Faculty Coalition against the Exploitation of College Athletes

A group of faculty from across the United States has formed an organization called College Athletes Rights and Empowerment Faculty Coalition (CARE-FC). The group has released a statement. Here are the introductory paragraphs: “The multibillion-dollar college-sport industry is built on the work of an unnamed and unrecognized labor force, the majority of who are racial…

Epistocracy– the Alternative to Democracy Being Promoted by Those in Koch-Funded Academic Positions

Here are the opening paragraphs of an article written by Natalie Schulhof for the Fourth Estate, the student newspaper at George Mason University: “Garett Jones, associate economics professor at George Mason University, says that there should be less democracy in the United States, according to a talk he gave on Feb. 24. “Jones says that…

The Case for the Public Intellectual as Gadfly

Andrew Bacevich, political-science professor at Boston University, has posted a new essay, “Rationalizing Lunacy: The Intellectual as Servant of the State.” It’s a look back at the role of the public intellectual within the U.S. federal government since the time of the New Deal, focusing particularly on their impact on foreign policy, the Vietnam War in specific…

Making the Case for the Penalties to Syracuse’s Intercollegiate Athletics Programs and Making the Case That They Are Unfair

There does not seem to be much disagreement about what has occurred over the last decade to decade and a half in the intercollegiate athletics program at Syracuse University. But there are very significant disagreements between the NCAA and the university administration about what is responsible and about what punishments are appropriate. I think that…

Truth and Media

On June 24, 1968 (I know the date thanks to Wikipedia), I walked from the Capitol in Washington, DC to the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) headquarters at 14th and U with a bunch of SCLC activists. Only three of us on the small march were white and I was just a sixteen-year-old kid. By…

Are We All a Little Bit Bill O'Reilly?

In November of 1990, I was in Togo’s capital city, Lomé, finishing up the paperwork for the close of my Peace Corps service. A friend and I, as we usually did in the morning when we were in the city, had found a street stand serving coffee, bread and eggs to people who would eat…

In Praise of Scott Walker—An Annotated Response to a Wall Street Journal News Story

Colleges are usually at the forefront of radical politics [The word “radical” suggests extreme and abrupt change driven by ideological rather than practical concerns. These days there is much more political radicalism on the Far Right than anywhere on the Left], but when it comes to their own privileges they become feudal empires [Loaded language…