The Bad Ideas of the Wisconsin Regents

BY JOHN K. WILSON Is disrupting a speaker worse than rape? According to the University of Wisconsin Board or Regents policy passed last week, it is. Only one of them gets mandatory penalties. If a student is accused of rape, and even convicted of sexual misconduct twice, there is no requirement for an automatic suspension,…

Berkeley Disconnect

BY MICHAEL MERANZE The following is reposted with permission from the Remaking the University blog. Michael Meranze is professor of history at UCLA.  He co-authors Remaking the University with Christopher Newfield, professor of english at UC, Santa Barbara. The farce that was MiloFest has now frittered away into failure.  Of course, that will not be…

Using Free Speech to Stifle Free Speech

BY DAVID MOSHMAN People often use their freedom of speech to disrupt the speech of others, especially on college campuses in recent years. Of course people have a right to protest, provided they are sufficiently quiet, brief, or distant so as not to prevent the speaker from being heard. On August 25, University of Nebraska–Lincoln…

Colleges: Illiberal Enclaves of Groupthink?

BY AARON BARLOW Hank Reichman, on this blog the other day, quoted Donald Moynihan, a professor at the University of Wisconsin: “More people now believe that students oppose free speech, based on a flawed survey and resulting headlines. No correction will fix that.” He was referring to a “survey” conducted by a Brookings Institution Senior…

Open Letter from an American Dreamer

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The following open letter first appeared on Dreamer Hugo Diaz’s Facebook page. It has subsequently been disseminated by several national and international news sources. After our month of hurricanes, some of the details especially resonate. More broadly, Hugo Diaz presents a very personalized and authentic account of his experience that both…

New DoE Guidelines on Campus Sexual Misconduct

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and its implementing regulations, an institution that receives federal funds must ensure that no student suffers a deprivation of her or his access to educational opportunities on the basis of sex. The Department of Education intends to engage in rulemaking on the…

Former Ed Secretaries Address DACA Repeal

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Dear Speaker Ryan, Majority Leader McConnell, Democratic Leader Pelosi, and Democratic Leader Schumer: We write out of deep concern for approximately two million Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Over the past five years, hundreds of thousands of these young people came forward in good…

AAUP Denounces Decision to End DACA Program

POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN In response to President Donald Trump’s decision to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) president Rudy Fichtenbaum issued the following statement. The American Association of University Professors denounces in the strongest possible terms the decision by the Trump administration to end…