Academic left
October 15, 2017 — Steven Hayward
People versed in the campus upheavals of the 1960s will recall its nadir at Cornell University in 1969, when black students armed with shotguns occupied the president’s office, and issued demands to which the university largely capitulated. (See Donald Alexander Downs’s copious account of this shameful episode in his book, Cornell ‘69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University.) Something of a sequel (minus the shotguns—for now) seems to
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October 7, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Wandering around the Berkeley campus is a source of endless amusement, like spotting the old fossils pictured nearby advocating our celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution that rolls around in another few days. Even at Berzerkeley, there were few takers. No one was stopping at their table to pick up any flyers. And then there’s the things you overhear. A speaker at a conference on campus this
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October 4, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
As Steve discusses in the post just below, students affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement shut down a presentation at the College of William & Mary. They rushed the stage and prevented the invited guest from speaking. The invited guest was Claire Gastañaga of the American Civil Liberties Union. Gastañaga, a William & Mary alum, had intended to speak about “Students and the First Amendment.” She never got that
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October 4, 2017 — Steven Hayward
The ACLU began equivocating lately about their categorical, content neutral defense of free speech, saying they might not defend the speech of hate groups that incite violence or force. I guess they’ll have to cross Black Lives Matter off their list of groups they will defend, then. Reason‘s Robbie Soave reports: Black Lives Matter Students Shut Down the ACLU’s Campus Free Speech Event Because ‘Liberalism Is White Supremacy’ Students affiliated
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October 3, 2017 — Steven Hayward
I thought about filing this item under my “Academic Absurdity of the Week” category, which I’ve let slip into disuse lately because there’s a fresh academic absurdity committed every five minutes, and I don’t want this item to become a full time job. But it occurs to me that perhaps there ought to be a “Dumb Book of the Month Club,” with regular selections just like the old Book of
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September 29, 2017 — Steven Hayward
In my previous post on the silliness of Chuck Todd, I offered at the end that perhaps it is time to formalize the equivalent of Moore’s Law (chip speed doubles every 18 months) for liberalism: liberal craziness/dementia doubles every 18 months (or perhaps every 18 hours as one commenter plausibly suggests). Perhaps it is time for this to become a regular Power Line feature. Case in point is the story
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September 28, 2017 — Steven Hayward
The first sign that Milo Yiannopoulos’s “Free Speech Week” at Berkeley wasn’t what it was cracked up to be was the news story two weeks ago announcing the “confirmed” speakers for the week that included both Heather Mac Donald and Charles Murray, among others. Both Heather and Charles were quick to say that they had not spoken to Milo or any of his people, and had no interest in participating.
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September 27, 2017 — Steven Hayward
It has already been widely noted that Pittsburgh Steelers lineman Alejandro Villanueva has apologized for “making his teammates look bad” by his act of standing by himself on the sidelines for the national anthem. His jersey has become the most popular NFL item sold online this week, even as NFL viewership on TV continues to slump. (I think the real reason viewership is slumping is that people are catching on
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September 25, 2017 — Steven Hayward
I have a hypothesis that some day I’ll get around to gathering evidence about: namely, that private liberal arts colleges are actually worse for their narrow political correctness than big research universities like Berkeley, the University of Colorado at Boulder, or Harvard. Although Berkeley has been wracked recently over the issue of free speech and the promised/threatened visit by Milo, the most shocking events of the past year have occurred
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September 14, 2017 — Steven Hayward
It stands to reason that any academic who stands up for old fashioned imperialism is asking for it. Last week, Third World Quarterly (does that just sound like the best name ever?) published “The Case for Colonialism,” by Prof. Bruce Gilley of Portland State University. Now, I’m thinking that the good Prof. Gilley must go around in disguise in Portland, or perhaps he is punking everybody. Just take in the
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September 13, 2017 — Steven Hayward
The college meltdown continues. The sharp decline in applications and new student enrollments that have taken place at the University of Missouri and Evergreen State College has spread to Oberlin College, which also saw the administration cater to radical students and deranged faculty. The Daily Caller reports: Yet another American college is suffering an “unexpected” plunge in enrollment and a massive budget deficit after a series of outbursts by radical
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September 10, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Monty Python fans may remember the long sketch about the “lethal joke” that was so funny you would die from laughter, and which was weaponized for battlefield use in World War II. (If you have 10 minutes you can watch the sketch here.) The sketch culminates in the worldwide banning of jokes of mass destruction through the Geneva Convention, but it seems the University of Oregon takes the idea seriously.
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September 9, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Edina is a wealthy suburb of Minneapolis that at one time had one of the finest public school systems in the United States. As I have documented here, here, here and here, the Edina schools decided some years ago to prioritize left-wing indoctrination over academic excellence. The result has been a decline in academic performance, and a pervasive atmosphere of oppression and bullying directed against non-conforming students and parents. A
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September 5, 2017 — Steven Hayward
I’m still digesting the weekend’s endurance contest better known as the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. It’s one of those chores I take on so that you don’t have to. A lot of the panels are of course silly, like “Søren Kierkegaard and Political Thought.” Description: Altogether, in broad strokes, Kierkegaard’s thought saturated the air of the most important moments in twentieth century political thought—interwar Germany, post-WWII
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September 2, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Sure enough, more than 20 protesters turned up at my panel late yesterday afternoon about checks on abuses of executive power that also featured John Yoo. Their protest consisted of standing up when John took the podium and turning their back. The signs said “Stand up against torture.” We had thought of asking John to autograph any that were left behind, and selling them on eBay. I ran my new
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September 1, 2017 — Steven Hayward
A lot of people have been asking if I was present in Berkeley for last weekend’s Antifa riot as I was for the Milo riot on Feb. 1, and the aborted Ann Coulter appearance in April. Happily I was not. So you’ll want to read Matt Labash’s first hand account in the Weekly Standard, “A Beating in Berkeley.” I can report that things are very tense on campus as the new
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August 30, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Campus Reform reports on a horrific incident that occurred at the University of Nebraska on Friday. Katie Mullen, a Nebraska sophomore, heads the Turning Point USA chapter on campus. She was “tabling” various posters (“Big Government Sucks” is a favorite), stickers and the like on the university’s campus. As Ms. Mullen was manning her table, three or more professors began to harass her. They carried signs attacking Turning Point, screamed
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