DISABILITY “ACCOMMODATION NATION” IN THE UNC SYSTEM. And it’s the same just about everywhere else. The perverse incentives to get diagnoses are just too strong. After all, your kid probably has struggles too. Are you letting him or her down by not going the extra mile?

DO WE NEED A FACULTY MERIT ACT? “The Faculty Merit Act requires state universities to publish every higher-education standardized test score (SAT, ACT, CRT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, etc.) of every faculty member, as well as the standardized test score of every applicant for the faculty member’s position.”

EXPOSING ‘A STORY OF FRAUD AND BETRAYAL’ IN ACADEMIA. There’s a new book out about the famous “signing first” paper that claimed promising to be honest ahead of time made people more honest in follow-up data gathering. Turns out the data on honesty was faked, which, cosmically, seems like pushing it.

HOW TO DEFINE ACADEMIC FREEDOM? The UNC system faculty is–get this!–actually thinking through it. I know, I know, professors being professor-y seems old-fashioned these days, but I feel like Americans like it when higher ed sounds like a place where smart people consider things thoughtfully.

THE PROGRESSIVE UNIVERSITY IN THE DOCK. Was requiring specialization and Ph.Ds really as good an idea as we seem to assume it was? (It wasn’t always like that.)

“DISECONOMIES OF SCALE” IN HIGHER ED. Higher ed is so screwed up it seems to have managed to make economics work backwards.

HARVARD ADMITS ITS GRADES HAVE LOST ALL MEANING: Hey, they’re not paying a jillion dollars a year to not get A’s…

IS ONLINE LEARNING ‘COMPLIANCE THEATER’? If you have to ask…

PEER REVIEW IS BROKEN. HERE’S HOW TO FIX IT. An actual idea here! We need more of this.

THE NEXT STEP IN ENDING HIGHER ED RACIAL PREFERENCES: Grants for [name your favored ethnicity] serving institutions?

SHOULD STATES ELECT OR APPOINT UNIVERSITY BOARDS? Kind of like with judges, no option seems to be clearly best (at least, to me). Appointed cronies or elected hacks?

TOMORROW AT UTAH VALLEY U., SITE OF CHARLIE KIRK’S ASSASSINATION: Greg Lukianoff, my friend, boss at FIRE, and occasional Instapunditeer, speaks on the topic of “Free Speech: An Antidote to Violence.” I’m proud that Greg and FIRE are part of this event, honoring Charlie Kirk’s legacy of engaging friend and opponent alike.

TIME TO BRING BACK GEOGRAPHY? I mean, if people are going to mock Americans for not knowing where countries are on a map, it might help to actually make some kind of effort…

‘STOP MEETING STUDENTS WHERE THEY ARE.’ It can tend to turn into an excuse…

BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS WALLETS: “The school (allegedly!) ‘self-financed thousands of temporary employment opportunities for their graduates through schemes with non-profits and paid-off vendors to give the false impression to incoming students and federal regulators that their graduates were gainfully employed.'”

COLLEGE IS WORTH SAVING. I hope so, I’ve spent my career trying!

HOW TO REFORM SCHOOLS OF EDUCATION. I tend to think they are too far gone, myself.

ANTI-DISCRIMINATION ADVOCATES’ NEW WEAPON: Cold, hard, numbers.

CHARLIE KIRK REPORTEDLY SHOT IN NECK AT UTAH VALLEY U.

Charlie Kirk and the TPUSA event at UVU – let’s wait to get info. pic.twitter.com/907f7Etq28

— An Intelligent Home (@AnIntelHome) September 10, 2025

Actual video with the gunshot here; it’s from far away but as you see him get hit, so I am not going to embed.

From Fox News, he’s hospitalized.

UPDATE: Ok, this is extremely graphic, and I think we need to be cautious that someone did not do some quick AI editing, but if authentic, this looks extremely serious.

WOKE CAMPUS WITCH HUNTS ARE LOSING IN COURT. Finally. But you have to get to court, and that’s difficult and expensive.

HIGHER ED NOT RESPONDING TO THE AI CHALLENGE. Yeah, I know, a shocker, but things could get really bad, really fast unless they take some seriously dramatic action. It was one thing when a diploma meant you could at least fake your way through stuff. If it doesn’t even mean that, college will lose perceived value ultra fast.

HOW WILL AI IMPACT HIGHER ED? My own feeling is that like a whole lot of “advancements” we have seen, it will end up benefiting people who are curious and energetic wildly disproportionately, and harm people who just use it as a crutch. Most will be in the latter category.

NEW BOOK OUT FROM FIRE THIS WEEK: AUTHORITARIANS IN THE ACADEMY. China gets the headlines for creepy campus censorship right here in the USA, and rightfully so, but they’re not the only ones–and campus leaders here have been totally craven.

‘DUKE IS ABANDONING AMERICAN HISTORY.” Yeah, I know, big surprise, but this nugget seems like hair-on-fire bad news that should have alarmed my ole alma mater: “Between 2011 and 2022, the number of primary history majors at Duke plummeted from 90 to just 22.” Duke has 6600 undergrads. 22 history majors should not even be possible.

TRUMP’S “BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL” CUT GRADUATE-SCHOOL SUBSIDIES – NOW DO UNDERGRAD. The sooner the better.