Academic left
July 5, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Liberals get very testy when you suggest they lack patriotism, or worse, that they are ashamed of or actually hate the country deep down inside. But even the New York Times can’t conceal this any longer: A Fourth of July Symbol of Unity That May No Longer Unite Politicians of both parties have long sought to wrap themselves in the flag. But something may be changing: Today, flying the flag
»
June 7, 2021 — Steven Hayward
First up, Washington and Lee University in Virginia has decided, after a long and stupid debate, not to change its name because, you know, Robert E. Lee, who as president of Washington College after the Civil War, rescued the institution from bankruptcy, whereupon the faculty had moved to have his name added to the institution. That was then, and this is now, to naturally the imperatives of the wokerati had
»
June 6, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Once again Bill Maher went off the liberal script and attacked universities in his closing monologue in his latest Friday night HBO show, and if you look past his gratuitous insults of Florida, Republicans, etc., it is striking how much he sounds like someone who reads City Journal. I do notice that audience reaction to this one is noticeably more tepid than some of his other recent attacks on the
»
June 5, 2021 — John Hinderaker
It is no wonder that Yale doesn’t want to risk having any independent members on its Board of Trustees. There are still quite a few sane alumni, and if they got to vote for a candidate of their choice, you never know what might happen. This observation is prompted by the fact that on April 6, Yale’s School of Medicine sponsored a talk by a psychiatrist–God help us!–named Aruna Khilanani,
»
May 20, 2021 — John Hinderaker
At a few schools, it is certainly possible. Hillsdale and Liberty. Also at some lesser-known colleges, no doubt. (No slight intended, it is probably a badge of honor these days.) And presumably at a smattering of Southern colleges and universities. But, can a Republican be a president of a major university or university system outside the South? Mark Kennedy’s experience at the University of Colorado suggests that it may not
»
May 17, 2021 — Steven Hayward
In recent weeks we’ve seen the announcement that certain Virginia public school districts (and others elsewhere in the country) will discontinue advanced math classes, because “equity,” and the University of California will permanently discontinue using the SAT for admission purposes. If you want to know why the left is doing this, have a close look at this chart: If there’s one thing the left can’t abide at the moment, it
»
May 11, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Partly because COVID led many graduating high school students to defer applying to college last year, this year’s college application numbers set a record. This may turn out to be a last hurrah for the old college model, however, as colleges are on the brink of a demographic cliff. The decline in the U.S. birth rate that accelerated during the housing finance crash of 2008 is expected to diminish the
»
May 3, 2021 — Steven Hayward
This is the most sublime 70 seconds of video you’re likely to see today: And Democrats wonder why Trump increased his share of the minority vote last fall. (Aside: while the initial speculation was that Trump’s increased share of the Hispanic vote came from “macho” Hispanic men, the data show he actually increased his vote share more among Hispanic women.) Meanwhile, an update on our previous story about Braden Ellis,
»
April 29, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Power Line doesn’t actually have—yet—an official Hero of the Week, but if we did, it would have to start with Braden Ellis, a student at Cypress College in southern California, who had the temerity to stick up for the police in a class presentation, indeed, suggesting police officers deserve to be regarded as heroes. His professor then spouts the ignorant nonsense that policing began and grew out of slave patrols,
»
April 27, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I’ve been working up to a long piece here about the extraordinary political scene, starting with the premise that it’s one thing for Progressive Twitter to run the New York Times, and quite another when Progressive Twitter runs the entire Democratic Party. But that’s where we are. (P)resident Joe Biden has sold out wholly to the Progressive mob, full stop. Biden won the presidency (yes, I know—if he won) by
»
April 21, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth yesterday at the announcement that Howard University (Vice President Harris’s alma mater) is closing up it Classics department. Cornel West and Jeremy Tate took to the op-ed page of the Washington Post to call the decision “a spiritual catastrophe.” West and Tate remind us: Long after [Frederick] Douglass’s encounters with these ancient thinkers, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would be similarly galvanized
»
April 20, 2021 — Steven Hayward
It has been suggested that “cancel culture” won’t end until it comes for enough liberals, though I am doubtful. In any case, it is bemusing to see that the latest victim of cancel culture is the aggressively atheist and hyper-Darwinian Richard Dawkins, who has had his “Humanist of the Year Award” from 1996 rescinded by the American Humanist Association. Why, you ask? Here’s the AHA statement: Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has
»
March 29, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Oxford University reportedly is under pressure to stop, or at least curtail, the teaching of sheet music, musical notation, and even the classical music that was scored upon it. The rationale is that all of this is “too colonial,” and that Beethoven, Mozart, and music in general are “complicit in white supremacy.” It’s not just students and BLM groups that are pushing this insanity. In fact, professors seem to be
»
March 1, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Lots of interesting developments in the world of the woke today—too much for one post. If you have access to the Wall Street Journal, don’t miss Eric Kaufmann’s article, “Academic Freedom Is Withering,” in which he reports on an extensive survey of American, Canadian, and British universities about aspects of the cancel culture they have unleashed upon the world beyond the campus. For those without access to the Journal, some
»
February 24, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Up to now, the coveted title of “Worst College President in America” belonged without question to George Bridges of Evergreen State College in Washington, as we noted here back in 2018. But a new challenger has arisen, and has wrested the title from Bridges: Kathleen McCartney of Smith College. We wrote here last week (in “The Disgrace of Smith College“) about the case of Jodi Shaw, the Smith College staff
»
February 21, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Yes, that is a ridiculous headline. And yet, as we noted here last week, what does it tell us about the present condition of America that the president of France, Emanuel Macron, has a better grasp of perversity and danger of our “woke” culture than the President of the United States? The New York Times has followed up on its first startling account with a report this week on steps
»
February 19, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Back in November I made brief mention of the case of Jodi Shaw, a student life coordinator at Smith College, the fancy women’s college in Massachusetts that counts among its alumna Nancy Reagan. Shaw, a Smith graduate herself who is a self-described liberal, got in trouble with the Smith College administration when she went public on YouTube with complaints about the blatantly racist so-called “anti-racism” programs and campus atmosphere that have
»
