STRICTER CHRISTIAN COLLEGES EXPERIENCING ENROLLMENT INCREASES AS RELIGIOUS FAMILIES BECOME MORE WARY OF SECULAR INSTITUTIONS. Because religious families are not idiots.

AAUP’S JOAN SCOTT FLOPS ‘RACISM’ ATTACK ON FIRE. In the AAUP bigshot’s hit piece on FIRE in today’s Inside Higher Ed, she writes, “An initial motivating force [in FIRE’s founding] was the endorsement of the right of racist expression on the University of Pennsylvania campus. This is a telling choice of where [FIRE’s] political affiliations lie.”

Prof. Scott needs to pick up a book. The “water buffalo affair” at Penn was so deeply disturbing not just because Penn was punishing speech, “racist” or not, but because it was trying to punish a student for “racist” speech that it knew was not even racist. As the Daily Pennsylvanian wrote in a 10-year retrospective:

[L]legally minded individuals were upset by the fact that a student was charged with harassment for calling someone by a term that had no known racial connotations and were disturbed by what they perceived as the University justice system’s mishandling of the case.

That false accusation of racism in 1993 ultimately became FIRE’s “origin story.” Yet 31 years later, one of the AAUP’s leading lights on “academic freedom” parrots only the lie, now repurposed to falsely accuse FIRE instead of a hapless freshman from Long Island. It’s hard to imagine a better reminder of the need for a principled defense of free speech and due process.

THE ADVENTURES OF BEING A DUKE COLLEGE REPUBLICAN. “For the PBS event, we had a Duke media administrator watching the interview. I shared my perspectives as a Republican on campus and the fact that people aren’t willing to engage in difficult conversations. He [the administrator] was whispering to a producer, and he said, ‘Make sure you fact-check everything that he said about Duke.’ I called him out and said, “How are you gonna check my personal experiences as a Republican at Duke University?”

One of the reasons I applied for a job at the then seven-person FIRE back in 2003 was that I worked for Duke’s conservative newspaper. We alone were not allowed to use distribution bins. People routinely threw whole stacks of our paper away, to the extent that distribution routinely involved pulling unread stacks of copies out of the recycle bins for the next few days. Duke and other colleges should know they’re making tomorrow’s free speech radicals today.

‘AS TRUMP THREATENS DEPORTATIONS, CAMPUS LEADERS TREAD CAREFULLY.‘ Carefully? Wesleyan President Michael Roth, fresh off complaining about how college presidents are not sufficiently vocal about being leftists, proudly claims Wesleyan will do nothing to voluntarily help the government pursue undocumented students before more quietly acknowledging that yes, colleges have to obey subpoenas, etc.

In what universe is it “careful” or responsible in any way to admit students here unlawfully (and take their money) when those students can have the rug pulled out the moment someone decides to enforce the law already on the books?

NYT: RFK JR. IS WRONG ON USA VS. CANADA FROOT LOOPS. ALSO NYT:

Spitting out my coffee after reading this NYT “fact check” of RFK Jr. pic.twitter.com/sqL9jaeUR1

— Brad Cohn (@BradCohn) November 17, 2024

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

SHOULD WE REGULATE COLLEGES LIKE BUSINESSES AND SUBJECT THEM TO THE FTC? It would certainly serve them right…

WE STILL ON FOR THE COURT-PACKING? Sure, a good economy would be nice, but what I am really looking forward to is 6 new conservative justices for some solid 12-3 decisions on the Commerce Clause and Tenth Amendment.

WHY WAS THE FEDERAL RESPONSE TO HELENE SO BAD? I couldn’t help but notice the overlap in these maps. It’s hard for these (traditionally very GOP, with the exception of Asheville) voters to get the polls when they’ve been left there to die. That’s the only reason NC was so close.

PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION WAS A MISTAKE. “The Philly juries?” Nobody believes Larry Krasner cares about enforcing the law because it’s the law. Again, it’s always, “Who, whom?”

Philadelphia DA issues warning to anyone who wants to “play militia” or engage in voter intimidation tomorrow:

“We do have the cuffs. We do have the jail cells. We do have the Philly juries. … F around and find out.” pic.twitter.com/dAv0lafwPb

— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) November 5, 2024

MADDOW AND STANCIL: US SHOULD CANCEL SPACEX CONTRACTS BECAUSE MUSK SUPPORTED TRUMP. For the left it always seems to come down to the same question, ever since Lenin: Who, whom? If that means canceling the future, too bad.

WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN IF TRUMP ELIMINATES THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT? Short answer: probably not much, if all the programs just move to other departments, which is the most likely outcome. Hard to see that it would be worth the political capital unless massive program changes are made.

(I also have to wonder how much of the failure is a direct result of ED’s building being an example of absolutely soul-crushing Soviet-style brutalism. The interior is even worse than the exterior. I wish I were exaggerating.)

HOW LONG CAN COLLEGES PUT OFF DEFERRED MAINTENANCE? Not many people get to run institutions with lifespans that can be expected to be in the hundreds of years. It’s not too much to ask them to put more focus on keeping them up.

EVEN THEIR DYSTOPIAN FANTASIES DON’T MAKE SENSE. Why would Evil Emperor-for-Life Vance build concentration camps for illegal immigrants instead of deporting them? Come on, Red Alert Universe Vance, you had one job!

This is amazing. My favorite work of lefty hysteria art to date. pic.twitter.com/tHC1YknkPp

— Nate Hochman (@njhochman) November 1, 2024

A REVIEW OF FORMER AAUP PRESIDENT CARY NELSON’S ‘HATE SPEECH AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM.’ If Nelson is indeed suggesting that maybe we should have a campus culture where people actually have to logically defend their stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather than just call for one another’s blood, that’s great.

COASTAL CAROLINA U. GOING FULL-BORE FOR FREE SPEECH, INSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to stand out from the crowd, but few schools are willing to do it. They’ll be eating USC and Clemson’s lunch before long if the big guys don’t watch out.

CAN JOURNALISM SCHOOLS STAY ACCREDITED IF THEY CAN’T DISCRIMINATE? The fact that so many DEI policies can’t survive if race discrimination is actually banned should worry people way more than it does.

A MODEST (AND SHORT!) PROPOSAL TO FIX GRADING. I think the University of Austin may be doing something similar, though I can’t find the article right now.

“THE PARTY TOLD YOU TO REJECT THE EVIDENCE OF YOUR EYES AND EARS. IT WAS THEIR FINAL, MOST ESSENTIAL COMMAND.” Look at the screen behind her, and despair.

“The US was built on racial patriarchy. If you want to describe what the First Amendment is,
it’s not about consistent or noble principles, it’s about power. it’s about converging with that idea of racial patriarchy and if you are disturbing it.” @ma_franks with @zittrain pic.twitter.com/87bV5t5GNr

— Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (@BKCHarvard) October 23, 2024

AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE SAT/ACT: THE CLASSIC LEARNING TEST. If it doesn’t keep getting changed for political reasons, a test like this could end up being very predictive for college/career success.

WITH RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN ADMISSIONS NOW ILLEGAL, ABA HATCHES WAY TO DO IT ANYWAY. Imagine if we had spent the 46 years since Bakke (my entire life) sending the simple message “You can’t make decisions about individuals based on race–end of story” instead of encouraging it. Is there a serious argument that we wouldn’t be better off?

SUPREME COURT REVIVES LAWSUIT OF CITIZEN JOURNALIST JAILED FOR ASKING QUESTIONS OF POLICE. Another welcome blow against the overuse of “qualified immunity” to relieve government officials from following the First Amendment.

ON CAMPUS SAFETY, THE LEFT IS HOPELESSLY CONFUSED. The Clery Act is a mess, and colleges just enforce the law willy-nilly according to administrative whims anyway. One day you can pull down a statue with impunity, the next you get expelled for flyers.

TIME TO OPEN THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS BLACK BOX. Yep. Trust is for institutions that are trustworthy.

OUR FAKE ‘DEMOCRACY.’ Using a teleprompter for a “town hall” means it’s staged. This is not normal and we are not obliged to pretend it is.

🚨 BREAKING: Univision accidentally broadcast proof that Kamala used a teleprompter at her town hall

Watch them panic when they realized they were showing the prompter live on-air pic.twitter.com/fiUFcfN2Kx

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 11, 2024

UNIVERSITIES ARE DOING EDUCATION BADLY. But is it even more purposeful than we suspected? Repeating what should be taught in K-12 means “students receive insufficient instruction in their ‘specialization’ area, thereby creating a felt need to pursue further study at the graduate level”–which brings in more cash.