POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH For the June 3rd meeting of Portland State University’s Faculty Senate, twenty-one faculty and staff members submitted the following question for PSU President Ann Cudd: In your remarks to Senate last month and in your email “Evolving Community Expectations” on 5/7/2024, you refer to “vile messages” and to ‘”that kind of…
BY MARJORIE HEINS The disastrous December 5 congressional hearing in which three university presidents were lambasted for allegedly not dealing with antisemitism on campus was a political ambush from the start, and the presidents, instead of blandly acquiescing in some outrageously inappropriate questioning, needed to respond with righteous indignation. The tone was set early on…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY In recent times, university presidents and boards of trustees have not exactly covered themselves in glory. Last week’s news that University of Michigan president Mark Schlissel had engaged in a hypocritical and inappropriate relationship was only the latest example of ignominious behavior on the part of a university leader. Schlissel was fired…
BY NICOLE BRAUN Recently, I was hired to teach one class in the spring for a private Catholic university whose representatives told me in multiple interviews that they are a “social justice university.” In the past couple of years, I have sent out more job applications for teaching positions (and for other work) than you…
BY JOHN K. WiLSON Tony Woodlief in the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 30 offered a conservative critique of free speech absolutism, claiming that “the intolerance prevailing on college campuses isn’t the result of too little speech. It’s a consequence of too much speech.” Woodlief represents a disturbing trend on the right, where a sneer…
BY JOHN K. WILSON On August 7, I happened to read a syndicated column at FrontPageMag by Walter E. Williams, a legendary conservative intellectual and the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University. One paragraph shocked me: Leaders of ISIS and the Taliban have called the recent U.S. trend of angry…
BY MARTIN KICH It is woefully obvious that individual police officers, police departments, and the municipal governments that fund law enforcement and define its responsibilities have a whole host of changes that they need to consider and to make. But the unions that represent police officers need to make at least one very fundamental change.…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This photo taken by Alyson McClaran for Reuters should provoke immediate associations for most readers of this blog: I know that I was immediately fascinated by and moved by the photo. I felt inspired by the nurse’s using his “down time,” which must be especially precious to him and most other…
BY AARON BARLOW Dr. Bruce Gilley, are you trying to pick a fight? You are a professor of Political Science at Portland State University and have penned a disturbing piece, “Was It Good Fortune to be Enslaved by the British Empire?” that appeared on September 30, 2019 on the website of the National Association of…