As the first numbers on the composition of incoming freshman classes trickle in next month, many colleges and universities take substantial credit for increasing their pool of minority enrollment. They link their claim to ambitious and noble goals usually expressed as a pillar of the college’s strategic plan. The higher education community is right to…
One often hears complaints that legislators, especially at the federal level, court donations from powerful interests, introduce and seek to advance legislation that serves those interests, and then, when they leave office, continue to promote those interests as paid lobbyists. Although the monies involved might be somewhat smaller, depending on the state, the same thing…
This is a transcript of President Obama’s remarks at last night’s White House Correspondents Dinner. _________________________ Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the White House Correspondents’ dinner. A night when Washington celebrates itself. Somebody’s got to do it. And welcome to the fourth quarter of my presidency. It’s true — that’s Michelle cheering. The fact is…
As culled by The Hill and the Washington Post: _________________________ – On her ambiguous ethnicity: “I’m sort of a mashup of all the people in Hillary Clinton’s announcement video.” – “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m gonna go easy on you people. I’m gonna go easy on you people because my brain is…
The faculty at Miami University in Ohio have formed an advocacy chapter, initially consisting of about 100 of the university’s 700 full-time faculty. The formation of the chapter will be marked formally with an on-campus event on April 29, featuring a talk by AAUP president Rudy Fichtenbaum. An article in the Dayton Daily News notes…
George Mason University (GMU) has gotten a lot of attention this week, with FIRE declaring that GMU “has eliminated all of its speech codes, earning the highest, ‘green light’ rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.” Unfortunately, this isn’t true. GMU continues to have a Student Code of Conduct that’s flawed in many…
Yesterday, I posted without comment the text of a bill proposed by Iowa State Senator Mark Chelgren. The bill is so absurd that it had absolutely no chance of becoming law. I posted it to draw attention to the increasing legislative attacks on teachers throughout the country. I succeeded far beyond my expectations—over 3,000 Facebook…
This post is an elaboration on a message that was sent to the members of our chapter at Wright State University, which itself was collaboratively drafted and developed from a message distributed by the chapter leadership at the University of Cincinnati. (In these kinds of things, it is “collaboration” and “sharing,” not “plagiarism.”) We have…
Since 1992 the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression at the University of Virginia has celebrated the birth and ideals of its namesake by calling attention each year to those who would censor free expression. Announced on or near April 13—the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson—the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as…