Commentary has un-paywalled my July article on the feds’ “blueprint” for how colleges and universities must deal with charges of sexual misconduct. I explain why despite a retreat to a seemingly less extreme interpretation of the law, the dangers remain that the Department of Education and Department of Justice will arm-twist academic institutions into stacked disciplinary methods and new curbs on speech. Read it here (and also consider subscribing to Commentary, gates aside). Earlier here, here, etc.

Two points worth noting: first, while the Obama administration has pushed the new plan hard, the wider trend of gradually stepped-up federal supervision over university life has been going on for decades under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. There is not much resistance: university officials and organized professors themselves are relatively half-hearted about sticking up for their own institutional autonomy. Indeed, the federal prescriptions represent in some ways a consolidation of power by already-powerful elements within the academy, as opposed to a perceived hostile takeover from the outside. In the same July issue of Commentary, Philip Hamburger has an excellent article outlining how university researchers have for decades now tamely submitted to federally prescribed controls — overseen by so-called IRBs, or institutional review boards — over such relatively innocuous forms of “human-subjects research” as interviewing politicians and observing passersby in public places. In 2007, David Hyman wrote for Cato’s Regulation magazine on “The Pathologies of Institutional Review Boards.”

P.S. Much more on IRBs from George Mason’s Zachary Schrag (book, another interview, more, blog).

Filed under: colleges and universities, ethics, science and scientists, WO writings