Why This Supreme Court Ruling on Affirmative Action Is as Dubious as the Roberts’ Court’s Previous Rulings on Race-Related Issues

In contemporary America, income inequality is indisputably increasing and indisputably limiting the potential and the upward mobility of the ever-increasing percentage of Americans slipping into the have-not category. In the absence of significant upward pressure on wages exerted by the large industrial unions and in the absence of a large industrial workforce because of the…

A New Far-Right Proposal for Financing College “Innovatively”: Or, How to Graduate from College as an Indentured Corporate Servant

In “Here’s a New Way to Pay for College,” an article published in USA Today [http://college.usatoday.com/2014/04/17/heres-a-new-way-to-pay-for-college/], Daniel Wheaton reports on a new Far-Right proposal to address the student-debt crisis. In a bill that they have called “The Student Success Act,” Marco Rubio, the Republican Senator from Florida, and Jim Petri, a Republican House member from…

Koch Kollege?

John Romano, writing in the Tampa Bay Times over the weekend, reviews the connection between Charles Koch and Florida State University, a problematic connection (and not the only one of its type) that has been under scrutiny for at least three years now: The relationship at FSU drew howls of protest in 2011 when a couple of professors…

A Special Anniversary That You May Have Missed

This year, the National Security Agency (NSA) is celebrating its 60th year in existence. To commemorate the anniversary, the agency has produced a book that is in some places referred to simply as an “Anniversary Book” but in other places referred to as a “Memory Book,” which sounds a great deal more sentimental. The book…

In an Era of Increasing Fiscal Constraints, an Inexplicable Shift in Hiring Patterns in Higher Education

In this past week’s issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, there is a very revealing graph representing the changes in employment in colleges and universities from 1976 to 2011. The graph is based on an analysis of IPEDs data by AAUP’s John Curtis.   Full-Time Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty 1976 – 353,681 2011 –…

A Liberal Arts Education: Getting a Job at Google, Part 2

In February, an op-ed by Thomas Freidman in The New York Times summarized an interview with Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google, on how to get a job at Google. Bock is involved in about 100 hires at Google per week. With college graduations approaching, Freidman went back to Google…

Dunkin' Donuts Says Happy Easter

  Yes, glazed donuts topped with a layer of thick icing, with a dribbling of icing in a contrasting color, and then a peep. I know that some of you are dying to ask how many calories are in this confection, but, truly, if you would eat something that looks like this, the number of…

More on the Clown Car

Since posting on David Brooks’ “When the Circus Descends” yesterday, Stephen Sondheim’s great song “Send in the Clowns” has been going through my head, especially these lines: I thought that you’d want what I want.Sorry, my dear.But where are the clowns?Quick, send in the clowns.Don’t bother, they’re here. What frustrates me so is that all…