massacre. I have a few thoughts. First, let me state unequivocally that Professor Varadarajan is entitled to state his opinion on matters of public importance (and even on matters only of importance to him), and I appreciate his participation in the marketplace of ideas. Our nation and our university are better off when scholars feel free -- and are free -- to speak, write, and otherwise engage the public in times of national testing. Second, I am utterly indifferent to your expressions of "pain." If you believe that you have any right to participate in a robust and diverse democratic society without being challenged, shocked, or even horribly offended, then our educational process has utterly failed you. Democratic discourse can be offensive. It is better to learn this lesson now, when you are young, than to live your life in a state of misguided anger. Third, to the extent you feel "marginalized," I am amused. You are students at one of the most prestigious universities in the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world. While there are certainly "marginalized" populations in the world, you are not among them. In fact, you enjoy a level of privilege and access to wealth and power enjoyed by only the tiniest minority of your fellow Americans. Yet you claim to "feel marginalized." I suggest you need to broaden your perspective. Finally, I would hope that the "pain" that you feel over a column is nothing compared to the pain and sympathy you feel for the human lives lost at Fort Hood and elsewhere during the course of the murderous jihadist campaign of the last 30 years. The attack at Fort Hood was horrifying, but it pales in comparison to the attacks on September 11, and even these deaths are but drops in the ocean of blood spilled by your co-religionists in the name of the very religion you claim to be peaceful. Perhaps the most proper target of your outrage is not those who criticize murderers but the murderers themselves. </blockquote> But a university president could never write a letter like that. It's much too truthful. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjBhMmZkNTA4N2E1YTRhMDJkMmMyYzZlM2UzNzk4YzQ= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:24:24 -0400 Look at a College's Financials Too -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2RlOTM1NjdmMDExYTg5MTVkMmMzNGU3ZGQyNDBmN2I= Prof. Robert Blumenthal of Georgia State College and University (a public liberal arts school with a lovely campus; I spoke there in September) <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2261">writes</a> about a matter that is becoming increasingly important to parents and students who are considering private colleges -- the financial stability of the school. Unfortunately, few schools make it easy for outsiders to get a feeling for their financial conditions. Now that we seem to be entering into some lean years for higher education (less money available, and if people start to realize that just having a degree doesn't necessarily get you anywhere in the job market, fewer students enrolling), and that will mean an increasing number of colleges closing. Spending a year or more at a school that folds would be highly inconvenient for the student. Professor Blumenthal says caveat emptor and gives some practical advice on red flags to look for. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2RlOTM1NjdmMDExYTg5MTVkMmMzNGU3ZGQyNDBmN2I= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:53:46 -0400 Darwish Silenced at Princeton and Columbia -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWIxYmI3ODdiZjg3ZDM3YWI2NGUwYjI2NDg3MmU3YzI= Both campuses extended official invitations to speak to Nonie Darwish, founder of Arabs for Israel, and then canceled them. However, as Phyllis Chesler <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2009/11/19/princeton-columbia-cancel-free-speech-darwish-silenced/?print=1">points out</a>, the PC speech police at both universities put out the welcome mat to the Israel-hating president of Iran, Ahmadinejad; Holocaust-denier Norman Finkelstein; and anti-Zionist journalist Amira Hass. Yet another dark day for free speech on American campuses. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWIxYmI3ODdiZjg3ZDM3YWI2NGUwYjI2NDg3MmU3YzI= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:38:28 -0400 Diversity and the Naval Academy -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWY4ZGVkNjM1OThhODNiYmM1M2NhNjg3NjU3YTg0YjY= My post about the color guard incident is generating a lot of responses. Here is one. The writer's name is James B. Morris: <blockquote> Thanks for your observations at NRO about “diversity” at the Naval Academy. My 3rd son is a plebe there. I noticed over the past seven years of looking at colleges (from my oldest down to now) that the most prominent message in each college brochure or marketing piece is the gushing endorsement of “diversity.” My oldest was Harvard and Princeton level of achievement, and by the time we had visited those schools, along with Cornell, Washington in St Louis, et al, the ubiquitous message of diversity was making me cringe. So through my second and now third boy, I am consistently disgusted by this focus. Each one of the aforementioned catalogues and brochures rarely mentions their focus on teaching students to be robust and critical thinkers or dynamic leaders. Aside from famous alumni, they spend much of the copy space gushing over each institution’s diversity. So when my third applied to the Naval Academy, I thought I would find a different perspective. But sure enough, ALL their marketing materials share the same exuberance for diversity. Each recruiting talk we sat through reiterated their diversity goals, and even on Induction Day (July 1st) the Superintendent of the Academy used the word in his welcoming speech. In higher education and in the educated elites, it appears that E Pluribus Unum is rapidly fading into history. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWY4ZGVkNjM1OThhODNiYmM1M2NhNjg3NjU3YTg0YjY= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:20:33 -0400 The Diversity Mania at the Naval Academy -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTFjMThiNmFjMTFhOTI1YWIwOTFkOTJhYzM0M2Y4ZTA= How bad is the diversity mania in our military? Evidence mounts that it's pretty bad, including a little-noticed occurrence regarding the Naval Academy's color guard at the October 29 World Series game. Two members of the color guard were replaced because the school's administration was worried that the guard was not sufficiently "diverse." Diana West writes about it <a href="http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1116/Diversity-Uber-Alles.aspx">here</a>. Larry Purdy, whose excellent book <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0982089902">Getting Under the Skin of "Diversity"</a> I reviewed <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/clarion_call/article.html?id=2128">here</a>, is a 1968 graduate of the Naval Academy. He has some thoughts to share about his alma mater's decision to bow down to the gods of diversity: <blockquote> As with so much else that has happened in recent days, Ms. West’s piece suggests that an obsessive interest in “so-called” diversity has now taken over at one of our nation’s premier military academies. I say “so-called” because it appears the Academy is promoting a form of diversity that is at odds with the environment the Navy actually claims to be fostering, i.e., one “that respects the individual’s worth based on his or her performance regardless of race, gender or creed.” The words quoted, above, are important. In fact, they are lifted verbatim from the current Chief of Naval Operation’s own Diversity Policy. I presume, of course, that Admiral Gary Roughead meant what he wrote. And if he did, it follows that the skin colors, genders and ethnicities of the midshipmen whom the Academy is training (and, thus, the skin colors and genders of the color guard who represented the Academy at the recent World Series game) are (or should have been) entirely irrelevant. The CNO’s policy goes on to state that the Navy “will support a culture of professional and personal development ensuring our people are trained and educated to accomplish our mission, with opportunities available to all in an equal manner.” And ends with this: “We will sustain our force through the fair, equal, and ethical treatment of every member of the United States Navy.” To that I say, “Amen.” The only colors that should matter to the Naval Academy’s senior leadership are Navy Blue and Gold and Marine Corps Green. And while it should not need saying, I am convinced that when every member of our armed services knows he or she will be treated fairly and equitably without regard to race or ethnicity, they will come in abundance from every American community to defend, in the end, the only colors that truly matter: Red, White & Blue. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTFjMThiNmFjMTFhOTI1YWIwOTFkOTJhYzM0M2Y4ZTA= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:17:29 -0400 The Greedy Hand Reaches for More -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTFlZDc2MzgzOTJiYjI3OWViNWZjNmVkM2ZlMmFlYTk= Several years ago, Amity Schlaes wrote a book on taxation entitled "<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0156011522">The Greedy Hand</a>," and a <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/19/pittsburgh">piece</a> on IHE today puts me in mind of it. The story reveals that the mayor of Pittsburgh is proposing to tax tuition collected by the ten nonprofit colleges and universities in the city. This is ostensibly a tax on the educational institutions, but does anyone doubt that it's going to lead to higher tuitions in the future for the students? You can't really tax a business, even if it's non-profit. The tax must ultimately fall on people, and I suspect that the students will bear most of it. While the mayor is at it, how about a tax on music lessons? <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTFlZDc2MzgzOTJiYjI3OWViNWZjNmVkM2ZlMmFlYTk= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:28:09 -0400 WIcked Hangs the Fruit of Historical Revisionism -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWE5Nzk0OWNkYjJmYzQyZDk3YzQwY2VlOTE5YzkwMzE= In no-holds-barred truth-telling mode, legal expert John Howard <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.4800/pub_detail.asp">demonstrates</a> that bringing the 9/11 terrorists to the U.S. for a civil trial is an irresponsible, dangerous, cynical, and wicked act. He shows how this decision is the "the culmination of the malign leftist Alinksy project" that is deeply rooted in "a vast academic project of historical revisionism." This is must-read, especially for our legally savvy coterie. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWE5Nzk0OWNkYjJmYzQyZDk3YzQwY2VlOTE5YzkwMzE= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:01:51 -0400 Dissent -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTFmMDE0YjllY2MwMGY2ODNlOTM0OTA0MWU1MTI3YjM= E-mail: <blockquote> Hello Mr. Miller: I strongly disagree with the gentleman who wrote you and you posted @ NRO Corner that quote: "I would point to another factor: professional historians are already familiar with the narrative that popular histories tell, at least in their given area of expertise" That is simply not true. I too am a graduate student working on a dissertion on a historical tpic. I may have a beter perspective that the other gentleman since there has been twenty years since I obtained a master's degree and my current work on the Ph.D. The academy then and now are a world apart. You are correct that modern academia is not interested in popular works, and that is because they are largely driven by ideology. They do not know the American narrative. My committee does not even know the literature of their own field beyond the last ten years, and they are not interested in learning, except as far as to critique and deconstruct previous research in a facile way. In my area of military history, they have no clue as to the popularity of such studies now being written by non academic historians or academic historians at small liberal arts colleges who are there to teach and not become deans. Meanwhile, academic presses make their money on such popularly written works to a large audience, while the academic's books sell only to libraries. The reason I am so passionate by this is that I have had to practically sell my intellectual soul to get my dissertation through a narrow-minded, post modern, arrogant group of people as you will ever see. I can't change the committe because the whole department is in lock step. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTFmMDE0YjllY2MwMGY2ODNlOTM0OTA0MWU1MTI3YjM= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:15:31 -0400 What's Wrong With Education Schools? You Want a List? -- By: Fred Schwarz webmaster@nationalreview.com (Fred Schwarz) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzI4OTc4OWFiNWQ1ODZkZGUwYTM0YWJkNDE2NmY1OTg= In yesterday’s New York Post, <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/finally_getting_real_on_training_S5waWG9CaFN4syhK8IcnRK">Thomas W. Carroll reports</a> on the testimony New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner gave earlier this week before the state Board of Regents. Steiner, the former dean of education at Hunter College (and son of the cultural critic George Steiner), “says education schools should focus far more on clinical practice in the classroom -- and professors at these colleges should be focused far less on getting published in what the Oxford-educated Steiner termed ‘obscure journals.’” He also suggests data-based accreditation for ed schools, alternative paths to certification, exams to make sure teachers know their subjects, and merit and incentive pay. Steiner has been studying and <a href="http://gothamschools.org/2009/07/27/david-steiner-crib-sheet-new-schools-czar-to-focus-on-teaching/">criticizing education schools</a> for years, and has <a href="http://www.eduwonk.com/2004/05/eduwonk-blows-the-whistle-on-a-whispering-campaign.html">come under fire</a> for it. At last, some people in the education establishment seem to be listening to him. That’s a good start, but many tough battles lie ahead with New York’s famously powerful teachers’ unions and hidebound <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjIwNmI4ODEzMjA3MGMwZjdkNjJmYWY4YWZhMWNhZDM=">state bureaucracy</a>. Steiner can console himself with the lyrics from Kander and Ebb’s song, which definitely apply to education reform: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” P.S. <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/schools_eye_net_results_QejkX2lQVNKrmsH7o8VgQN">Also in yesterday's paper</a>: <blockquote> The state Board of Regents yesterday approved the development of a "virtual high school initiative" that will allow students to earn credits online. The move comes as state officials are rethinking the requirement that students attend a course for a certain amount of hours -- known as "seat time" -- to earn credits, instead of having them gain credits by demonstrating mastery of a subject. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzI4OTc4OWFiNWQ1ODZkZGUwYTM0YWJkNDE2NmY1OTg= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:00:01 -0400 Another Black Eye for 'Diversity' -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGUxN2NlZjQ1NTVlODRlYWFkZDEwOWM1YjgxZTNmNmY= Right on the heels of the pummeling Roger Clegg (and others) dished out for Prof. James Sterba's thoughts about the supposed benefits of continuing "affirmative action" policies to ensure "diversity" in college student bodies, James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal writes about <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704204304574543812279796516.html">The 'Diversity' Sham</a>. (It's the top piece in yesterday's WSJ "Best of the Web.") Taranto specifically covers a flap at NYU that was brought on when Tunku Varadarajan, columnist now also teaching at NYU's Stern School of Business, wrote that the killings at Fort Hood were a religiously motivated act of messianic violence. Of course, all hell broke loose over that. Muslim students complained that Varadarajan's statement was "hate-mongering." The NYU administration fell into line, attacking Varadarajan. Taranto's summation is right on target: "This is how 'diversity' works in practice: Intellectual contention is drowned out in a sea of emotion, much of it phony. Members of designated victim groups respond to a serious argument with 'pain' and 'shock' and accusations of 'hate,' and university administrators make a show of pretending to care." But we must remember that "diversity" produces great "educational benefits" for colleges and universities. The Supreme Court fell for that risible assertion in Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, leading Taranto to conclude, "Every incident of this sort makes it clearer how the University of Michigan played Justice O'Connor and her colleagues for fools." Precisely so. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGUxN2NlZjQ1NTVlODRlYWFkZDEwOWM1YjgxZTNmNmY= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:28:04 -0400 Research vs. Teaching -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGM3Mzg3MzA2Nzk2ZTA0NjNjODMzMmRkZmM2MzY2ODA= On The Corner this morning, I <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmU0OWY1OGQyMGI3YjdhYTUzNmQ4NTQyODRjMzJiOTQ=">commented</a> on the battle of teaching vs. scholarship. It drew this reply: <blockquote> The distracting effects of research are almost totally irrelevant to the quality of undergraduate teaching. Ill-paid and overworked adjuncts, with or without the doctorate, and professors who teach four classes a semester and have no time for teaching, are the vast majority of teachers; those professors who have time for research are a dwindling few at unrepresentative elite colleges. Is the emphasis on research excessive? - perhaps, although that's a different argument. But it just doesn't matter a hill of beans. Also consider that the majority of college students are semi-literates who should not be in college anyway, or even high school, and that teaching would be much easier if we could chop down the number of students by the necessary 50-75%. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGM3Mzg3MzA2Nzk2ZTA0NjNjODMzMmRkZmM2MzY2ODA= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:49:37 -0400 Erin Go Blah -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2VkZDk2MzYwMmFmZDMzZTYxMmVlMGU5OWY1YTk1NDE= <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWExNWM4NjBmN2NiZmQ2ZmIyZjUxYTk4MzU2MDRiMmI=">Irish universities go on strike</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2VkZDk2MzYwMmFmZDMzZTYxMmVlMGU5OWY1YTk1NDE= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:00:31 -0400 Re: An Academic Defense -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2ZiMDdmOWY5MGFjYzY0M2IzMTUxOTJiMTY1MGJmMzc= Well said, Roger. It's interesting to read the comments that follow Roger's. Sterba's defense of racial preferences takes a beating, and several of the beaters identify themselves as liberals. Evidently there are a number of liberals who see "affirmative action" as just a useless and divisive policy we'd be better off without. That's reason for optimism. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2ZiMDdmOWY5MGFjYzY0M2IzMTUxOTJiMTY1MGJmMzc= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:30:44 -0400 Time's Ten Best -- By: Jane S. Shaw webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jane S. Shaw) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmZhYzcwZjQxYjJiNmVjYjhlMzg5ODg3YWY0Y2NhNmM= If you’ve looked at Time’s “<a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1937938_1937934,00.html">Ten Best College Presidents</a>,” you probably rolled your eyes (or gnashed your teeth). I’m not criticizing the presidents themselves at this point, just the journalists at Time for their profound ignorance about the state of our universities and their fawning treatment of its most prominent presidents. Just for starters, let me quote from Time's profile of the top president, Gordon Gee of Ohio State, the highest-paid president of any public university. Time calls Gee a “thoroughbred politician” who is “campaigning for a revolution in higher education at a time when the field is more important, and perhaps more troubled, than ever before.” It doesn't say what the revolution is (even Gee hasn't made that clear). Time then pontificates about how nothing else is quite as important as higher ed these days: <blockquote> Forget the ivory tower: colleges and universities are catalysts of economic development, stewards of public health, incubators of social policy and laboratories of discovery. . . . Classrooms and labs are today what mines and factories were a century ago: America's regional economic powerhouses, one of the few certain engines of growth in good and bad economic times. As a result of these challenges and opportunities, college presidents are on the line as never before. </blockquote> Someone should have checked with Rich Vedder, whose <a href="http://www.centerforcollegeaffordability.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=45600">studies of states</a> tend to show that high public investment in universities correlates with mediocre economic growth or comparatively low numbers of college graduates. There is much more silliness. Have a look. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmZhYzcwZjQxYjJiNmVjYjhlMzg5ODg3YWY0Y2NhNmM= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:13:33 -0400 Truly Remarkable Academic Insights on Sarah Palin -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWQ4MzM5YTY2YmJkNzhmZTM1N2I0NGYzOWQ2YzdmZTE= It has often been said that today's rank-and-file conservative is "anti-elite." I've always been uncomfortable with that characterization because -- in my experience -- conservatives are quite respectful of certain kinds of elites, like elite soldiers, elite athletes, and talented musicians and other artists (provided those artists don't believe that their abilities also provide them with unique insight into, say, health-care policy or war strategy). The elite that conservatives tend to disdain is the contemporary intellectual (or academic) elite, not because intellectual excellence isn't obtainable or worth respecting but because we look at what what passes for academic thinking these days and, frankly, it's remarkably unimpressive. Nowhere is this high-minded mediocrity on better display than in the near-universal disdain for Sarah Palin. And today's Inside Higher Ed provides a tremendous gift, a near-perfect example of condescending nothingness masquerading as insight. Called "<a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee265">Palintology</a>," the column, by Scott McLemee, begins: <blockquote> Important as it was, the campaign of Barack Obama was not the only history-making element of the 2008 presidential election. With Sarah Palin, we crossed another epochal divide. The boundary between reality television and American politics (already somewhat weakened by the continuous "American Idol" plebiscite) finally collapsed. Her campaign's basic formula was familiar: members of an ordinary middle-class family turn into instantly recognizable national celebrities while competing for valuable prizes. </blockquote> This is good stuff. Let's begin with a shot at reality TV and then deliver the ultimate insult: that Sarah Palin is like one of "those people," you know, a member of the "middle class" desperate for fame. How her emphasis on her humble roots is any different from John Edwards's "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edwards">son of a millworker</a>" schtick, or Joe Biden's emphasis (<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2198543/">sometimes false</a>) on his blue-collar ancestry, or even our own <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punahou_School">prep school-</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama">Ivy League-educated</a> president's emphasis on the challenges of his upbringing is left unexplained. I guess intelligent people should just know that Sarah Palin's emphasis on her "every(woman)" identity was somehow worthy of contempt. But that's not all, of course. I love this part: <blockquote> I’m not sure what Sarah Palin’s favorite work of postmodern theory might be (all of them, probably) but she seems to take her lead from <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/baudrillard/" target="_blank">Jean Baudrillard</a>’s Seduction. Other political figures use the media as part of what JB calls “production.” That is, they generate signs and images meant to create an effect within politics. For the Baudrillardian “seducer,” by contrast, the power to create fascination is its own reward. </blockquote> What is Joe Biden's favorite work of postmodern theory? Nancy Pelosi's? (I'm pretty sure that Barack Obama has a favorite postmodern theorist because he seems to be that kind of guy.) And as for the power to create fascination being "its own reward": What evidence is there that Sarah Palin enjoys this more than, say, virtually any other public figure? Politicians are notoriously addicted to crowds and the limelight. But I suppose other politicians are mostly motivated by a desire to serve the public, generating "signs and images" for "political" ends -- but not Sarah Palin. She has to be more cynical, more self-regarding, right? <blockquote> Watching Palin respond to questions about her book Going Rogue (or not respond to them, often enough) is, from this perspective, no laughing matter. She grows ever more comfortable talking about herself. </blockquote> Forgive me, but I thought the book was an autobiography. <blockquote> Is this too cynical? I fear it may not be cynical enough. For it assumes that Palin will eventually be integrated into her party’s apparatus and turned into a mouthpiece of old-school Republican electoral politics -- a basic platform of tax cuts for the rich and unregulated handgun ownership for everybody else. </blockquote> Yep, that is the "basic" Republican platform. Tax cuts and guns. I thought we were all about "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTxXUufI3jA">guns and religion</a>." Tax cuts replaced religion? I'll have to update my talking points. Of course Republicans have nothing at all to say about foreign policy, health care, abortion, marriage, banking regulation, energy policy, or any other relevant topic -- it all goes back to the "basic platform." Lower taxes and <a href="http://www.glock.com/">Glocks</a>. At this point, the column takes a bit of a turn, lionizing the publishers of <a href="http://orbooks.com/">Going Rouge</a>, a collection of critical essays about Sarah Palin. Why lionize them? Because -- hold on to your hats -- they don't have much a budget, so they're creatively using the Internet to publicize their book. That's a novel idea. Please, tell me more. But one can only lionize marginal left-wing publishers for so long before returning to the bogey(woman) of the moment. I loved this bit: <blockquote> But she is busy demonstrating a strong intuitive grasp of how mass media can be used -- among other things, to change the subject. An example is the item Palin posted on Facebook in early August: “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.” This was fantasy. But it was effective fantasy. To borrow again from Baudrillard, it seduced -- abolishing reality and replacing it with a delirious facsimile. </blockquote> I hate to "borrow again from Baudrillard," but this is a rich irony -- coming from a writer who just reduced the entirety of Republican thought to "a basic platform of tax cuts for the rich and unregulated handgun ownership for everyone else." Who, exactly, is "abolishing reality and replacing it with a delirious facsimile"? The column ends thus: <blockquote> Well, consistency is, after all, the hobgoblin of tiny minds. Sarah Palin is playing the political game on a much grander scale -- with rules she may be rewriting as she goes. With a first printing of 1.5 million copies of her book, I don’t know that the intervention of an upstart press can pose much of a challenge. But <a href="http://www.orbooks.com/" target="_blank">OR Books</a> deserves credit for trying. Someone has to speak up for reality from time to time. Otherwise it will just disappear. </blockquote> Let's see . . . a politician <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope,_Arkansas">rises from a small town</a>, governs a small (by population) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas">state</a>, and then runs for high office in part by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufvxpxx1c9Q">emphasizing their humble roots</a>. Nope, that's never been done before. I guess she really is "rewriting as she goes." Thanks, Mr. McLemee, for speaking up for reality. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWQ4MzM5YTY2YmJkNzhmZTM1N2I0NGYzOWQ2YzdmZTE= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:47:01 -0400 David Protess on the Medill Subpoenas -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjU4Mjg1YzYwYTRhYzBhZDQwY2FmMmVlNGRkZDM0ZTQ= From <a href="http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/campus/exclusive-interview-medill-prof-david-protess-speaks-on-the-state-s-atty-s-recent-filing-1.2088179">an interview</a> with The Daily Northwestern: <blockquote> Daily: How does your investigative reporting class fall under the umbrella of a journalism class? Protess: The standards and practices of the class are the same as those used by news organizations when they gather information in similar situations. It’s an experiential learning class, for learning investigative reporting by practicing it. (For) students investigating real-world murder cases involving possible wrong convictions, the sole goal is finding truth. . . . I have adopted that for my class, and they are treated in the real world as journalists. When they go to interview a prisoner at the Illinois Department of Corrections they are there to interview -- not visit the prisoner. They are there in a professional capacity. They are given the same status by the Department that journalists get. Daily: Is the main purpose of the course to provide evidence or to produce work that will be published? Protess: Investigative Journalism is a one-unit elective class. The goal is to learn investigative reporting techniques. There is a separate project called the Medill Innocence Project, and that takes the work and exposes it through publication. Students are not involved in that. We have a paid staff. </blockquote> Maybe he knows something I don't -- I doubt he'd be saying this if it were harmful to his case -- but I'm not sure his justification jibes with Illinois's definition of a reporter (remember that the subpoenas at issue deal mostly with students' records and interviews, not with the paid staff): <blockquote> any person regularly engaged in the business of collecting, writing or editing news for publication through a news medium on a full-time or part-time basis; and includes any person who was a reporter at the time the information sought was procured or obtained. </blockquote> As I've <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGMwN2QwYzEwZGMzZDUxNGY5NTkyZTIxNjQ0MTQwNWY=">written before</a>, it seems to me that the students' main purpose is to rectify wrongs, not to publish stories, and Protess himself now says the course's main purpose is to teach, not to publish. If you're collecting information that someone might publish someday, but are conducting the research primarily for other purposes, are you a protected journalist? I don't know, but I'm not crazy about a law that gives the government that call to make. Anyhow, read the whole thing -- Protess weighs in on a number of issues and vows to let the judge hold him in contempt before turning over students' grades, unpublished interviews, and e-mails. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjU4Mjg1YzYwYTRhYzBhZDQwY2FmMmVlNGRkZDM0ZTQ= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:11:44 -0400 An Academic Defense of Affirmative Action -- By: Roger Clegg webmaster@nationalreview.com (Roger Clegg) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODJiMGJhMWViNmIxNjNkOWRiNTNlOGYzZTg3YjJmNTc= <div class="Section1"> That's what Insider Higher Ed <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/18/sterba#Comments">treats us</a> to today -- in an interview with James Sterba, professor of philosophy at Notre Dame and author of a new book, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0801475910">Affirmative Action for the Future</a>. My posted comments: <blockquote> 1. Some kinds of “affirmative action” are uncontroversial, as a matter of law or policy, like taking positive steps to ensure no discrimination, or recruiting far and wide to ensure the best possible pool of candidates. But affirmative discrimination -- favoring some over others because of race -- assuredly is controversial. 2. In this interview, at least, the author does not seem to be very forthcoming in acknowledging that he is defending such discrimination. He is also wrong in calling the various ballot propositions banning it deceptive, and he is being deceptive in suggesting that they banned all affirmative action, since they did not (see point one). 3. Of the three justifications he gives for affirmative action, the first does not involve discrimination, and the second (his favorite, apparently, based on his answer to the last question) is legally a nonstarter, since the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected general, societal discrimination as an excuse for new, improved discrimination. The diversity rationale has Justice O’Connor’s expiration date on it, and may fall before that, since it is dubious legally and based on flimsy sociological evidence. And do we really want to use race as a proxy for what experiences and viewpoints someone brings to a campus? 4. But even if you think there are some benefits to affirmative discrimination, one must weigh them against the undeniable costs of such discrimination, and of course there is no mention of them here: It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination; it creates resentment; it stigmatizes the so-called beneficiaries in the eyes of their classmates, teachers, and themselves, as well as future employers, clients, and patients; it fosters a victim mindset, removes the incentive for academic excellence, and encourages separatism; it compromises the academic mission of the university and lowers the overall academic quality of the student body; it creates pressure to discriminate in grading and graduation; it breeds hypocrisy within the school; it encourages a scofflaw attitude among college officials; it mismatches students and institutions, guaranteeing failure for many of the former; it papers over the real social problem of why so many African Americans and Latinos are academically uncompetitive; and it gets states and schools involved in unsavory activities like deciding which racial and ethnic minorities will be favored and which ones not, and how much blood is needed to establish group membership. In an increasingly multiethnic and multiracial society, we cannot embrace a legal regime that sorts people according to skin color and what country their ancestors came from, and treats some better and others worse depending on what box they have checked. </blockquote> </div> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODJiMGJhMWViNmIxNjNkOWRiNTNlOGYzZTg3YjJmNTc= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:32:01 -0400 Are We Sure That Students Improve Their Human Capital? -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWQzYmNhNTc2NmIxYmNiMmE4M2JhZmQ4NzU0ZjlmN2U= A couple of weeks ago, I started reading the new book <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=069113748X">Crossing the Finish Line</a>, which purports to make the case for getting a lot more young Americans not just into, but through, college. Almost immediately I got stuck on the authors' assumption that college does much to increase the human capital of students. That assumption is crucial to their case, but I think it is very questionable. Many colleges and universities are chiefly interested in processing through as many bodies as possible and have therefore watered down their standards to the point where students can pass courses with only the mental toolkit they had in high school. In athletics, the saying is "No pain, no gain." To keep weak and indifferent students happy, a lot of schools make it possible to get through without any pain. Whether college adds to human capital or is just a costly period of marching in place is the subject of my Pope Center <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/clarion_call/article.html?id=2260">Clarion Call piece</a> this week. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWQzYmNhNTc2NmIxYmNiMmE4M2JhZmQ4NzU0ZjlmN2U= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:22:50 -0400 Must Math Education be 'Culturally Responsive'? -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjY2YzAzY2UwZGQxMTQ1MWMyNmM0NDA3MzIwYzhlNzQ= Every so often, I read through the e-mails I receive from TC Record, which modestly calls itself "the voice of scholarship in education." Today, there's a <a href="http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15818">review</a> of a new book entitled Culturally Responsive Mathematics Education. In the review, we find sentences like this: "If we focus our energies on a pedagogy that is responsive to, and interconnects with, students' cultures will we miss the opportunities for a pedagogy that highlights mathematics itself as a social construction which is reflective of particular cultural values and identities?" I'm tempted to think that TC Record has fallen for a reprise of Alan Sokal's famous <a href="http://skepdic.com/sokal.html">hoax</a> in which he got an article published in Duke University's journal Social Text claiming that gravity was just a social construct. But probably not. The notion that there is objective reality apart from culture, and which people can understand no matter what their background may be, is now just about dead within the field of "education." I wonder if the famously successful inner-city math teacher <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/jaime-escalante">Jaime Escalante</a> ever worried about being "culturally responsive" when he taught calculus to his Los Angeles students. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjY2YzAzY2UwZGQxMTQ1MWMyNmM0NDA3MzIwYzhlNzQ= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:29:23 -0400 Coed Housing and Binge Drinking -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDZkYjAwMDY2MjlhYjdlMmJiY2QxZWVmNzhlNjYzMzk= That's <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/17/qt/study_links_coed_housing_to_binge_drinking">a pretty strong effect</a>: <blockquote> The research found that 42 percent of students in coed housing reported binge drinking on a weekly basis, while only 18 percent of those in single-sex housing did so. The researchers discounted the idea that student self-selection may result in those likely to engage in binge drinking opting to live in mixed-sex housing. Their rationale is that most students living in single-sex housing didn't request to do so, but were placed there by campus officials when coed slots are filled. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDZkYjAwMDY2MjlhYjdlMmJiY2QxZWVmNzhlNjYzMzk= Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:15:11 -0400 Read All About It -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTM2ZmVlZWZkZGIyYTM5N2U3Y2RiYmI4Nzk2NDAyM2Y= One of the discussion threads on <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/">The Corner</a> yesterday and today involves conservative historians and the books they write. So if you're interested, go over there and check it out. Meantime, here's a e-mail from Jay Bergman of Central Connecticut State University : <blockquote> I hope you'll pardon my blowing my own horn, but since you've contributed posts to NRO today on conservatives who write history, I believe I can be included in that category. My recent "Meeting the Demands of Reason: The Life and Thought of Andrei Sakharov," published three months ago by Cornell University Press, is harshly critical of the Soviet Union -- as one would expect a biography of a leading Soviet dissident to be. For more information, in case you're curious, see: <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=5389;" target="_blank">http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=5389</a>; and also: <a href="http://www.historybookclub.com/pages/nm/product/productDetail.jsp?skuId=1046513249" target="_blank">http://www.historybookclub.com/pages/nm/product/productDetail.jsp?skuId=1046513249</a> </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTM2ZmVlZWZkZGIyYTM5N2U3Y2RiYmI4Nzk2NDAyM2Y= Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:57:31 -0400 Intriguing Developments at the Supreme Court -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjQ4M2Q4NDc5NDk4Nzc4Y2U5NzY0NDQ4YTZlNTRiMjI= The Supreme Court may be preparing to decide -- once and for all -- whether student groups have a right to reserve membership and leadership for those who agree with the mission and purpose of the organization. While it is generally presumed in the rest of the world that, say, Baptist churches should be led by Baptist pastors (and not atheists or Muslims) and that these pastors shouldn't engage in sex outside of marriage, in the university world, such common sense is deemed to be "religious" or "sexual orientation" discrimination. Literally dozens of major universities have de-recognized Christian student groups, and federal cases have been filed from coast to coast. So far, the student groups have been successful everywhere but the Ninth Circuit. In March, that court <a href="http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memoranda/2009/03/17/06-15956.pdf">ruled against</a> the Christian Legal Society at UC-Hastings. Despite the constitutional importance of the issue, the following represents the entire opinion of the Court in the case: <blockquote> The parties stipulate that Hastings imposes an open membership rule on all student groups -- all groups must accept all comers as voting members even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group. The conditions on recognition are therefore viewpoint neutral and reasonable. Truth v. Kent Sch. Dist., 542 F.3d 634, 649-50 (9th Cir. 2008). </blockquote> Citing an obvious conflict with cases in the <a href="http://www.nsba.org/MainMenu/SchoolLaw/Issues/StudentRights/RecentCases/ChristianLegalSocietyvWalkerNo0532397thCirJuly102006.aspx">Seventh Circuit</a> and <a href="http://openjurist.org/85/f3d/839">Second Circuit</a>, CLS filed a cert petition. I'll let the Alliance Defense Fund's Jordan Lorence <a href="http://speakupmovement.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/is-the-supreme-court-getting-ready-to-rule-on-the-rights-of-campus-student-groups/">explain what happened next</a>: <blockquote> According to the schedule, everyone expected the Supreme Court to decide whether to take the case by late September. But no one imagined that by mid-November we would still be waiting for the Supreme Court to act. Normally, when a case is appealed to the Supreme Court, it is set for conference (a meeting of the nine justices). A few days later, the Supreme Court issues an orders list from that conference, stating whether the high court will agree to hear the cases considered at that conference or not. However, the Supreme Court has now delayed deciding what to do with the case for six conferences. This is so unusual that it has caught the eye of veteran Supreme Court observer <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/law/LawArticleFriendly.jsp?id=1202435371420">Tony Mauro who wondered Thursday in his law.com blog</a> about what is going on with the case. The Supreme Court has now set the case for its sixth conference for Friday, November 13, after calling for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to send up the record in the case. Calling for the record is also an odd and unusual step for the justices to take. </blockquote> What does all this mean? The only thing we can say for certain is that at least one of the justices is taking a very close look at CLS's cert petition. A case can't be pulled from the orders list without an affirmative act by the Court. Moreover, as Jordan <a href="http://speakupmovement.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/is-the-supreme-court-getting-ready-to-rule-on-the-rights-of-campus-student-groups/">notes</a>, there are some unusual aspects to the case. The law school shifted its interpretation of its own policies in the middle of the litigation, arguing that its policy now requires each student group to be open to any student -- a stance that deprives every student group of the most basic free-association rights. Every option is on the table for the high court. It can deny the cert petition, deny it with a dissent, summarily reverse the Ninth Circuit, or grant cert and schedule the case for oral argument. We don't know what will happen, but we do know that the critical issue of student free association is front and center on the radar screen of at least one justice. Stay tuned. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjQ4M2Q4NDc5NDk4Nzc4Y2U5NzY0NDQ4YTZlNTRiMjI= Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:04:39 -0400 The Offending Cartoons Will be Printed After All -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDdhOTk0MjE2Mzg3MTczMmMxZDc5Zjc3YTNiZDE5N2Y= Not in the book Yale is publishing, though. Duke University professor Gary Hull includes them in a <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0615324215">book</a>. Bravo! <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDdhOTk0MjE2Mzg3MTczMmMxZDc5Zjc3YTNiZDE5N2Y= Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:34:05 -0400 Shooter Hasan Bared All in Academic Lecture -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWUxNzkzODFmYzBlYWUxZjA2MzI1ZGM5MWQ3YTIzZmI= What an academic distinction. The Fort Hood killer, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is the first terrorist in history to lay out in a classroom presentation why he was about to mow down his defenseless comrades. Nonetheless, <a href="http://www.gloria-center.org/Gloria/2009/11/why-i-murdered.html">observes</a> Barry Rubin, this "isn't enough for too many people -- including the president of the United States -- to understand the murderous assault at Fort Hood was a Jihad attack." <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWUxNzkzODFmYzBlYWUxZjA2MzI1ZGM5MWQ3YTIzZmI= Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:02:52 -0400 Medill Innocence Project Responds to Allegations -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDQ4NGQ5Y2UxODMxOTg4YmY0Y2VjNGRiYTQyY2ZiMTQ= I've pasted (after the jump) a statement from Medill Innocence Project head David Protess. It went out over a Medill alum listserv. <blockquote> Reaction to the state's filing David Protess November 16, 2009 On October 10, the State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) filed a 54-page document alleging my students paid witnesses in their investigation of the Anthony McKinney case. Breathless accounts by journalists rapidly appeared in print, broadcast and on-line publications across the country. Unfortunately, reporters focused almost entirely on the prosecutors’ allegations in the first part of the document and ignored the actual interviews with the witnesses, which were recounted as exhibits at the end of the court filing. Here’s what we know from those exhibits -- the SAO’s own investigative reports: 1. Two alleged witnesses -- and no others -- claimed my students and our private detective paid them money. One is convicted killer and armed robber Tony Drake, who, after murdering a disabled man in 1985, has been re-incarcerated twice for aggravated domestic battery. The other is a Wisconsin drug dealer, Michael Lane. 2. Tony Drake was interviewed, in prison, by two prosecutors and a state's attorney's investigator, and questioned about the videotaped interview with my students in which he confessed to being present for the murder of Donald Lundahl. It is not surprising that, under the circumstances, Drake recanted. 3. Even though he stated on the videotape that he had not received any compensation for talking with my students, Drake told the trio from the SAO that he'd been paid $100. Yet, the state's evidence of the alleged payment was a $60 cab fare given to the driver, for which we have a receipt. When prosecutors asked Drake about being paid for the interview, here's how he responded, according to their own report: ". . . the students told him they could not give him money for an interview." (emphasis added.) 4. Anthony McKinney's lawyers have filed seven affidavits from our sources indicating that Drake confessed the Lundahl murder to them. There is no reference to this corroborative evidence in the SAO report. 5. The second witness, Michael Lane, told a state's attorney's investigator that my students had paid him "a couple hundred dollars." The investigator was openly dubious of this claim. According to his report, he said that "it seemed unlikely the students gave him a couple hundred dollars." 6. Lane described the investigator who accompanied the students as "a male black with a ponytail maybe in his late forties." Sergio Serritella, the only investigator I have worked with since 2000, is a male white with short wavy hair and (at the time) was in his mid-twenties. Since the SAO investigator knows Serritella, he must have wondered who Lane was talking about. 7. The SAO investigator gave Lane $10 "as a travel expense," according to his report. The reason: "[Lane] was driving a Denali and it was costly to operate." 8. The SAO interview with Lane took place on June 22, 2009 -- one month after the state issued a subpoena for grades because prosecutors purportedly had hard evidence that questioned Medill students’ "motivation." But the sole pre-subpoena evidence regarding motivation was their interview with Tony Drake. 9. The only other source to raise the issue of money was Robert McGruder, who was named by Tony Drake as an alternative suspect in the crime. In response to questioning by a SAO investigator, McGruder did not claim that Medill students paid him at any point for their two interviews. However, McGruder did report that the lead detectives in the McKinney case paid him “30.00 to 40.00 dollars.” When asked to explain, McGruder said it was their way of apologizing “for hitting him in the police station.” In sum, except for Tony Drake’s claims, no witness offered any evidence that my student-journalists paid for interviews, while two witnesses said they were paid by law enforcement. And, in the case of Tony Drake, SAO investigators acknowledged Drake was specifically told by the students that “they could not give him money for an interview.” Why would law enforcement officers believe a convicted killer's account over my student-journalists -- unless their motivation was to discredit the students and to direct attention away from the powerful evidence of Anthony McKinney's innocence? Moreover, in view of the filing, it seems the state has undermined its own legal position on the subpoena by acknowledging they have live witnesses who are available to impeach the evidence we tendered to them. So why do they need our notes and grades? Let their witnesses take the stand, and let the truth be known. David Protess Northwestern University <a href="mailto:d-protess@northwestern.edu">d-protess@northwestern.edu</a> </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDQ4NGQ5Y2UxODMxOTg4YmY0Y2VjNGRiYTQyY2ZiMTQ= Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:50:45 -0400 A Victory in Sacramento, For Now -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2IxOTkyNDVjZDE2M2Q1MDI4MzEwZWE1MDE2ODg0ODQ= Last week, I <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGFmMzNhYjQxZDgzNmZlY2NjZDkzMGRhN2FkZmI1NzE=">reported</a> on the <a href="http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/story.aspx?cid=5121">strange case</a> of Steve Macias, the student-body president of Sacramento City College. Student activists -- working with allied administrators -- removed Steve from office and launched an illegal recall effort after he refused to censor a pro-life display on Constitution Day. David Hacker, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund's <a href="http://www.speakupmovement.org/Home/University">Center for Academic Freedom</a>, sent the college a cease-and-desist letter. On Friday afternoon, the university responded. The result? Steve is now <a href="http://speakupmovement.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/sacramento-city-college-student-body-president-reinstated-recall-results-voided/">reinstated and the recall results voided</a>. He's not out of the woods yet, however. University censors are not deterred so easily, and the student newspaper is <a href="http://saccityexpress.com/2009/11/09/asg-president-steve-macias-reinstated/">reporting</a> that a member of the student government has filed an impeachment complaint against Steve. We'll keep watching and monitoring events, but for now Sacramento City College students once again have a president who understands free speech. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2IxOTkyNDVjZDE2M2Q1MDI4MzEwZWE1MDE2ODg0ODQ= Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:02:17 -0400 Fort Hood and Academic Obscurantists -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTc1MWI5YmY1MzM0MmY4ZDUzODQ0NmRmNWFjMzdmNmM= In the aftermath of the Fort Hood massacre, and the <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/fort_hood_suspect_to_be_charged_DlFZFynj7Db2jTqjbuiLQO">mounting evidence</a> that the shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, was motivated by Islamist beliefs, the MSM is calling for explanations from Middle East studies professors. What they're getting from these "experts," as Cinnamon Stillwell <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8683">describes</a> in a disturbing, important, and well-researched survey, "are the moral relativism and obfuscation that too often meet any effort to address Islamism or jihadism in an intellectually honest manner." Example? <a href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/john_esposito/2009/11/rush_to_judgment_media_reporting_or_making_the_news.html">Writing for</a> the Washington Post, Georgetown University's <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1443/john-esposito-reputation-vs-reality">John Esposito</a>, conflates Hasan's deeds with "extremists" of all religions, all the while professing ignorance as to why Islam should have been the object of suspicion since 9/11. Stillwell concludes: <blockquote>Americans rightly concerned about the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/10/cal-thomas-hasan-muslims-military-political-correctness/">culture of political correctness</a> and <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1500/introspection-not-rationalization-needed-in-wake">willful blindness</a> towards Islamist ideology that has infected the U.S. military, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125788890000142139.html">intelligence agencies</a>, and so many other institutions need only look to the denizens of the Ivory Tower for an explanation. Instead of explaining events like the Fort Hood shooting to the American public, all too often Middle East studies academics refuse to state the obvious and choose to obfuscate rather than clarify the events at hand. The rush to judgment against those who express valid concerns about Islamism only adds to the self-censorship that was in large part responsible for allowing Hasan to remain in the military and murder his fellow soldiers in cold blood.</blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTc1MWI5YmY1MzM0MmY4ZDUzODQ0NmRmNWFjMzdmNmM= Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:05:24 -0400 Can Higher Ed Cooperate with the Military? -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTM1MTBjNzZlMmUxNzI1YjcxMTllYzllZmVmZGRiMWQ= The UNC system and the Army's Special Operations Command are going to give it a try. My Pope Center colleague Jay Schalin writes about the recent Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2259">here.</a> This is evidently the first such agreement between a segment of the military and a state university system. UNC has been offering courses to military personnel on bases in the state for years, but the new agreement extends the area of collaboration into new areas, including military medics and emergency doctors at the UNC Hospital's trauma center. The MoA also envisions R&D collaboration. So far, the ultra-leftists on the UNC faculty have been quiet, but it's easy to imagine them denouncing this agreement as a sell-out to the military that will somehow poison the university. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTM1MTBjNzZlMmUxNzI1YjcxMTllYzllZmVmZGRiMWQ= Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:41:40 -0400 Supremely Stand-Up Student Confronts Iran's Supreme Leader -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmZhYzNmODM1YmE2ZGZhNzkwZjM4ODc1ZWU0YTZmMjI= <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gA30yThqLX6xY9fjOjKxU6E-oWowD9BPL8V80">Extraordinary</a>: <blockquote> An unassuming college math student has become an unlikely hero to many in Iran for daring to criticize the country's most powerful man to his face. On Oct. 28, Mahmoud Vahidnia, a gold medalist at the country's National Math Olympics two years ago, confronted supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at Tehran's Sharif Technical University. "I don't know why in this country it's not allowed to make any kind of criticism of you," said the student. "In the past three to five years that I have been reading newspapers, I have seen no criticism of you, not even by the Assembly of Experts, whose duty is to criticize and supervise the performance of the leader." The boldness of Vahidnia's comments underlines how Iran's postelection turmoil has undermined the once rock-solid taboo against challenging the supreme leader. "Vahidnia showed a new atmosphere which is the true characteristic of the Iranian people," Ataollah Mohajerani, a former pro-reform cabinet minister, wrote on his Web site. "If from now on in gatherings in the presence of the supreme leader one finds the courage to get up and speak in defense of justice and right, the climate of tyranny will suffocate." </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmZhYzNmODM1YmE2ZGZhNzkwZjM4ODc1ZWU0YTZmMjI= Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:14:24 -0400 The Online Skills Laboratory -- By: Mark Bauerlein webmaster@nationalreview.com (Mark Bauerlein) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmY1ZDY2ZTgxNmUxZWMyYTNlNThhZTQ1NjY1N2EwNWQ= At Inside Higher Ed, Rick Hess has an <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/10/06/hess">article </a>on an Obama-administration program that aims to make college available to more students, but that marks "launched a worrisome but largely unnoticed assault upon the nation’s publishers and the vibrant market in online learning." Part of the program is an "online skills laboratory," a resource through which "the federal government will 'invite' colleges, publishers and 'other institutions' to create online courses for Uncle Sam in a variety of unspecified areas. The feds will then make the courses freely available and encourage institutions of higher education to offer credit for them." As Hess says, such resources already exist. Online courses and materials are spreading rapidly, and online enrollments grew from 1.6 million students in 2002 to 3.9 million in 2007 (more than 20 percent of total enrollment that year). The problem, apparently, is that "colleges and universities offer them at prices that approximate those charged to students enrolled in more costly traditional instruction." What the federal program does is intervene in that market by offering services free of charge. They would do better, Hess says, by intervening in the anti-market devices already at work: "credentialing and regulatory practices that impede the emergence of low-cost entrants; state-funded institutions that use new e-learning students to cross-subsidize other units; and proprietary operators that have happily responded to this cozy arrangement by competing on convenience rather than price." His conclusion: <blockquote> For those who think that the U.S. Department of Education can develop instructional programs and identify promising innovations and opportunities more effectively and efficiently than the messy market place, the “Online Skills Laboratory” must sound like a swell idea. For those who believe that functioning markets generally yield better outcomes than state-directed enterprises, it is a very troubling development. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmY1ZDY2ZTgxNmUxZWMyYTNlNThhZTQ1NjY1N2EwNWQ= Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:54:02 -0400 Will Columbia Counter-Punch? -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODdkM2QzZDUzYzBjYTdkZjMwYjAxZDZiOGZmYmQ3MzQ= Over at Democracy Project, Laurie Morrow <a href="http://democracy-project.com/?p=3750">inquires</a> whether the Columbia University will "exhibit as high a level of moral authority as the bar that ejected" an apparently out-of-control prof who <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGEwZmVmYTE0NTBmMjg5N2ZmZWYyNTEyMWRhOTU2ODA=">punched</a> a female employee in the face during an acrimonious exchange on race relations. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODdkM2QzZDUzYzBjYTdkZjMwYjAxZDZiOGZmYmQ3MzQ= Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:35:04 -0400 Trustee Tried to Can the Sugar Babies -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2RjYzg4ODUzMWIyMGY3MGRkMTYzMTlkMjRjMTY0Mzg= The screening of The Sugar Babies at the University of Miami, <a href="http://www.humanrightsfoundation.org ">reports</a> the Human Rights Foundation, took place despite great pressure from a member of the university’s Board of Trustees, Alfonso Fanjul. The latter is also the chairman and CEO of Flo-Sun, Inc., a sugar company featured in the film for its inhumane labor practices, which include employing children to work sugar-cane fields. Kudos to the campus administration. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2RjYzg4ODUzMWIyMGY3MGRkMTYzMTlkMjRjMTY0Mzg= Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:29:15 -0400 A Defense of Free Speech . . . From a Public University? -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmM3MzRiMDY3MmE1OThmN2JiZjFhNDQyNGIwMzY0NGQ= So I started reading <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/13/purdue">this story</a> in today's Inside Higher Ed and immediately thought: "I know how this will end." A tenured librarian at Purdue writes an "anti-gay" <a href="http://bertchapman.blogtownhall.com/2009/10/27/an_economic_case_against_homosexuality.thtml">blog post</a> at <a href="http://townhall.com/">Townhall.com</a> that makes an "economic" argument against homosexual behavior, the post is discovered by activists on his campus, and then controversy erupts. Students write the school newspaper, making arguments like this: <blockquote> That’s right. I’ll call for his job. As a student, as a lesbian, as a human being, I believe with every fiber of my being that Purdue University in no way should affiliate itself with the hateful, bigoted opinions of Professor Chapman. </blockquote> And this: <blockquote> Bert Chapman surrendered his position at Purdue the moment he decided to publish such intellectual diarrhea on his blog. There are those who would defend this atrocious man by claiming that political correctness has conspired to snatch away his free speech, but this is not so. Dr. Chapman has the right to believe that homosexuals are immoral, just as it would be within his rights to believe the same about any other group of people. The issue is not Dr. Chapman’s views of homosexuality, bigoted and wrong-headed though they may be, but that he has abused his authority as a scholar and an expert to disseminate hate-filled propaganda. </blockquote> I kept reading, just waiting for the university response -- for the university to apologize for the librarian's speech, to pledge to make the campus a "safe place for all students," and vow to, at the very least, "investigate" or refer the matter to a diversity committee. But here's what university officials actually said: <blockquote> "The university asks its faculty to make it clear that the viewpoints they express do not necessarily reflect those of the university. Mr. Chapman has gone out of his way to do this with a very clear disclaimer. He also took an extra step and posted his blog on a server not owned by the university," said a spokeswoman. "The university has a policy prohibiting harassment if it unreasonably affects a person's educational or work opportunities or affects his or her ability to participate in a university activity. This does not meet that standard. The First Amendment clearly allows him to state his opinion. The best response is to speak up, which is exactly what our students and some faculty are doing. </blockquote> Well done, Purdue -- what a wonderful expression of First Amendment values. The answer to speech you don't like is to add your own voice to the debate, not to shut others down. In fact, I can think of at least one <a href="http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/pressrelease.aspx?cid=4069">other university</a> that could learn from your response to a <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/MikeAdams/">professor's speech</a> on the same website. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmM3MzRiMDY3MmE1OThmN2JiZjFhNDQyNGIwMzY0NGQ= Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:30:18 -0400 Do Too Many Students Go to College? -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjliY2ZlMjYwOTUyNDkxYTBjN2E1ZjIxZTAyMmQ3NTk= The Chronicle Review recently published a lively discussion on that question, featuring nine people with widely divergent views. In today's <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2258">Pope Center piece</a>, I comment on the discussion and offer my own thoughts on a number of the questions posed. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjliY2ZlMjYwOTUyNDkxYTBjN2E1ZjIxZTAyMmQ3NTk= Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:57:04 -0400 Landing a Blow against White Privilege -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGEwZmVmYTE0NTBmMjg5N2ZmZWYyNTEyMWRhOTU2ODA= <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/prof_busted_in_columbia_gal_punch_JmsXQ3NzaAt8uG6uUySGTN">Nice</a>: <blockquote> A prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations, cops said yesterday. Police busted Lionel McIntyre, 59, for assault yesterday after his bruised victim, Camille Davis, filed charges. McIntyre and Davis, who works as a production manager in the school's theater department, are both regulars at Toast, a popular university bar on Broadway and 125th Street, sources said. The professor, who is black, had been engaged in a fiery discussion about "white privilege" with Davis, who is white, and another male regular, who is also white, Friday night at 10:30 when fists started flying, patrons said. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGEwZmVmYTE0NTBmMjg5N2ZmZWYyNTEyMWRhOTU2ODA= Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:47:25 -0400 Re: A New Manhattan Project -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTY1ZTU2MDE1M2QyMTJhMmQ2NmM1ZWJhMzAyYzk5NmI= I also read the piece by Espenshade and Walton. Their eagerness to associate academic success or failure with ancestry (Asian kids do very well while black and Hispanic kids do poorly) was striking. That kind of thinking is not useful. Students from families of Asian ancestry don't do well because of their Asian-ness; they do well because of values imparted in the home. (Similarly, Jewish students didn't do exceptionally well because of ancestry or religion, but because of their values.) Nor does ancestry explain the relatively poor educational fortunes of black and Hispanic students. Back in my teaching days, I had some very good, energetic black and Hispanic students -- and many others who could hardly be bothered to read a page or attend class. Of course, I also had some white students who were eager to learn as well as some who were neither prepared for nor interested in college studies. I don't see how the proposed "Manhattan Project" would tell us much that isn't already obvious: Early family influence is overwhelmingly important to a child's educational path. Nor can I see that there is any solution to the problem of broken homes and bad parenting. No direct solution anyway--the sort of change that would interest politicians. If you read Charles Murray's classic <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0465042333">Losing Ground</a>, you see that the welfare state is responsible for the growth of the broken-home problem Roger writes about. To get better (more "equitable") educational results, we don't need a new education policy; we need to dismantle welfare. How many politicians will advocate that? <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTY1ZTU2MDE1M2QyMTJhMmQ2NmM1ZWJhMzAyYzk5NmI= Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:17:14 -0400 'A New Manhattan Project' -- By: Roger Clegg webmaster@nationalreview.com (Roger Clegg) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTJjNWI4YzI0YWU3NGU4NjFmYjVmZDk2YTVhYWYwNDE= <div class="Section1"> That’s what Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/11/12/radford">propose</a> in Insider Higher Ed today, in order “(1) to identify the causes and cumulative consequences of racial gaps in academic achievement and (2) to develop concrete steps that can be taken by parents, schools, neighborhoods, and the public sector all working together to close these gaps on a nationwide scale.” Being a public-spirited fellow and always eager to help, I posted these comments: <blockquote> Earlier this year, the National Center for Health Statistics came out with its latest numbers on illegitimacy (final data for 2006). By population subgroup, the percentage of children born out of wedlock is 70.7 percent for non-Hispanic blacks, 64.6 percent for American Indians/Alaska Natives, 49.9 percent for Hispanics, 26.6 percent for non-Hispanic whites, and 16.5 percent for Asians/Pacific Islanders. Notice any connection between those numbers and how academically competitive the members of the group are likely to be come college admissions time? The fact is that kids who grow up in two-parent homes are much more likely to get the support and help they need to perform well academically. Conversely, illegitimacy correlates with just about any social problem you can name (poverty, crime, dropping out of school, substance abuse, etc.), and it -- not discrimination -- is the principal cause of racial disparities in all these areas. See my National Review Online column <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment050100b.html"> here</a>. And you will not be surprised to hear that I do not believe this problem will be solved by giving racial preferences in college admissions to middle- and upper-class African Americans. This is a cultural and moral problem, and I don't have a proposed silver bullet to solve it. I would say only that, while there may be a limited role for government, most of the heavy lifting will probably have to be done by the little platoons. (BTW, please don't bother arguing that illegitimacy is caused by racism. The percentage of out-of-wedlock births for African Americans has actually gotten much, much higher as discrimination has diminished.) </blockquote> </div> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTJjNWI4YzI0YWU3NGU4NjFmYjVmZDk2YTVhYWYwNDE= Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:05:28 -0400 Amazing Innovation Proposed for Top Public State Universities -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGVkZWExZWRhZmI4ZjUxYjgzZjY4ZjllNTRhM2E4MDk= What's so new about the "<a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/28/qt#209256">hybrid model</a>" for leading public higher-education institutions recently put forth by the chief officers of the University of California at Berkeley? They want these campuses to "receive basic operating support from the federal government and their respective state governments." Gimme more, more, more. Some innovation. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGVkZWExZWRhZmI4ZjUxYjgzZjY4ZjllNTRhM2E4MDk= Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:08:12 -0400 More on the Medill Innocence Project -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzYxZTJmZTA1ZWQzOGJmOTc5ZjkzNzA2ZjcwZmYxZTM= Salon has <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/11/11/exoneration/index.html">a decent article</a> about the case. Apparently, prosecutors are now alleging that witnesses recanted murder-trial testimony because the students paid them sums of up to (start Dr. Evil voice) one hundred dollars. (If you're not familiar with the case, read my previous posts about it <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDNkZTI4NzRkOTVkNWUwM2JjZTlkOTI3YTgyYmRmZGQ=">here</a> and <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGMwN2QwYzEwZGMzZDUxNGY5NTkyZTIxNjQ0MTQwNWY=">here</a>. My overall points are: The subpoena asks for too much information, and the prosecutors are making outlandish accusations; nonetheless, Medill's defense rests on the journalist-shield law, under which Innocence Project members are quite arguably not considered journalists; shield laws in general are a bad idea because they discriminate in favor of journalists and force the government to decide who is and is not one.) I wish the piece had more info on this, though: <blockquote> The prosecutors, however, will likely get the documents they seek -- unless a judge determines that the students are "journalists" under Illinois law. If the judge treats the students as journalists, then Illinois law would shield their communications from disclosure. </blockquote> There are other ways to quash an unreasonable subpoena -- are any of those available to the students? I can't find much about Illinois's rules on this. In researching this post, I came upon <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/56852">this</a> AP article from Monday, with a gem of a quote from Medill's dean: <blockquote> "I don't think the prosecution in a criminal case . . . or the defense ever ought to be able to say we decide who is a journalist," Lavine said. "They should never have that right." </blockquote> Well, first of all, the judge decides in the end, not either side. But the bottom line is that when the law treats journalists differently than it treats everyone else, someone has to decide who's a journalist. You can't base your legal argument on a law that discriminates in favor of journalists, and then act like prosecutors are out of line for trying to convince the judge you're not a journalist. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzYxZTJmZTA1ZWQzOGJmOTc5ZjkzNzA2ZjcwZmYxZTM= Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:20:22 -0400 Affirmative Action for Men? -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjFhNWVmYmZjYTNkZGE3OTU1OWY5NDhlNGIwYjI2NWE= <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2009/11/11/affirmative-action-for-males-g">Here's</a> an interesting post on the topic from Ronald Bailey of Reason; there's some evidence that it's happening not just to students but also to faculty. In some cases, rather than using preferences to enhance "diversity," colleges might be bringing in male profs to lure female students: <blockquote> A few years back, a friend who teaches in a graduate political science department at a prominent university told me that the women who applied to his school's program were so much more qualified than the male applicants that if all applicants were selected solely on the basis of academic merit, no men would be admitted to the program. That would be fine with my friend except for the fact that highly qualified women will not attend a program that is all female. Thus this program actually engaged in what amounts to affirmative action for males in order to attract and keep highly qualified female students. </blockquote> I do remember girls going ga-ga over one of my poli-sci profs. (Prof: "Man, it's hot in here." Girl a few rows behind me, almost certainly loud enough for him to hear: "That's 'cause you're hot.") But is it true that they won't even show up for a lady? <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjFhNWVmYmZjYTNkZGE3OTU1OWY5NDhlNGIwYjI2NWE= Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:19:26 -0400 Higher-Ed Reform Ideas -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDI2M2ExNTU1ZDEyNTI4Y2QyMDlkODhmNTc1YzBmYTQ= In this week's Pope Center <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/clarion_call/article.html?id=2257">Clarion Call</a>, Jane Shaw discusses ideas for change that she has come across in several recent higher-education conferences. The ideas she likes all have a "bottom-up" character rather than a "top-down" one. I strongly agree that beneficial change is apt to come from the "little platoons" and not from higher ed's generals. For the most part, the generals are too busy with fundraising and their obsession over "diversity" to do any good. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDI2M2ExNTU1ZDEyNTI4Y2QyMDlkODhmNTc1YzBmYTQ= Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:08:00 -0400 Should We Worry About 'The Lost Boys'? -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTAxMzdlN2ZjNTI5MDM3MDA3YzY3OTNlYzAwYTdiNTI= Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal ran an article by Richard Whitmire entitled "<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513890645608558.html">The Lost Boys</a>." Whitmire's point is that because a smaller and smaller percentage of young men are going to college, the country is in danger of losing out on entrepreneurs and inventors. Whitmire writes, "women remain less inclined to roll the dice on risky business start-ups or grind out careers in isolated tech labs." True, and let's hope Mr. Whitmire doesn't get the Larry Summers treatment for saying that. But I can't see that there's anything to worry about just from that perspective, because few if any of the young men who decide against college (or never even get to the point where that decision is possible) would have become entrepreneurs or inventors anyway. We have far more serious threats to entrepreneurship and advanced technical work (such as increasing tax and regulatory burdens) than the fact that fewer academically disinclined young men are going to college. Whitmire also repeats the standard line that "to ensure high future earnings, men and women have an equal need for college degrees." As I've pointed out many times, having a college degree does not ensure high earnings. Large numbers of young people who have them are nevertheless working at jobs that can be done with just a modicum of on-the-job training and do not pay well whether you have a degree or not. Still, this trend tells us something. As Christina Hoff Sommers observed in her book The War Against Boys, our K-12 system is becoming increasingly feminized with the notions that competition is bad and that boys need to be socialized to act more like girls. That may well be the reason why fewer boys pay attention and grasp the educational basics. So I don't think we need to worry about the fact that there's an imbalance between men and women in college; the thing to worry about is that K-12 is failing to provide much of an education for more boys than girls. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTAxMzdlN2ZjNTI5MDM3MDA3YzY3OTNlYzAwYTdiNTI= Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:26:52 -0400 Another Vote for Class-Based Affirmative Action -- By: Roger Clegg webmaster@nationalreview.com (Roger Clegg) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTgwOTMxMmMxYTFlMDEwMjA0ODFlNmI5MTBhNDcyNTc= I <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjIyNTE3MzQzNGJhMmEwYTkzN2Q5ZjgzMzI5ZTk5Y2U=">noted</a> a few weeks ago that the Harvard Crimson’s editorial board had endorsed a transition from race-based to class-based affirmative action. Now <a href="http://blog.stanfordreview.org/2009/11/10/time-to-update-affirmative-action/">a piece</a> in the Stanford Review makes the same plea. There are obvious limits on the extent to which class-based affirmative action is a good idea -- but it beats the heck out of racial preferences. <div class="Section1"></div> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTgwOTMxMmMxYTFlMDEwMjA0ODFlNmI5MTBhNDcyNTc= Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:37:15 -0400 Not Much Sharing of Governance -- By: Jane S. Shaw webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jane S. Shaw) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmRlZWI4MDIwNGU1MmNkZDVkZTI1NjQxMTIwZjU4NWI= Outsiders who think that the president is in charge of the university should look at <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/11/tenure">this article</a> from Inside Higher Ed. Faculty are offended by the fact that the president of Toledo University interviews each candidate for tenure before the recommendation goes to the board of governors for final approval. The AAUP's president, Cary Nelson, calls the policy "inappropriate." Even Inside Higher Ed seems to dislike the policy, titling the piece "30-Minute Chat to Tenure." <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmRlZWI4MDIwNGU1MmNkZDVkZTI1NjQxMTIwZjU4NWI= Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:25:42 -0400 Political Correctness Versus Academic Freedom -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzEwMjc0NGYyOTgwZGNhNmExOTFhNzAzNmJlNDU1NGI= Professor Walter Block gets tarred for racism and sexism simply because he doesn't accept the politically correct feminist line that the average earnings differential between men and women is due to discrimination. Then, when he attempts to defend himself, the university (Loyola in New Orleans) clams up. Read about Block's case <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block139.html">here</a>. Liberals in academe used to pride themselves on "speaking truth to power" but when they have power, they turn out to be intolerant authoritarians. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzEwMjc0NGYyOTgwZGNhNmExOTFhNzAzNmJlNDU1NGI= Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:12:19 -0400 The Inexcusable Act of Upholding the Constitution -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGFmMzNhYjQxZDgzNmZlY2NjZDkzMGRhN2FkZmI1NzE= It's heartwarming to see students, faculty, administrators, and activists come together -- working cooperatively and in harmony for a common purpose. Such diverse interests, diverse life experiences, and diverse personalities; yet these differences are set aside when a common threat emerges. And what is that threat? Pro-life speech. More specifically, a student-government president who <a href="http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/story.aspx?cid=5121">refuses to censor</a> pro-life speech. Late last week, ADF Center for Academic Freedom attorneys issued a cease-and-desist letter in a remarkable case involving Sacramento City College. The story begins, ironically enough, with a request by the <a href="http://www.abortionno.org/gap.html">Genocide Awareness Project</a> (GAP) to set up a pro-life display on Constitution Day. The request was forwarded by student-government president Steve Macias to the rest of the student representatives, who voted to allow it (several representatives later claimed that they didn't know what GAP was -- apparently forgetting all about newfangled websites like <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=genocide+awareness+project&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">Google</a>). When GAP erected its rather graphic display, members of the campus community reacted with fury. The student-government adviser and at least one member of the administration demanded that Macias have the display removed. Macias refused, rightly noting that doing so would violate GAP's First Amendment rights. Macias's refusal to censor triggered a rather dramatic response. The adviser banned Macias from attending a national leadership conference, and the Queer-Straight Alliance (a campus group) and Equality California immediately launched a recall campaign. Although the recall effort violated virtually every material regulation governing recall elections, the administration not only allowed it to happen; they participated in the process. The recall was scheduled without any notice to Macias, and -- even before the recall results were known -- the student government unlawfully voted to suspend Macias from his duties. My friend (and FIRE president) <a href="http://www.thefire.org/person/2982.html">Greg Lukianoff</a> often talks about how students are in the process of "unlearning liberty." (Greg, you really should write a book about that.) This case is a prime example of that phenomenon -- where students have learned quite well the lesson taught by the academic generation that brought us speech codes, speech zones, and "civility" policies. What is that lesson? That we have a right not to be offended, and when we are offended, someone must suffer the consequences. Steve Macias is suffering those consequences right now -- at least until the college remembers that academic fashions and trends have as of yet left the First Amendment untouched. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGFmMzNhYjQxZDgzNmZlY2NjZDkzMGRhN2FkZmI1NzE= Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:03:09 -0400 Re: Fort Hood and University PC -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzU0YzJiMzY5MTZjOGM3YzkxYTVjMGJkZWI5M2E2MzA= Dorothy Rabinowitz has a sharp <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574525831785724114.html">piece</a> in today's Wall Street Journal on the response to the Ft. Hood murders. Especially appalling is the statement by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey she quotes: "This terrible event would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty." That sounds like precisely the sort of thing a college president would say. Many college leaders utter such inane things as "diversity is our foremost goal." We expect such vacuities in education -- but in the military? <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzU0YzJiMzY5MTZjOGM3YzkxYTVjMGJkZWI5M2E2MzA= Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:21:46 -0400 Fort Hood Shooter's Classmates Raised Red Flags -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzU0NTRkODA0ZGIwZjA5NDRmYTlkOGZhM2VhZGM0Mjk= Hasan's classmates at the Uniformed Services University, the military college where mass killer Nidal Malik Hasan recently took graduate courses, claimed to have repeatedly complained to their superiors about his persistent anti-American tirades. <a href="http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/national/link_in_ft_hood_slay_spree_DxTQPcEWvdr8WBocxSgNUI">According to the New York Post</a>, one said he cautioned those in charge that the ranting Hasan was a "ticking time bomb" after he gave a presentation defending Islamic suicide bombers. Another classmate stated he voiced his complaints to two civilian faculty members and five officers. Indeed, this student went so far in speaking truth to power (as the saying goes) that he commented in a document sent to Pentagon officials that fear in the military of being perceived as politically incorrect stifled an "intellectually honest discussion of Islamic ideology" in the ranks. But this fear has had far more horrific consequences than merely suppressing forthright speech. If these professors and officers had honestly and courageously confronted the students' concerns, Hasan could have been stopped in his tracks earlier, and the horrific massacre of our soldiers would not have taken place. So it is that political correctness can do more than hinder open discourse. It can kill. It is to these students' eternal credit that they attempted to surmount their superiors' resistance to the warning signs about Hasan. And shame on the higher-ups for their cowardly and ultimately deadly denial. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzU0NTRkODA0ZGIwZjA5NDRmYTlkOGZhM2VhZGM0Mjk= Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:54:26 -0400 Running in Place -- By: Peter Wood webmaster@nationalreview.com (Peter Wood) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWMwMmI1NmZmZTliODM1ZGFhOTFkZDIzZDdjYjMwM2Q= Candace links a <a href="http://www.blackinformant.com/education/are-you-smarter-than-a-1954-8th-grader">website picture of a test</a> about the Constitution given in 1954 in which an 8th grader, Kenny Hignite, scored 98.5 percent by listing all the cabinet positions and the people holding them, all the justices of the Supreme Court, the substance of the first 22 amendments, and more. It is a feat few eighth graders could perform today -- or for that matter, few adults, and certainly few college students. The thinness of substantive knowledge among today’s students is often remarked in a general way. But there actually is a systematic study comparing the general knowledge of high-school grads from Kenny Hignite’s era with today’s college grads. In December 2002, the NAS published a survey, "<a href="http://www.nas.org/polReports.cfm?Doc_Id=85">Today's College Students and Yesteryear's High School Grads: A Comparison of General Cultural Knowledge</a>." We did this by commissioning Zogby International to poll a sample of 2002 college seniors with 15 questions regarding "cultural knowledge" that had originally been administered to similar groups of high-school seniors in 1955. These included knowledge of canonical authors, geographical knowledge, and watershed historical events. The results were not reassuring. Sixty-one percent of high-school seniors polled in 1955 knew that Madrid was the capital of Spain; 63 percent of college seniors in 2002 also knew. At the same time, 67 percent of those responding in 1955 knew that Maine bordered Canada, while only 50 percent of 2002 college seniors answered correctly. Overall, we found that the two groups were approximately equivalent in their general cultural and historical knowledge. We could be pleased, I suppose, that absolute decline hasn’t set in. But we should also keep in mind that 1955 was before Sputnik and the first great national effort to raise academic standards to keep up with the Soviets. And it was before the 1965 Higher Education Act began the immense federally funded expansion of higher education. All those billions spent improving our schools and colleges may have done something, but they don’t appear to have improved American’s cultural knowledge. What we have instead is college seniors who perform at the level of 1950s high-school students. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWMwMmI1NmZmZTliODM1ZGFhOTFkZDIzZDdjYjMwM2Q= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:34:47 -0400 An Important (and Unsurprising) Ruling in Texas -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTRkMGQ0ZTU4OTBmNmJiZDE1YTZiN2MyMzc5NTM3YTI= On Friday, FIRE <a href="http://www.thefire.org/article/11261.html">reported</a> that a federal judge in Texas had issued a <a href="http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/11260.html">temporary restraining order</a> (TRO) permitting two students to hold an "empty holder" protest next week outside Tarrant County College's tiny "free speech zone." In response to a FIRE-coordinated suit, the court restrained the college from taking action against the students for "wearing empty holsters, wearing t-shirts depicting empty holsters, discussing handgun regulations, and distributing pamphlets on handgun regulation in traditional public-forum areas including, but not limited to, public streets, sidewalks, and common or park areas." This is, quite simply, a commonsense judicial ruling, and it's a shame that four decades after the Supreme Court's landmark <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District">Tinker</a> case, which allowed high-school students to wear black armbands in class, that colleges believe they can prevent their adult students from wearing T-shirts or empty holsters on a public sidewalk. A TRO doesn't end a case, obviously, but it certainly puts the suit off to a promising start. And if present trends continue, yet another unconstitutional university policy will bite the dust. How many more federal cases will it take before universities start repealing these policies on their own? <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTRkMGQ0ZTU4OTBmNmJiZDE1YTZiN2MyMzc5NTM3YTI= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:04:52 -0400 Michigan U. Holds Firm -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZThjNGE0MmRhNjljMWZhN2M1YTJlMjJkYzQ3Y2JiMWY= The <a href="http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wichman..asp">word from Snopes</a> is that the University of Michigan is standing by the professor who told Muslim students who had protested the Danish cartoons that they were free to leave the country. (Hat tip: Warren Haber) <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZThjNGE0MmRhNjljMWZhN2M1YTJlMjJkYzQ3Y2JiMWY= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:01:13 -0400 Who Should Go to College? -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODY0YjA3NDEzYmNjNjlhZGQwMDc1MThiZTdmMGQyYWI= The Chronicle of Higher Education <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Too-Many-Students-Going-to/49039/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en">asks the question</a>, and various experts (including Charles Murray, Richard Vedder, and Marcus Winters) respond. I liked Marty Nemko's response: <blockquote> All high-school students should receive a cost-benefit analysis of the various options suitable to their situations: four-year college, two-year degree program, short-term career-prep program, apprenticeship program, on-the-job training, self-employment, the military. Students with weak academic records should be informed that, of freshmen at "four year" colleges who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their high-school class, two-thirds won't graduate even if given eight and a half years. And that even if such students defy the odds, they will likely graduate with a low GPA and a major in low demand by employers. A college should not admit a student it believes would more wisely attend another institution or pursue a noncollege postsecondary option. Students' lives are at stake, not just enrollment targets. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODY0YjA3NDEzYmNjNjlhZGQwMDc1MThiZTdmMGQyYWI= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:03:57 -0400 Fort Hood: PC Reactions Rooted in Academe's Cultural Relativism -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTU1ODM2MDRiOTFlMzdlNzNhMzNlYmQ4NDAxNGNhOWM= <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2009/11/07/fort-hood-political-correctness-as-murder-weapon/?print=1">Roger L. Simon makes the point</a> that the politically correct, excusatory responses of officialdom to Nidal Malik Hasan's murderous rampage derives from "the more intellectually respectable docrine of cultural relativism." Given birth to where? Although Simon does not say so specifically, of course in the academy. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTU1ODM2MDRiOTFlMzdlNzNhMzNlYmQ4NDAxNGNhOWM= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:47:50 -0400 Priorities on Campus -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzZmYjkzYzdjODE4MzU4ZmYyNTQxYWFmOWQyMTY2NzA= In a <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2256">piece</a> the Pope Center has released today, Claremont student Charles Johnson writes about the contrast at his school between the effusive attention given to the Stonewall Inn incident 40 years ago and the complete lack of interest in the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzZmYjkzYzdjODE4MzU4ZmYyNTQxYWFmOWQyMTY2NzA= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:17:31 -0400 Today's Students No Match for a 1954 Eighth Grader -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGQzY2MyYjJkYzczY2FiNTZjNDE4MWU3MWFkMGEyYWU= For a stark illustration of the collapse in quality of public-school education over the last few decades, <a href="http://www.blackinformant.com/education/are-you-smarter-than-a-1954-8th-grader">behold this performance </a>of a young student in the '50s on a Constitution test, as posted by The Black Informant. The blame for this decline lies largely in the academy's subordination of the pursuit of knowledge to political and social engineering as well as its neglect and even deprecation of our traditional institutions and first principles. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGQzY2MyYjJkYzczY2FiNTZjNDE4MWU3MWFkMGEyYWU= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:16:43 -0400 Some Vital Academic Research! -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGEwN2NkNWY1MWEyZTdjZDc5ZTk2YTU5ZDU1NmNlZTY= Duke University professor Dan Ariely is engaged in research on sex toys, and <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local_state/story/177501.html">it has a few people upset</a>. This reinforces my view that faculty research ought to be put on a free-market footing. That is, the norm should be a full teaching load (let's say 12 hours, although -- speaking from experience -- it's not hard to do more), but if a professor can get sufficient outside funding for a research project to be able to buy a reduced teaching load, fine. That would lead to far less waste than the prevailing system, which has a low teaching norm and assumes that professors will devote their time to useful research. What we get from that system is a lot of research that's done just for the sake of producing research. We should put academic research to the test of the market: Will people voluntarily pay for it? <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGEwN2NkNWY1MWEyZTdjZDc5ZTk2YTU5ZDU1NmNlZTY= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:51:24 -0400 Prediction -- By: Fred Schwarz webmaster@nationalreview.com (Fred Schwarz) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGY2MzNiNDdkMWY5YjViNjgxYTE5OWNkYmY1N2MwOWE= I'll bet the next issue of Columbia College Today will contain a letter from NR's Andrew C. McCarthy, class of 1981, about this cover: <img src="http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/sites/cct/files/covers/cover4_r1.jpg" alt="CCT cover" width="480" height="640" /> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGY2MzNiNDdkMWY5YjViNjgxYTE5OWNkYmY1N2MwOWE= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:14:01 -0400 The NEA Trumpets Alinsky -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmE3NjNlMTE0MDU4YzdiMTZmMDY4MTE0MGFjOThlY2U= The writings of radical leftist and "community organizer" Saul Alinsky, whose collectivist, class-based ideology shaped President Obama and other prominent contemporary leaders' political outlook, are now on the National Education Association's list of recommended readings. This illustrates the extent to which our institutions, as velvethammer <a href="http://ironicsurrealism.blogivists.com/2009/11/02/this-means-war-nea-recommended-reading-saul-alinsky-the-american-organizer/">notes</a>, have been "invaded by stealth." <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmE3NjNlMTE0MDU4YzdiMTZmMDY4MTE0MGFjOThlY2U= Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:43:31 -0400 China Has Oversold Higher Ed Too -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDVmMjFhYTRlMTNjZjQzYmI4ZTY4YWE3MTY2Njc3OWM= That's the conclusion to be drawn from a <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/11/03/degree-disaster-behind-the-great-wall/">Cato post</a> by Neal McCluskey. One of the common justifications for continuing the foolish policy of trying to get everybody through college in the U.S. is that if we don't, other countries, especially China, will "get ahead of us." The fact is that credentializing everyone doesn't make a nation any more productive. If anything, by squandering resources on the bloated and inefficient education sector, it gets in the way of productivity. I wonder: With the Chinese, was it simply the "error of imitation" (that is, the tendency among people in less developed nations to believe that the path to success is to copy what the U.S. does) or rent-seeking by a politically connected education establishment that led to the overexpansion of higher education? <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDVmMjFhYTRlMTNjZjQzYmI4ZTY4YWE3MTY2Njc3OWM= Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:19:49 -0400 Academic Freedom Isn't the Only Freedom that Matters -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWU4YmU3NTcxYWMzZmZjYzQzZTNkODU2MTYyNGQyMzk= I'm posting this week's Pope Center <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/clarion_call/article.html?id=2254">Clarion Call</a> a couple of days late because I was down in South Carolina giving an address I entitled "The Conventional Wisdom on Higher Education: Not Just Wrong, but Harmful" at the Economics Club of Columbia and the Bastiat Society in Charleston. Southern hospitality lives! The subject of the piece is academic freedom and in it, I take issue with the rather alarmist position of Matthew Finkin and Robert Post, authors of For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom. What they regard as ominous, threatening developments (such as complaints from taxpayers that state universities are wasting their money) I see as normal and democratically healthy friction at the edges of academic freedom. The authors evidently regard academic freedom as a fragile glass figurine that might easily be crushed. I think it's much tougher than that. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWU4YmU3NTcxYWMzZmZjYzQzZTNkODU2MTYyNGQyMzk= Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:01:56 -0400 The Soft Bigotry of Diversity -- By: Roger Clegg webmaster@nationalreview.com (Roger Clegg) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzFiNGQ4YWVlMjNiMzZhMWM3OGNiNWZhMTA4MTVmYjE= In today’s Federal Register, there is <a href="http://frwebgate1.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/TEXTgate.cgi?WAISdocID=439360135636+0+1+0&WAISaction=retrieve">a notice</a> by the State Department announcing competition for two grants to be spent on summer institutes for youth from various countries. The “Purpose” section says, “Through these institutes, diverse but intellectually curious students aged 16 to 18 will participate in an intensive, three- to four-week exchange program in the United States.” Now, what interests me in that sentence is the phrase, “diverse but intellectually curious” and, in particular, the word “but.” We are always told by the diversiphiles that diversity and intellectual curiosity go together like ham and eggs, but here the mask seems to have slipped, with an acknowledgment that the relationship between the two is often more like oil and water. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzFiNGQ4YWVlMjNiMzZhMWM3OGNiNWZhMTA4MTVmYjE= Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:26:46 -0400 Yale's Bow to the Crescent -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmEzYTY2ZjdkNTlkYTM3MWY3ZDExZTY0ZDNiZTdlMjQ= Yale's cowardly decision to remove the Mohammad cartoons from a book about the Mohammad cartoons was widely condemned as an offense against free speech. But Yale's action also bespoke a more profound and, in the end, disturbing level of surrender. As the New Criterion <a href="http://www.newcriterion.com/articleprint.cfm/Yale---the-veil-4326">points out</a>, it amounted to caving in "to the insidious pressure of Islamification -- the pressure, that is, to define the debate in terms dictated by Islam." <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmEzYTY2ZjdkNTlkYTM3MWY3ZDExZTY0ZDNiZTdlMjQ= Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:55:45 -0400 'How Brown Made Me Conservative' -- By: Fred Schwarz webmaster@nationalreview.com (Fred Schwarz) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDljZjgyODZkNThjODQ0OTBiNzYyMmU1NzZjOTM0ZmY= David Klinghoffer, an NRO contributor and occasional <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzkzMzk3OGJkNjJkM2YyZjJjYjlkMzM5NjBjY2FmZDQ=">Derbyshire antagonist</a>, writes about how <a href="http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/content/view/1893/40/">attending Brown University</a> turned him from a secular liberal into an Orthodox Jewish conservative. It happened in the mid-1980s, but many of his experiences will sound familiar to Phi Beta Cons readers: <blockquote> I became the lone and reviled conservative columnist for the Brown Daily Herald. In my inaugural column, I wrote about an experience I’d had at the Third World Center. One afternoon, Tamara and I had wandered in and discovered that President Howard Swearer was in the building, about to have a meeting with students. We ambled down the hall to the entrance of the room where the meeting would take place, only to be stopped by a young woman. She looked us up and down. “Sorry, you can’t come in,” she said, adding that because Tamara and I were not “Third World” students, we were not welcome. We were barred from entering a university facility because we were white. . . . After the article appeared in the Herald, I returned to my room in Andrews Hall to find obscene graffiti on my door: F**K YOUR RACIST A**. Students poured forth enraged letters to the editor, almost every one condemning me. Because I was a resident counselor for a group of freshmen living in the basement of Andrews, the dean in charge of first-year students called me into her office to chastise me. As I understood it, I stood accused of racism for protesting racism. Subsequently, the dean appointed a student committee to oversee my counseling. The last name of the undergraduate who headed the committee was Kafka, proof that God, or possibly the dean of first-year students, had a wicked sense of humor. </blockquote> (The article is from Brown’s alumni magazine; it appeared last year, which I didn’t notice until I had finished writing this.) <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDljZjgyODZkNThjODQ0OTBiNzYyMmU1NzZjOTM0ZmY= Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:10 -0400 Tear Down the Wall -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWY0YzRiZDY3ZWM0ODBkMDk3YmI1MjNiYWUwNTMwMDc= Young America's Foundations comemorates <a href="http://www.yaf.org/twentiethanniversaryofberlinwall.aspx">the fall of the Berlin Wall</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWY0YzRiZDY3ZWM0ODBkMDk3YmI1MjNiYWUwNTMwMDc= Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:09:19 -0400 Do Professors Matter? -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzI3YzFmMmQxZDBjZWQwNjNlNzI5MGJhYmNiNGUxMTk= <div>To Peter Katopes's probing <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/10/30/katopes">question</a>, I respond: The truly wise ones always did and always will.</div> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzI3YzFmMmQxZDBjZWQwNjNlNzI5MGJhYmNiNGUxMTk= Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:30:11 -0400 I Am Not Making This Up -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjhlYjgyMjNhZDc5MmNhNjBmNTFjMzEwYjNhMmQ4OTE= <a href="http://www.ethics.harvard.edu/news-and-events/lectures-and-events">Eliot Spitzer will deliver a Harvard lecture on ethics</a>. Hat tip: <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWFhYWFhNWNiNzgwOWU2MDAyODFlYWNjNDgyZDBmNjQ=">K Lo</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjhlYjgyMjNhZDc5MmNhNjBmNTFjMzEwYjNhMmQ4OTE= Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:01:53 -0400 Will Obama Walk Duncan's Talk? -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTA3ZjIwZWMzNmJiY2RiYmNkNjBkYTk1N2Y0YTY1YjY= <div>I agree with Paul Greenberg, who <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulGreenberg/2009/10/27/teacher_miseducation">writes at Townhall</a> that the nation's new secretary of education, Arne Duncan, displays an impressive understanding of our educational woes, for example, in his explanations of why we need charter schools and better teachers.</div> <div> </div> <div>But to what avail his wisdom if his boss, President Obama, continues to take such actions as eliminating a voucher program for those most in need of it in D.C.?</div> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTA3ZjIwZWMzNmJiY2RiYmNkNjBkYTk1N2Y0YTY1YjY= Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:01:05 -0400 Maine and the Yawning Gulf Between Academics and the Public -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzRkYWNmYjdkNzg1NTkxMDExZWZjM2RlNzExM2U5NDg= Is there any better example of the yawning gulf between the academic and mainstream cultures than the same-sex-marriage debate? Out in the "real world," the people <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/03/gay-marriage-vote-close-maine/">have spoken</a> about as clearly as citizens of a democracy can speak. The Associated Press reported Maine's results this way: <blockquote> Voters in the northeastern state of Maine repealed a state law that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed, dealing the gay rights movement a heartbreaking defeat in the corner of the country most supportive of gay marriage. Gay marriage has now lost in every single state -- 31 in all -- in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine -- known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate -- and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign. </blockquote> But in academia, support for traditional values is viewed, well, differently. In Los Angeles, <a href="http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/pressrelease.aspx?cid=4823">a student is shouted down by his own professor</a> and threatened with expulsion for quoting a dictionary definition of marriage. In Michigan, a counseling student is literally <a href="http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/pressrelease.aspx?cid=4899">thrown out of her program</a> when she is unwilling to morally affirm same-sex relationships. In Missouri, a social-work student was <a href="http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/pressrelease.aspx?cid=3904">ordered to change her values</a> when she refused to write a state representative in support of homosexual adoption. In Georgia, a public university <a href="http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/pressrelease.aspx?cid=4492">violated the Establishment Clause</a> by literally teaching its students that those who have moral objections to same-sex sexual behavior are comparable to those who used the Bible to justify slavery. In other words, academia -- allegedly a haven for civilized debate on the great moral and cultural issues of our time -- has decided who's right and who's wrong and is enforcing its decision with greater zeal than most churches and political parties. As academics survey the political landscape, will they grow more tolerant of opposing views, or less? I'm guessing less -- as they will view the results in Maine (and everywhere else) as a clarion call to redouble their efforts rather than reconsider their dogma. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzRkYWNmYjdkNzg1NTkxMDExZWZjM2RlNzExM2U5NDg= Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:48:09 -0400 Does Tenure Threaten Academic Freedom? -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjgwODllNjM2NDQ4N2M2YTQxNDg2NGQ4ZWUxZmE3YWM= Professor Mark Kingwell <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/10/20/kingwell">answers</a> in the affirmative, blaming self-reproducing senior faculty and calling the process "conservative." <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjgwODllNjM2NDQ4N2M2YTQxNDg2NGQ4ZWUxZmE3YWM= Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:47:53 -0400 Prominent Norwegian University to Vote on Israel Boycott -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjE2YjY4N2JjYTgwY2JkNjY4YWYzN2MxYmZlNjNiOTY= <div class="smallTxt140" style="margin: 15px 0pt;">In a move that would be the first of its kind at a European university, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256799075128&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">reports</a> the Jerusalem Press, the governing board of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) will vote next week on a proposal to boycott all Israeli academic institutions and their representatives. </div> Among those protesting the proposed boycott are NTNU professor Bjørn Alsberg, who argues that it it not "the role of the university . . . to make political statements on behalf of everybody [at the institution]" and that if the university wields a "boycott as a weapon . . . [it] would also have to be critical towards other countries violating human rights." University of Haifa's Rector, Prof. Yossi Ben-Artzi, states that "academic boycotts serve only to harm academic freedom, impede intellectual advancement, and offend universal values." And, in a letter to the president of NTNU's Board of Directors, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's director for international relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, writes -- judiciously: "Never since [Vidkun] Quisling [a Norwegian army officer and politician who collaborated with Nazi forces in Norway] has there been such academic prejudice in Norway, and never since Hitler has any University rector in Europe granted it his personal blessing." The Board should reject this boycott. Hat tip: Winfield Myers. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjE2YjY4N2JjYTgwY2JkNjY4YWYzN2MxYmZlNjNiOTY= Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:23:38 -0400 Re: The Power of Race -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODhmMDcyOTM4MjliZmNjNjc2YzNhMThmOWVkMThkYWM= I haven't read the book yet either (another pro-diversity book recently landed on my desk: Diversity's Promise for Higher Education by Daryl Smith; it's hard to keep up), but what I wish the people who keep demanding racial preferences at elite schools would explain is what 's so darned important about going to one of those "elite" schools. The courses aren't taught better just because the faculty is loaded with "academic stars." If anything, it goes the other way. Students at schools where the professors actually handle most of the teaching are likely to get more out of a course than at schools where the profs are mainly preoccupied with their publications. I don't think the mania for admissions preferences is really about the students. Rather, it's about the academic administrators. It makes them feel good about themselves to believe that their social engineering matters a lot. When mean people like Roger Clegg say that they ought to drop racial preferences, that's like telling them to stop playing make believe and grow up. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODhmMDcyOTM4MjliZmNjNjc2YzNhMThmOWVkMThkYWM= Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:11:40 -0400 U. of Chicago President Sparks Debate -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWJlZmVlNjI1N2VkZjQxZjA5NmEwMjcxNmUyODhjMmY= <a title="http://www.mindingthecampus.com/" href="http://www.mindingthecampus.com/">Minding the Campus</a> has just posted a forum on the future of academic freedom in which I participate, along with Peter Sacks, Erin O'Connor, Maurice Black, and John K. Wilson. We respond to University of Chicago president Richard Zimmer’s 10/21 speech “What is Academic Freedom For?” here: "<a title="http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2009/11/post_9.html" href="http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2009/11/post_9.html">Is Academic Freedom In Trouble?</a>" <h3></h3> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWJlZmVlNjI1N2VkZjQxZjA5NmEwMjcxNmUyODhjMmY= Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:22:17 -0400 Disparate Bureaucratic Impact -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjQ2NTU3ZDA2OTI5NzQwNzFmYzQxODU0YWM4MDFhYzg= For many years now, I've become increasingly aware of -- and agitated by -- what is best termed "disparate bureaucratic impact." Simply put, it's the common university practice of using the bureaucratic process to help leftist students fund their message while placing miles of red tape between conservatives and university funds. In response to <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmU1Mjk4OWFhNjE3ZWI1MTI5YzM3ZTlmOTZhNmQ5YWU=">my recent post</a> on the unconstitutional student-fee system at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I received the following from a Michigan alum: <blockquote> When I was in grad school at the University of Michigan, I was elected to serve on Rackham Student Government, the graduate school student government. Pretty much all we did was hand out money (from “student activity fees”) to student groups. . . . I noticed that when some wacky, off-the-wall, lefty group came to Rackham Student Government to ask for money, it was a pretty much rubber-stamped “yes.” When certain other groups did, namely, conservative groups, Jewish groups, Christian groups, they were made to jump through ALL the hoops. They HAD to show that a certain percentage of the people who would benefit from the event for which money was being sought were Rackham (graduate) Students. They HAD to show where the rest of their funding was coming. They HAD to show their budget. (Whenever Jewish organizations asked for money, the discussion ALWAYS devolved to “Well, the Jewish Community in Ann Arbor already has a lot of money; they can get it from them . . .”) Most members of the RSG were looking for reasons to say “NO” to certain student groups (i.e., the Christi[an], Jewish and conservative groups). For other student groups (the wacky, off-the-wall, lefty groups), most members of RSG didn’t want to hear a reason to say, “NO.” So even though not a single member of a student dance troupe was in the graduate school, and the group had no well-thought-out plan on funding or any sort of budget, the vote was to give them money to them for a trip to Cuba. (“Because when they come back, grad student might benefit from attending a performance.”) But when grad students were fully 15 percent of a Jewish group that was seeking funding to send some students to an AIPAC conference, the answer was “NO” because “it wouldn’t provide a sufficient benefit to graduate students at the University of Michigan.” </blockquote> <blockquote> </blockquote> What should conservative students take from tales like this? First, be persistent. When you (eventually) jump through all the bureaucratic hoops, the university will face a decision on the merits. At that point, you can't lose: You'll either get your program funded or you'll have a gift-wrapped First Amendment challenge. Second, document everything. And that means paying attention to the scrutiny (or lack thereof) given to other groups. Student governments may enjoy rubber stamping liberal applications now, but those rubber stamps are much less enjoyable later, when they're asked about double standards under oath. Finally, don't be discouraged. The establishment's bureaucratic guardians count on you giving up and moving on. You have to outlast and outwork them, and that sometimes means creating institutions (<a href="http://www.collegiatenetwork.org/">like student newspapers</a>) that will live on long after you're gone. The law mandates viewpoint neutrality. Students can't let administrations reverse through red tape rights that have been won through litigation. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjQ2NTU3ZDA2OTI5NzQwNzFmYzQxODU0YWM4MDFhYzg= Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:39:03 -0400 'The Power of Race' -- By: Roger Clegg webmaster@nationalreview.com (Roger Clegg) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGE1ZWFmMDdhNjMzYTRiMTA3OGViMDU4ZWI0ZGFkNjg= That’s the title of <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/03/elite">a long article</a> today in Inside Higher Ed, which discusses a new book, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0691141606">No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in </a><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0691141606">Elite College Admission and Campus Life</a>, by Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford. Doesn’t sound to me like there’s a lot of new ground covered in the book, though it sounds less knee-jerk-left than is usual, and the new data in the book show what the old data in other books and studies have shown. So here’s the comment I posted (“Racial discrimination is just not worth it”): <blockquote> There are two forests here that should not be obscured by the trees: First, there is a lot of racial discrimination in admissions taking place; and, second, the purported beneficiaries of such discrimination perform significantly worse academically than other students. The justification for such discrimination is the supposed educational benefits of a racially diverse student body. Those benefits are dubious, but even if they exist, they are simply not worth the costs of racial discrimination, namely: It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination; it creates resentment; it stigmatizes the so-called beneficiaries in the eyes of their classmates, teachers, and themselves, as well as future employers, clients, and patients; it fosters a victim mindset, removes the incentive for academic excellence, and encourages separatism; it compromises the academic mission of the university and lowers the overall academic quality of the student body; it creates pressure to discriminate in grading and graduation; it breeds hypocrisy within the school; it encourages a scofflaw attitude among college officials; it mismatches students and institutions, guaranteeing failure or academic underperformance for many of the former; it papers over the real social problem of why so many African Americans and Latinos are academically uncompetitive; and it gets states and schools involved in unsavory activities like deciding which racial and ethnic minorities will be favored and which ones not, and how much blood is needed to establish group membership. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGE1ZWFmMDdhNjMzYTRiMTA3OGViMDU4ZWI0ZGFkNjg= Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:12:53 -0400 The First Assassin -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzQxMDdhM2MyZTY1OWI4NzA4MTNmNjYwMTUyZDZhZTI= Please pardon this interruption, which has nothing to do with higher ed. My novel, The First Assassin, is now available. It's a historical thriller. Here's what Vince Flynn says: "An excellent book--it's like The Day of the Jackal set in 1861 Washington." We're still in a "soft launch" phase, so it's not listed on Amazon.com yet. But it's available for order and books are shipping right now. <a href="http://www.heymiller.com/?page_id=668">More information is here</a>, on my personal website. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzQxMDdhM2MyZTY1OWI4NzA4MTNmNjYwMTUyZDZhZTI= Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:07:59 -0400 Could Higher-ed Funding Become a Political Issue? -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWU4YTdmNzI5NjkxOWI1YjNjOGI4MzhjZDMzNDMwOWE= A hat tip to Tom Shuford for sending me <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIcfMMVcYZg&feature=email <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIcfMMVcYZg&feature=email> ">this video</a>, in which Peter Schiff, a prospective rival for the Senate seat now held by Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd, discusses the impact of governmental subsidies for college attendance. Schiff gets it right: The reason college now costs significantly more than it did in the days before the federal government started to "help" students afford it is that college administrators are eager to reel in as much money as they can. He also has a skeptical view on the G.I. Bill, which is often crediting with "creating the middle class." That's not even remotely true. There was a large and growing American middle class prior to World War II, and the country did not lack for talented professionals. The difference was that nearly all of them learned their fields without going to college. Doing a B.A. prior to starting to learn an occupation doesn't make you any better at it; it merely adds considerably to the cost. Apparently, Schiff's rivals are saying that he's "anti-education" and hoping to make that smear stick with clueless voters. I think Schiff is sharp enough to turn the tables on them, but he could do that better if he'd read my "<a href="http://www.popecenter.org/inquiry_papers/article.html?id=1725">Overselling of Higher Education</a>" paper and check out Phi Beta Cons regularly. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWU4YTdmNzI5NjkxOWI1YjNjOGI4MzhjZDMzNDMwOWE= Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:36:30 -0400 'A Government of Laws, and Not of Men' -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTkwYzU5Y2EwNTEzYTU5NTQxMzZmMWVkODIyMmU2OGY= . . . necessary, as John Adams said. Many moons ago, while a trustee at the State University of New York, I extolled the benefits of requiring that SUNY's professors post their syllabi for all to see. This did not sit well with SUNY's "shareholders," including my fellow board members. Good for Texas to have required such posting, as George <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTNmOTZlMGQ1NDJjYTIzN2FlM2NmMmQ0NjMzYmY3NTU=">notes</a>, but too bad such transparency has to be mandated by law rather than provided voluntarily. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTkwYzU5Y2EwNTEzYTU5NTQxMzZmMWVkODIyMmU2OGY= Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:39:26 -0400 Harvard's Honor and Shame -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmExMjFlZGY4MmMwZTg2YzcxOTQ2YmM5NzMxNzQ5ODI= Did you know that apart from the service academies, Harvard has produced more Medal of Honor recipients than any other college or university? Neither did I, before reading <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703932904574511910510146196.html">Bill McGurn's column</a> this morning. What a remarkable tradition. Unfortunately, Harvard hasn't allowed ROTC on campus for more than a generation. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmExMjFlZGY4MmMwZTg2YzcxOTQ2YmM5NzMxNzQ5ODI= Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:37:44 -0400 E-mailbag -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWY1MDg2MDc2YzZkMDRmNGI5NjU1YjZjZjdhMDJjZjc= A reply to <a href="http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGI3MmI2NjRkYjA5NWJlYjQzZjg1ZDg4MzBiZjBlM2I=">last night's article posting</a> about conservative professors: <blockquote> I'm an adjunct at a large state university ... I teach a media law course to communications undergraduates. I gave them the link to the <a href="http://www.thefire.org/">FIRE website</a>, and now I have students showing up to class on a daily basis wanting to talk about the latest atrocity at XYZ university. Last week, a student had a question about the castle doctrine and gun rights, and the discussion that followed was so mature and articulate, I could not have been more proud. In a scary academic world, there are moments, I promise. And I'm doing everything I can to at least introduce scholarly concervative thought into the mix. It's scary to think of the academic environment on the whole. I'm an attorney for my "day job" and cringe at the thought of trying to make it as a full-time professor. Practicing law? No big deal. Academia? Now that's cutthroat. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWY1MDg2MDc2YzZkMDRmNGI5NjU1YjZjZjdhMDJjZjc= Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:02:03 -0400 Bad Ideas Die Hard -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTI4MTVlMTE3NzQ4ZWZhZTg4NjU0YzhiZTBjMjc2NzU= Left Coast Conservative <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/blog/id.3612/blog_detail.asp">revisits</a> behavior on U.S. campuses in the 1930s and finds more of the same today: <blockquote> The simple lesson from examining the behavior on American universities in the 1930s is that that the appeasement, the support for totalitarian aggression and terror, the academic bigotry, and the anti-Semitism that today fill so many American universities were all predominant forces on many campuses in the 1930s, especially at America’s elite schools, including on much of the Ivy League. The Chomskies, Coles, Beinins and Massads of today could easily be fit into the campus atmosphere of the 1930s. </blockquote> <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTI4MTVlMTE3NzQ4ZWZhZTg4NjU0YzhiZTBjMjc2NzU= Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:59:41 -0400 Boutique Colleges Can Thrive -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWQyNmIyYzVkNDYzYjM0NGIyYmNlN2RkZWY1OTY3MDg= My Pope Center colleague Jay Schalin writes <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2253">here</a> about the difficulties that very small colleges face, but also about their successes at finding niches in the huge educational marketplace and thriving. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWQyNmIyYzVkNDYzYjM0NGIyYmNlN2RkZWY1OTY3MDg= Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:58:56 -0400 Aw, Shucks -- By: Candace de Russy webmaster@nationalreview.com (Candace de Russy) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGRkYTdmODk2ZTQ3OGU1NmNiOWNmMGMxYTlkNDYzOTA= In an <a href="http://www.cfr.org/publication/20561/tragedy_of_palestinian_divisions.html">interview</a> sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, out-and-out declares it "unsatisfactory" that Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization, is "too weak" to have fired a rocket in almost nine months since the end of Israel's attack on Gaza in January. Herewith yet another example of our elite universities evenhandedly at work. Hat tip: Winfield Myers. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGRkYTdmODk2ZTQ3OGU1NmNiOWNmMGMxYTlkNDYzOTA= Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:38:17 -0400 Pariahs, Martyrs -- and Fighters Back -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGI3MmI2NjRkYjA5NWJlYjQzZjg1ZDg4MzBiZjBlM2I= Four years ago, I wrote an article for National Review on the plight of conservative professors, complete with horror stories from DePaul, the University of Colorado, Smith College, Columbia, UNLV, and Elizabethtown College. <a href="http://www.heymiller.com/?p=720">It's now posted on my personal website</a>. Read it and weep. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGI3MmI2NjRkYjA5NWJlYjQzZjg1ZDg4MzBiZjBlM2I= Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:00:29 -0400 Takeover on Campus -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODczYTVlNmM3Y2NiYzY5N2FmNTk2YTdiZGRhYTkzZTU= On the homepage, Stephen Spruiell <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZThmNjk1ZWVmN2Y2YWVlNjYyYzA5ZmYyMDVhMTVhZDk=">takes on</a> the Obama administration's plan to strong-arm private lenders. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODczYTVlNmM3Y2NiYzY5N2FmNTk2YTdiZGRhYTkzZTU= Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:10:43 -0400 Academic Truth in Advertising -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTNmOTZlMGQ1NDJjYTIzN2FlM2NmMmQ0NjMzYmY3NTU= In the Pope Center's Friday <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/news/article.html?id=2252">piece</a>, my colleague David Koon discusses a new law in Texas that requires professors to post their syllabi before students register for classes. The purpose of the law is to prevent students from experiencing the unhappy surprise of ending up in a course whose title sounded good but is actually about things the student doesn't want to waste time on. Too bad that some profs aren't really forthcoming about the content of their courses and need this push. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTNmOTZlMGQ1NDJjYTIzN2FlM2NmMmQ0NjMzYmY3NTU= Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:50:21 -0400 UNC Radicals Intolerant of Free Speech by Others -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODczYjUxZmFmMTliZTNmMGQzYTQzYjU5MmEyODY2ZGI= One day last April, most of the copies of the UNC conservative publication Carolina Journal were stolen. Who dunnit? No evidence was at hand and the matter was forgotten -- until the school's Students for a Democratic Society chapter posted some photos on its Facebook page showing beyond any doubt where the copies of Carolina Journal had gone. They were on the floor of the house of the SDS chapter's president, evidently serving in place of a dropcloth during painting. Here is a <a href="http://crdaily.com/2009/10/sds-president-dth-columnist-and-candidate-for-chapel-hill-mayor-implicated-in-theft-of-the-carolina-review/">post</a> about the incident, with the pictures (since taken down from the SDS page, I understand). Maybe the SDS punks don't mind this at all. It might help them land jobs in the Obama regime's dissent-suppression (oops -- "fairness") initiative. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODczYjUxZmFmMTliZTNmMGQzYTQzYjU5MmEyODY2ZGI= Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:18:08 -0400 ACTA on Illinois -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTFhMGEwMTBlZWYyNWNhMDBmNzdmNzU4MDgxZDZkMDk= The organization sums up the state of public higher ed in the Land of Lincoln <a href="https://www.goacta.org/publications/PDFs/ForthePeopleExecSum.pdf">here</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTFhMGEwMTBlZWYyNWNhMDBmNzdmNzU4MDgxZDZkMDk= Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:44:07 -0400 Before Giving to Your Alma Mater -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDJlZDVlN2I4Y2U4NGU0MzNhYzgxNjc5NDY4ZGE1MTg= Read Todd Zywicki's piece from National Review's education issue (no longer on newsstands). It's now <a href="http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=ZWI4N2JmMjMyNzAzMGM5OTNhMzg0Njc0Yzk2NDMyNDM=">online</a> for free, and subscribers can read the whole issue <a href="http://nrd.nationalreview.com/?q=MjAwOTEwMDU=">here</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDJlZDVlN2I4Y2U4NGU0MzNhYzgxNjc5NDY4ZGE1MTg= Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:04:07 -0400 Shameless Plug, Part Two -- By: Robert VerBruggen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert VerBruggen) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTBjOTE1Yzk0NmM5OWNiMjI1YzQwMDYzOWMzMTNlNGI= Detroit talk-radio host Frank Beckmann was kind enough to feature me as a guest this morning. We spoke about the idea of sending fewer kids to college, and you can listen to or download the conversation <a href="http://www.wjr.net/Article.asp?id=%201565747&spid=6525">here</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTBjOTE1Yzk0NmM5OWNiMjI1YzQwMDYzOWMzMTNlNGI= Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:34:20 -0400 Severe Critique of Goldin and Katz Book -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzJhY2JhNjEyNWQyNjBkYWRhMjZkZDFiODgwMTFhZWY= I just came across an article by Arnold Kling and John Merrifield, "<a href="http://www.aier.org/ejw/archive/comments/doc_view/4019-ejw-200901?tmpl=component&format=raw">Goldin and Katz and Education Policy Failings in Historical Perspective</a>," published last January in Econ Journal Watch. (Hat tip to Dan Klein!) The book has been widely cited as showing a need for the U.S. to push for increasing college attendance and graduation rates. Kling and Merrifield give it some rough treatment. They point out, inter alia, that Goldin and Katz are much to eager to blame a slowdown in college-graduation rates for increasing income inequality when the deterioration in basic education is a much better explanation. Also, the authors cast doubt on the implicit assumption G and K make that simply going through college does much to increase a student's human capital. As I have been arguing, the degradation of rigor in many college programs (a.k.a. dumbing down) to keep mediocre to weak students happy and enrolled means that those students can get through their college "studies" without having to improve upon the human capital they had at the end of high school. Golden and Katz completely miss the harmful changes that governmentalization (as Kling and Merrifield put it) has brought to education -- and yet they prescribe more governmentalization. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzJhY2JhNjEyNWQyNjBkYWRhMjZkZDFiODgwMTFhZWY= Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:06:10 -0400 Countering the Left -- By: Jane S. Shaw webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jane S. Shaw) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjZjYWQ1Njc3ODQzOGI5Yzg5N2Q3ODFlMWEzNTViY2I= In an important <a href="http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2009/10/rescuing_the_university.html">two-part essay</a> at Minding the Campus, Robert Weissberg offers a plan for countering the leftist dominance of universities. His essay is well worth reading, although he somewhat undercuts his points by the nomenclature he chooses, and he is a bit divisive when he criticizes other approaches and complains about lack of support for his. But perhaps I cavil. In a nutshell, Weissberg recommends what he calls a “covert CIA approach” which “takes its inspiration from the agency's work to undermine post-WW II European communism.” (The difficulty here is his choice of words -- the CIA is a government agency, but Weissberg is talking about philanthropy, not government -- and, really, many individuals, forces, and entities contributed to the downfall of European Communism. But don’t be too distracted by that.) The content is this: To be successful, academic scholars must publish, and today’s universities promote, subsidize, and nurture mostly leftist, statist, and nonsensical scholarship. He asks philanthropists to support conservative/free-market research by: supporting individual scholars (the Earhart Foundation is an example, but it is “sunsetting”), subsidizing books and journals, funding academic conferences, and networking through a central website that includes links to many opportunities for the conservative or free-market scholar. “It is a familiar sports farm team model: cultivate young talent, often on the cheap,” says Weissberg. Great ideas. Philanthropists are already doing some of them, and others are worth exploring. I don't see why this policy has to be covert, though. Perhaps someone will tell me. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjZjYWQ1Njc3ODQzOGI5Yzg5N2Q3ODFlMWEzNTViY2I= Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:34:58 -0400 The Right Role for the Federal Government in Higher Ed -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjgzNTM4MTQ2MGUxMzM0ZmU3MjhmODM0MmI2MzVkNjU= Writing at Cato's <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/10/27/the-constitution-not-that-old-thing/">At Liberty blog</a>, Neal McCluskey dives into the question of the proper role for the federal government to play in higher education. He cuts the Gordian Knot: Under the Constitution, no branch of the federal government is empowered to do anything with respect to education. He gives the best refutation to the idea that the "General Welfare" clause was intended to allow the government plenty of latitude to do whatever it deems necessary for our supposed good. As Madison wrote, there would have been no point in putting in all of the restrictions on government power if one clause was meant to say to the politicians, "Do what you think is good." That argument settles it for me. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjgzNTM4MTQ2MGUxMzM0ZmU3MjhmODM0MmI2MzVkNjU= Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:02:39 -0400 Gaming the System: University Bad Faith and the Problem of Mootness -- By: David French webmaster@nationalreview.com (David French) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWMxMjU4NDJlODQyMmI0ODhkOWNmM2FlMDVjMTBlMjY= Yesterday, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Federal-Court-Dismisses-Appeal/8617/">dismissed an appeal</a> and <a href="http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200813332ord.pdf">ordered</a> the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Brothers Under Christ, a Christian fraternity that had sued officials at the University of Florida after the university refused to recognize the fraternity because it "discriminated" on the basis of religion. This "discrimination" of course was nothing more than the desire of a Christian fraternity to have, well, Christian members. In this case, the District Court denied the fraternity's request for an injunction, and the fraternity appealed. The Eleventh Circuit granted an injunction pending appeal (which permitted the group to operate on campus) and then set the case for oral arguments. After oral argument (an argument in which the court seemed skeptical of the university's position), the university changed its policy, recognized the fraternity, and asked that the case be dismissed as moot. Yesterday, the court granted the university's motion, stating (essentially) there was no further need for litigation after the university recognized the group. It is becoming increasingly common for universities to defend unconstitutional policies (sometimes for years), make changes at the last possible moment, and then seek dismissal of a case. Just last week, ADF Center for Academic Freedom attorneys argued a case against Arizona State University (retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor <a href="http://speakupmovement.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/asu-students-for-life-case-draws-hon-sandra-day-oconnor/">presided</a>) in which the university changed its policies (for the second time) after ASU Students for Life filed their appellate brief and now seek dismissal for mootness. In 2007, Temple University sought to moot Christian DeJohn's speech code challenge by changing policies on the eve of the court-imposed summary judgment deadline. Fortunately, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/DeJohnDecision.pdf">recognized the obvious</a>: Policies "voluntarily" changed can be changed back -- especially when the university won't concede to the illegality of the old policy. Federal judges sometimes seem to take at face value the completely non-binding assurances of counsel that policy changes, once made, won't be "un-made." Yet one doesn't have to reach far back into history to find examples of colleges not just reinstating policies but actually breaching <a href="http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/search/SearchResults.aspx?mid=860&words=shippensburg">settlement</a> <a href="http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/pressrelease.aspx?cid=4238">agreements</a> to do so. While I have seen universities violate even settlement agreements, I have yet to see them defy federal injunctions. Further, when a case is mooted, students' constitutional rights depend almost entirely on institutional memory and good faith. What happens six years from now, when an activist asks the University of Florida why they recognize "discriminatory Christian groups"? Will the university -- which has never conceded the unconstitutionality of its original policy -- test the waters again? History suggests they will, and that they'll be willing to drag their students through years of litigation before "voluntarily" complying with the Constitution. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWMxMjU4NDJlODQyMmI0ODhkOWNmM2FlMDVjMTBlMjY= Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:28:09 -0400 Mandating Ideological Conformity -- By: George Leef webmaster@nationalreview.com (George Leef) http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2ViOTJjZTM0YjkxYzcyMWZjODYxZjIzZGNjMzMwMDc= In this week's Pope Center <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/clarion_call/article.html?id=2251">Clarion Call,</a> Virginia Association of Scholars president Carey Stronach writes about the push by administrators at Virginia Tech to make conformity to their "diversity religion" a key element in the promotion of faculty members. Anyone who doesn't display "diversity accomplishments" is apt to be looked upon with disfavor. Would any Virginia Tech professor be so bold as to criticize the diversity mania, saying perhaps that it's a foolish distraction from the real business of education? Doing so would be a dangerous move. Whether professors have any "diversity accomplishments" or not should be as irrelevant as whether they have "religious accomplishments" or "chess accomplishments" or "gardening accomplishments." If the administrators involved cannot see that subordinating real academic work to their "diversity" crusade is inappropriate, they should be summarily replaced. <hr width=100% size=2> http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2ViOTJjZTM0YjkxYzcyMWZjODYxZjIzZGNjMzMwMDc= Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:57:15 -0400