In this very polarized political environment, it is perhaps not surprising that much of the political rhetoric has crossed the line that distinguishes partisanship and prejudice, discourse and dogma, persuasive argument and demagoguery. It is also not all that surprising that much of the most superheated rhetoric is coming from the Far Right. Politics and…
In a very recent post on guns on campus, I selectively surveyed the statistics on violent crime in the 2012 report on crimes reported on college campuses. I cited the statistics on sexual assaults but noted that those crimes have apparently been very under-reported, at least on some campuses. Female students on four campuses in…
This is a re-post from the “On the Issues” blog of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org/on-the-issues/] Although the details are shameful, it’s good to see the mainstream press publicizing the facts about higher education faculty appointments and compensation. A recent NBC report highlights these facts from the most recent annual survey…
The following is an open letter to the City Colleges of Chicago Board of Trustees by Sheldon Liebman of Wright College. Dear Chairperson Wolff, members of the Board of Trustees, and Chancellor Hyman: When I spoke to you last November, my concern in my very brief remarks had to do exclusively with the issue of…
Just what is the right thing to do, the right thing to do morally? That is not always so easy a question to answer, maybe hardly ever is it such an easy question. In higher education there are many situations that pose just that sort of question. Moral issues, questions and dilemmas have existed and…
By Robert Jensen Here’s an interesting question for historians: Why do ideologues never seem to be aware of their own ideology? Such is the case with the recent report from the Texas Association of Scholars and the National Association of Scholars’ Center for the Study of the Curriculum, “Recasting History: Are Race, Class, and Gender…
In Chinua Achebe’s second novel, No Longer At Ease, the main character ends up taking bribes. He excuses himself by arguing to himself that the people given favor are all qualified… the son of the man in the following passage is already on the short list for a scholarship: ‘Please have a seat.’ ‘Thank you.’ He…
I’m getting rather tired of finding myself agreeing with Stanley Fish–but it has happened again. Though I have admired Fish’s intellect and verbal ability for some thirty years now, only recently have I found myself nodding in agreement with things he writes. What bothers me is that I suspect either 1) I wasn’t reading him…
While I was reading Stanley Fish’s New York Times article “Religious Exemptions and the Liberal State: A Christmas Column” all I could think of was a comment Bill O’Reilly made at the beginning of the month, claiming Christianity as a philosophy, not a religion–and of an experience of mine as a young man. Fish discusses Brian Leiter’s…
As a teacher at a college with a student population made up primarily of minorities, immigrants, and/or first-generation college students, an article in today’s New York Times hit home. By Jason DeParle, it is titled “For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall.” One of my greatest frustrations, and one I constantly work…