A critical legal case affecting the academic freedom of professors will be argued on Thursday, December 8 before the 7th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Chicago. Loretta Capeheart is a professor of Justice Studies at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) who alleges that the administration retaliated against her for defending the rights of students protesting…
Glenn Reynolds has a remarkably bad idea for dealing with student loans: Student loans, if they are to continue, should be made dischargeable in bankruptcy after five years — but with the school that received the money on the hook for all or part of the unpaid balance. Up until now, the loan guarantees have…
Now that Newt Gingrich has seized the lead in the Republican presidential race, everyone will start going back to scrutinize his words. And there’s a lot of words. I wrote an entire book about Gingrich, and that was 15 years ago. Since then, Gingrich has said a lot of dumb things, but the most relevant…
Rarely have I read anything on the Chronicle of Higher Education website quite so repulsive as the blog by Diane Auer Jones demanding the firing of New York University professor Andrew Ross on grounds of “educational malpractice” for encouraging students to join the Occupy Student Loan movement. Incredibly, the video of Ross at Occupy Wall…
Back in October, I was speaking at the University of Illinois in the early weeks of Occupy Wall Street, and one thing I recommended to students was creating registered student organizations to turn the energy of the 99% Movement into a permanent force on campuses. Apparently some students at the University of Chicago had the…
The rise of China’s influence in the world includes its connections with American universities. And the Chinese government’s attacks on free speech make this a troubling development for academic freedom. Bloomberg reports on how China is funding Confucius Institutes in America, and seeking to limit academic freedom. When China demanded that a Stanford professorship it…
On November 20, the national Council of the AAUP passed the following resolution: Statement in Support of Free Expression in the University of California On November 9, police officers dispatched by the administration of the University of California, Berkeley violently assaulted students and faculty who were peacefully protesting. The assaults are clearly documented in video…
It’s tough to be a man. That’s the message of male conservatives who worry about how terribly oppressed men are on college campuses facing the evil feminist conspiracy. Even though the people who run universities—presidents, trustees, coaches, even tenured faculty—are overwhelmingly male, we keep getting told this myth about the victimization of men. This week…
You have to say this for George Mason economics professor Daniel Klein: at least he’s willing to admit a mistake. In the Atlantic, Klein discusses his major mea culpa retracting a study last year that he trumpeted as proof that liberals are stupid about economics. Last year, I wrote a lengthy blog post condemning Klein’s…