- Eugene Volokh June testimony “about the Anti-Free-Speech Movement on college campuses…a serious threat to American liberty and democracy, as well as to excellence in education and research.”
- Outsider art expert Michael Bonesteel quits faculty post, blasts “toxic” Title IX climate [Deanna Isaacs/Chicago Reader, Edward M. Gomèz, Raw Vision] “Law prof’s exam question on Brazilian wax is deemed harassment” [ABA Journal]
- “Will Betsy DeVos fix Obama’s toxic campus sexual assault policy?” [Dante Ramos, Boston Globe] “Betsy DeVos Is Right: Sexual Assault Policy Is Broken” [Cathy Young, New York Times]
- “Claremont McKenna College disciplines seven students for blockade that shut down Heather Mac Donald speech” [Volokh]
- Carve-outs from free speech norms get used disproportionately by more powerful/popular against less powerful/popular? Who knew that might happen? [Popehat]
- Yes, it’s reached engineering schools [Indrek Wichman, James G. Martin Center]
Posts Tagged ‘political correctness’
Campus speech wars: the law school advantage
By demanding that students “imaginatively and sympathetically reconstruct the best argument on the other side,” a good legal education can help inoculate you against blinkered self-righteousness, which may be one reason why relatively few of the recent campus shout-downs and brawls have taken place at law schools. [Heather Gerken (dean, YLS), Time] And don’t miss John McWhorter on the essential theatricality of campus silencing, allyship, and privilege-shaming [via Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic]
Campus climate roundup
- This seems an important point: requiring students to engage in social justice work impinges on their moral independence [Julie Lawton, DePaul Law]
- 7 minutes of madness: astounding Michael Moynihan video on the Evergreen State blowup [Vice News, language]
- Classics in ruins [Sandra Kotta/Quillette, parts one, two]
- “Princeton Appears To Penalize Minority Candidates for Not Obsessing About Their Race” [Coyote]
- Claim: college violated Title IX by not doing more to stop anonymous off-campus social media posts [T. Rees Shapiro, Washington Post on suit against University of Mary Washington]
- Historical figure almost wholly forgotten except as name on building. Worth exhuming just to manifest our disdain? [Charles Reichmann, San Francisco Chronicle on Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley] More: Online shaming mobs from both sides of the political spectrum now going after provocative academics [Heterodox Academy]
Campus climate roundup
- This is big: Betsy DeVos appoints First Amendment advocate Adam Kissel as Deputy Assistant Secretary for higher ed programs [Inside Higher Ed]
- “He is currently exploring restorative justice from an anti-authoritarian perspective.” [East Bay Times, Berkeleyside on wayward former Diablo Valley College faculty member]
- “Oxford apologizes for saying that avoiding eye contact is racism, but not because the claim is mad.” [“Fabius Maximus” on BBC report]
- “…the Michigan Political Union has since had to avoid other debate topics for fear of similar shout-downs.” [National Review]
- Advice for academics: “Never object to a diversity policy publicly. It is no longer permitted.” [Jon Haidt, Peter Berkowitz on Duke Divinity case]
- Things began to spin awry at Evergreen State College with plan to require “equity justification” for every faculty hire [Bret Weinstein, WSJ; Inside Higher Ed; Seattle Times editorial]
Campus climate roundup
- “Explore the unthinkable”: invite a speaker whose message makes you uneasy [Walter M. Kimbrough, Chronicle of Higher Education]
- “The Pseudo-Science of Microaggressions” [Althea Nagai, National Association of Scholars via George Leef, Martin Center]
- Imagine setting out to combat the influence of the Greeks and Romans in American life — by vandalizing college fraternities [Jillian Kay Melchior on University of Texas episode]
- Hereditary intelligentsia and self-actualizing graduate study: “Lessons from Mid-Century Soviet Higher Education” [Alex Usher via Tyler Cowen]
- Some resemblances between “get them off campus” campaigns against George Soros in Hungary, Koch brothers here [Alberto Mingardi]
- “Some who in private were sympathetic to Tuvel, felt compelled to join in the attacking mob.” [Kelly Oliver, Philosophical Salon] More on Rebecca Tuvel/Hypatia furor: Jesse Singal/New York, Daily Nous, Jason Brennan (“Personally, I’d say that failing to fully engage critical theory is a feature, not a bug, of the paper.”), commenter on Singal article (“Hypatia herself, the journal’s namesake, was murdered by a mob in the year 415.”).
Higher education roundup
- Colleagues demand Oregon law prof resign over Hallowe’en costume [Paul Caron/TaxProf; Eugene Volokh (“We have reached a bad and dangerous place in American life, and in American university life in particular.”)] Title IX and expression: “What the feds have done to colleges and schools” [Hans Bader, Minding the Campus]
- Institutional review boards (IRBs) “as a rule are incredibly difficult to study…. There is no public record of their decision or deliberations, they don’t, as a rule, invite scrutiny or allow themselves to be observed.” [Dr. Steven Joffe quoted by Tyler Cowen]
- “An emphasis on intersectionality”: mandatory diversity course for first-years at AU now has course description [earlier] “U-M’s New ‘Chief Diversity Officer’ Will Collect $385,000 per Year” [Derek Draplin, Michigan Capitol Confidential]
- “Plaintiffs’ Bar Steps Up Profitable False Claims Act Assault on Higher Education” [U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform]
- Notwithstanding initial wave of critical coverage, Will Creeley says PEN report on campus speech is actually pretty good [FIRE] “Student group at Cal State Northridge boasts of ‘shutting down’ speech by award-winning scholar” [Volokh; Armenian students vs. Ataturk lecture]
- On question whether universities must treat student athletes as employees, NLRB “may be battling for field position” with future ruling in mind [Brennan Bolt, McGuire Woods]
Could a president “end” political correctness on campus?
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spoke recently of his intent if elected to “end” political correctness on university campuses, and Steve Kolowich at Chronicle of Higher Education asks a number of observers, including some who have been critical of that phenomenon, to describe what practical changes in federal higher education policy that might entail. I’m quoted on how Trump’s intent is “not something that you could easily reduce to the four corners of a policy proposal.”
Higher education and Title IX roundup
- “Free Speech on Campus: A Challenge of Our Times,” recent speech by University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone;
- University of Virginia puts professor on leave of absence after comments critical of Black Lives Matter [Hans Bader] “Yes, Brooklyn College really has a Director of Diversity Investigations.” One prof’s experience [David Seidemann/Minding the Campus]
- “Lawyer: Why the lower standard of evidence in college sexual-assault cases is dangerous” [Robert Shibley] It’s rare for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to stick up in favor of due process rights for accused students, but that just happened in Wesley College case [Jake New/Inside Higher Ed, Tyler Kingkade/BuzzFeed, ED press release]
- “Northern Michigan University had — and perhaps still has — a policy subjecting students to discipline if they share suicidal thoughts with their peers.” So how bad an idea is that? [Ken White, Popehat]
- “Historically Black Colleges and Universities struggle with Title IX compliance” [American Sports Council on reporting by David Squires/The Undefeated]
- “University Of Michigan Gets Lost In The Tall SJW Weeds” [Amy Alkon] Georgetown offers legacy status to applicants descended from university-owned slaves; showy gesture, but anything more? [Scott Greenfield] “American University Student Government Launches Campaign for Mandatory Trigger Warnings” [Robby Soave]
Campus climate roundup
- Will the University of Chicago’s new policy on free expression chill professors’ freedom to run their classes in their own way, as some claim? [Alex Morey/FIRE, Howard Wasserman/Prawfs] Jonathan Chait on how the safe spaces debate really isn’t about things like church groups or gay bars; and a judicious Ken White at Popehat on how safe space idea can make sense in private/chosen settings, but not as academic mandate.
- As federal Title IX enforcement percolates downward: e-mail from administrator at University of Alaska, Fairbanks, discusses expelling “perp” before investigation has begun [K.C. Johnson on Twitter] USC administrator: do they know who I am? [same] Wasn’t Columbia U. just serving up what its customers want? [Scott Greenfield] “OCR to Frostburg State University: Common Sense, ‘Reasonable Person’ Standard Violate Title IX” [Robby Soave]
- UW-Milwaukee poster campaign warns students against using terms like “lame,” “crazy,” and — inevitably? — “politically correct” [Jillian Kay Melchior/Heat Street, Robby Soave/Reason]
- The future of American higher education: fewer historians, more chief diversity officers [David Frum]
- “More on the sex panic at Yale” [KC Johnson, Minding the Campus]
- Capitol Hill Republicans keep shoveling cash at power-mad campus regulators, while tying hands of dissenters at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights [John Fund, NR]
“Three Blind Mice” Hallowe’en costumes probed at university
After students at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville used Facebook to post pictures of themselves in Hallowe’en “Three Blind Mice” costumes, a member of the school’s “Bias Incident Team” turned them in herself to the team, which decided that there was a risk the costume idea “makes fun of a disability.” The pictures have been taken down. “The University of Washington produced a six-minute video last year decrying ‘cultural appropriation’ around Halloween. Off-limits costumes included hula skirts, [straitjackets], sombreros, fake mustaches and martial-arts attire.” [Jillian Kay Melchior, Heat Street] No mention of possible offense to the tail-amputee community. More on bias response teams here.