Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Higher Education Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 11, 2017 25 Comments
At Legal Insurrection we have focused on higher education as much, if not more (I'm not taking the time to count 8 years of posts), than any other subject. We even had a website for several years, College Insurrection, focused on higher ed. Now we have consolidated our higher ed coverage at Legal Insurrection. You can click on the College Insurrection Tag to see some (not all) of our posts. Try also our Free Speech and Academic Freedom tags, as well as specific tags for colleges and universities like Bowdoin College, Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell, CUNY, Evergreen State College, Hamilton College, Harvard, Harvard Law, Oberlin, UC-Davis, UCLA, and Vassar College. If you are in a mood to throw up in your mouth a little, also scroll through our BDS tag, much of which concerns higher ed.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 02, 2017 10 Comments
We've been reporting on the horrific results of decades of progressive higher education, and while it's one thing to connect the dots and understand that radicals in academia are influencing college students, it's quite another to see how the sausage is made.  The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has released a study that concludes that college common reading lists are designed to make activists, and it's quite fascinating to see the curtain pulled back. The NAS study demonstrates that the nation's common readings list is "designed to indoctrinate students with progressive propaganda."  The assigned books all share common traits:  they are non-academic, adhere to a single political agenda (progressive), are parochial, homogenous, and mediocre.

Posted by Erich Prince on February 23, 2017 25 Comments
Recently, the Yale Corporation renamed one of its residential colleges for computer scientist Grace Hopper, dropping the name of John C. Calhoun, whose political philosophy included a defense of slavery. The decision came after months of campus protest over honoring Calhoun whose beliefs many find abhorrent. Tampering with the historical record, however has its dangerous side. Similar demands for renaming buildings honoring historical figures have been made at other institutions including Princeton University, where students took issue with the use of President Woodrow Wilson's name because he did not share modern sentiments on race and supported certain segregationist practices.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 23, 2017 41 Comments
I will never fully understand the irrational fear of inanimate objects that leads people to do things like this. A handful of instructors, mostly grad students, from the University of Texas are holding office hours in a bar after the state implemented campus carry laws. They're hoping gun-free zones will keep them safe. Under the Lone Star State's campus carry laws, only licensed concealed carry permit holders are legally allowed to pack heat on participating college campuses, and even then, only on certain parts of campus.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 23, 2017 14 Comments
Joe Scarborough went on an epic rant this morning against liberal academia and the way it shuts down and ultimately radicalizes conservative students who grow frustrated with being stifled in the classroom. The segment began as an effort to explain Stephen Miller's personality, as Morning Joe cited a column by Andrew Sullivan in which he speaks of conservative students who are often "mocked, isolated, and anathematized on campus" and often react by adopting "brattish and obnoxious positions just to tick off their SJW peers and teachers."

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 19, 2017 18 Comments
The Department of Education and its sub-agencies appear here to stay (alas), but there is good news.   The "reforms" the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has inflicted—particularly on higher education—over the past eight years may well be in danger. The Office of Civil Rights is a sub-agency within the Department of Education that oversees a range of issues, some invented, that affect K-12 and higher education (and some that don't like ensuring "equal access" to the Boy Scouts and other youth groups.).

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 11, 2017 11 Comments
Democrats are going after Trump's pick for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos because she made financial contributions to FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. FIRE is an outstanding non-partisan organization which defends free speech and due process, among other things, for college students and faculty. Democrats have picked the wrong target. In the words of Professor Jacobson, "That they would try to defame such a great organization to get at her is a sign of how pathetic and dangerous they are."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 25, 2016 32 Comments
We all complain about how leftism has penetrated and taken over just about every conceivable institution, from the media to academia to the federal bureaucracy and political structure. It seems unstoppable. As leftists like to say, it's the arc of history. The writer who uses the pseudonym Zombie at Zombieblog disagrees, and the Trump election is the proof, Trump’s Victory Is a Pivotal Turning Point in Human History.
It's lengthy, and definitely read the whole thing. Here's an excerpt (bold in original):

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 30, 2016 13 Comments
Two Florida universities and the University of Illinois have been battling outbreaks of hand, foot, and mouth disease that involve about three dozen cases in the last couple of months.
According to the National Institutes of Health, about 200,000 people in the U.S. get the disease each year, but Dr. Fenyong Liu, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley, says a lot more than that carry the viruses associated with the disease. “This represents a silent epidemic because people don’t know they have the virus, and we don’t know these people have the virus,” Dr. Liu said. Doctors say the disease is highly contagious, making daycare centers, and now colleges, ideal breeding grounds. “This fecal or oral transmission is really an issue when you have dining hall and all this share the dorm,” Dr. Liu said.

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 23, 2016 7 Comments
Author and commentator Christopher Hitchens passed away in 2011, but his work is still highly revered. Hitchens was smart and walked a fine line between the right and left. He began his career describing himself as a socialist but became very conservative on some issues over time. In terms of academia, he pretty much predicted where we are now all the way back in 1994. In the clip below, he's making an appearance on the Charlie Rose show and he warns of a time when students will think of the university as their mother and father. He also warns against the culture of victimhood. Again, he was way ahead of his time. This is a short but very enlightening clip.

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 07, 2016 4 Comments
Last week, we posted a story about Clemson University in which a student and a man who was not a student were stopped while praying on campus. The administrator who stopped them claimed they weren't in a free speech area. The story went national because free speech is an ongoing issue on college campuses and also because Clemson is a public university, meaning the whole campus is a free speech zone. Campus Reform reports that some students organized to speak out:
Clemson students rally against ‘free speech zones’ Several dozen students and local community members gathered at Clemson University Friday afternoon to protest against the administration for not allowing a man to pray with students.

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 06, 2016 10 Comments
Microaggressions are apparently a big problem at the University of Iowa, especially for black students. That's the only conclusion one could reach based on a new support group offered at the school. The Daily Caller reports:
Iowa Offers Black Students Support Group To Deal With Microaggressions This fall, the University of Iowa is offering black students a weekly support group to help them deal with microaggressions and “deepen their resilient qualities.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 05, 2016 0 Comments

If progressives were allowed to re-write the 10 Commandments, they'd probably include something like: Thou shalt not question rape culture. The College Fix reports: Federal judge who ruled against Brown’s rape investigation targeted by student campaign When Judge Aaron Persky in California gave a convicted student rapist a sentence...

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 05, 2016 1 Comment

Vanderbilt University is on a quest to make students use stupid made-up pronouns like Ze and Zir. This is about controlling the way people speak, plain and simple. The Daily Caller reports: Overpriced Fancypants University Festoons Campus With Absurd ‘Ze, Zir, Zirs’ PRONOUN POSTERS [PHOTO] Vanderbilt University has festooned...

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 05, 2016 53 Comments
The College Republicans at Cornell University have endorsed the Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson. They announced their support for Johnson in a post on Facebook:
Dear Members and Alumni, The Cornell Republicans, as the official representatives of the Republican Party at Cornell, are dedicated to promoting limited government and individual freedom. But our organization does not solely represent the Republican Party. Our first responsibility is to our members: libertarians, moderates, neoconservatives, and everyone in between. We value our ideological diversity and welcome differing perspectives.
Accessibility by WAH