TIME TO ‘FORTIFY’ THE ACT, THEN. Falling ACT Scores Hold a Lesson for Universities.

ACADEMIA’S “ETHNIC CLEANSING” HITS MUSIC. Totalitarianism means that literally no issue or field is too small to bend to your will, whether it be “Schenkerian musicology” or your personal choice to abandon homosexuality. (Disclosure: my firm, Allen Harris, represents Professor Jackson, the unfortunate Schenkerian.)

THE COMING WAVE OF FRESHMAN FAILURE. The COVID shutdown gifts just keep on giving…

STATES SHOULD MANDATE STANDARDIZED TESTING FOR COLLEGE APPLICANTS. Colleges are already trying to dodge the ban on racial preferences; an objective measure of some kind, even if it’s not used for admission decisions, is the only way to know if they’re defying the law.

BIDEN’S EVEN WORSE VERSION OF ‘FREE COLLEGE.’ Surprise, he’s spending money without Congressional approval to make sure colleges feel no pressure to educate rather than indoctrinate.

HATRED OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION STOKES THE CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM CRISIS. Campuses have spent more than a generation pushing “who-whom” tribalism, and pretending to be surprised that it’s quickly degrading into a war of all against all. Thanks for nothing, “intellectual leaders.”

‘DETERRENT’ ACT WOULD REQUIRE BETTER REPORTING OF OVERSEAS GIFTS TO COLLEGES. I don’t think donors usually “buy off” nonprofits or colleges–donors give to institutions who are sympathetic to begin with. But were I running China (for example), I’d want to undermine American higher ed as much as possible, and if that’s driving what’s happened, well, you can’t argue with results.

HAVE COLLEGES FINALLY PUSHED IT TOO FAR? Rich Vedder thinks maybe they have, as does The Blogfather. With a special appearance from the late, great Milton Friedman: “Fully two decades have passed since the preeminent American libertarian economist Milton Friedman wrote to me, saying, ‘A full analysis … might lead you to conclude that higher education should be taxed to offset its negative externalities.'”

DOES DUKE REALLY NEED ‘ECONOMIC DIVERSITY?’ We had it “back in my day” before it was 80 grand a year… (grumble)

CHATGPT CAN GET OFF MY LAWN. Should professors do anything differently when students can use ChatGPT to generate answers and essays? I have a suggestion: go back to handwritten, closed-note (and closed-device) bluebook exams. Exam problem solved. Papers are trickier, but I suspect making ChatGPT generate a 10- or 20-page paper that sounds believable is about as hard as writing the paper itself.

WAKE FOREST’S ADMISSIONS GAMBIT: Is replacing explicitly race-based affirmative action with “early action” that favors first-generation college students a workaround to that pesky Supreme Court? Wake wants to find out. Seems like a big risk that you might have to let in lots of the dreaded white people from Appalachia, though…

ACADEMIC CONFERENCES ARE A SCAM. “Rules preventing the display of book covers with images of bones.” At an anthropology conference. You will not be surprised that the author’s talk this year got canceled for being about gender, which is at this point par for the course.

REFORMING POST-TENURE REVIEW. I’ve seen it weaponized too often to be enthusiastic about post-tenure review, but ironclad academic freedom guarantees for all faculty, regardless of tenure, would go a long way towards addressing the concerns with the degrading of tenure protections.

‘WHITE LOGIC’ AND ‘JEW PHYSICS.’ I was hoping they’d at least give us a cool cyberpunk-style dystopia, but the totalitarians just keep doing the same boring and predictable stuff over and over again. We deserve a better class of authoritarians stamping on our faces forever.

WOULD EXIT EXAMS FIX COLLEGE RANKINGS? It probably can’t hurt, but how do you get people from fancy colleges to take them?

NATIONAL ARCHIVES REVEALS BIDEN EXCHANGED UP TO 82K PAGES OF EMAILS UNDER PSEUDONYMS WHILE VP. Imagine the level of confidence it required for Biden to turn those emails over to the National Archives and (correctly) assume nobody would reveal it (until forced by a lawsuit). Truly, some people lead charmed lives.

CLOWN WORLD GETS ITS OFFICIAL FOUNTAIN. In Vienna, Austria, no less.

UNC-CHAPEL HILL SUED OVER TUITION AND FEES TREATMENT DURING COVID. “Notably, UNC-Chapel Hill told students of its decision to take an ‘off-ramp’ only ‘one hour and 15 minutes before the 5 p.m. deadline for fall tuition cancellations.'” Yeesh.

NO, VANDERBILT ISN’T GOVERNED BY “PRINCIPLED NEUTRALITY.” But expect “strange new respect” for UChicago’s Kalven Report, which says that the university should not be taking sides on controversial issues, in the wake of Hamas’ atrocities. Such a position makes it harder to cheaply virtue signal in a 2020 riots-type situation, but becomes extremely convenient when you have hired lots of people with views such as “those dead babies had it coming, amirite?” Williams College is already on board. More colleges should join in. Yes, they will be doing it for the worst possible reasons, but those who are powerful but unaccountable rarely do things for any other reason.

N.C. PASSES LAW REQUIRING STATE UNIVERSITIES TO CHANGE ACCREDITORS. They can choose between any of the (formerly regional) accreditors, instead of having to use the unfortunately named “SACSCOC,” so there can be some competition, but they must change each decade so that some fresh eyes can see what the colleges are doing.

A different section of the same bill also requires porn websites to do age verification. As a parent of teenagers, I understand why folks push for this, but that’s probably unworkable, unconstitutional, and an especially bad idea in an age when the government is looking for any means to control information and who gets to see it.

THEY HAVE TO GET MONEY SOMEHOW. Colleges, under pressure (or mandates) not to raise tuition, raise “fees” instead. Including “fees” that are used to pay for faculty and administrators’ salaries. I have news: such money is “tuition,” regardless of its label.

20 YEARS OF ENORMOUS GROWTH IN SPENDING PER STUDENT IN NC UNIVERSITIES. Your state’s probably not much different. And we’re running headlong into a generation of people like me whose parents could afford tuition at a place like Duke at a stretch, but who can’t themselves afford it for their kids even though their lifestyle is otherwise about the same. More bad news for goodwill towards higher ed.

UGH. WAY TO GIVE THEM MORE IDEAS. “What can you do if the government declares you dead?” Basically nothing, and you can’t sue them thanks to sovereign immunity. Expect this to start happening to Trump supporters in about 10 seconds.

AUSTRALIA BANS BAD GRADES. “University students who score less than 50 percent in their exams will be entitled to a slew of educational life-savers. University-funded tutoring, counselling, examination do-overs, special exams, and extended deadlines… [A] hefty fine of $18,780 per student will be introduced for those institutions that fail to help their students rise above the 50 percent benchmark.”

FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIAN ATHLETES SCORES BIG NINTH CIRCUIT WIN FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION. Overturning a lousy case that allowed blatant anti-religious policies in the process.