The University of Delaware has a zero-tolerance policy for anything remotely resembling "hate speech." As such, the school implemented a mandatory training for all 7,000-odd students in its dorms. The sessions were part of a thorough thought-reform curriculum, designed by the school's Office of Residence Life, psychologically to "treat" and…

This article presents the author's interesting experiences relating to the ideological indoctrination taking place on college campuses. The author suggests that the philosophical and ethical foundations of both the United States and the modern American university are being undermined by the ideology of collectivism, with its dogmatic hatred of…

Academics are inclined to think of their work as a pure calling. But the fact remains that the profession of higher education--like all professions--is embedded in various rules, assumptions, and programs that further the fiduciary obligations of the profession and also protect the rights, agendas and self-interests of the profession's members.…

Liberal education has been disappearing, and what remains is diminished and compromised. At Temple University, the largest department in the college of liberal arts is criminal justice. The second largest is counseling psychology, and the humanities disciplines have become left-veering sociology. While islands of traditional learning survive, the…

In this article, the author, founder of Yorktown University, an online institution whose focus is training for citizenship, describes the often circuitous path to higher education accreditation. The author's story of what happened on his way to reform higher education is a tale of the political ability of traditional institutions to block startup…

The University of Chicago met widespread national opposition ten years ago after it instituted a new, less demanding core curriculum to make way for more electives. It was part of a plan to make the curriculum significantly less demanding in order to attract more students and improve the school's bottom line in a time of putative budget deficits.…

The announcement in June 2007 by Antioch University that it would be closing Antioch College produced a great deal of commentary. One of the better offerings was a 2007 piece in the "Weekly Standard" by Charlotte Allen, which ran under the title "Death by Political Correctness." Her analysis presents a complex picture, but Allen leaves no doubt…

The federal Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, defines a "historically" black institution of higher education as "any historically black college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose principle mission was, and is, the education of black Americans." They are usually referred to as HBCUs. Most private black colleges…

Among the first things the author did upon becoming a professor in 1959 was to join the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). To do so almost seemed like a religious obligation, a step any serious academic would eagerly and proudly take. The AAUP was then the largest and most influential academic association in the United States,…

The author scrutinizes the National Academy of Sciences report "Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering" and its dangerous call to place the sciences under the sledgehammer of Title IX. Her findings: A one-sided, inaccurate, and internally contradictory report prepared by a committee lacking…

From literary theorist to university administrator to "New York Times" blogger and social critic, Stanley Fish has risen from simple beginnings as a specialist in English Renaissance poetry to ride the ideological foam of all things cutting edge. David Rothman examines the provocative ideas behind the life's work of one of the academy's most…

Diversity is said to bring about a host of educational benefits, yet on campus or off, things aren't working out the way diversity experts planned. In this article, the author reviews recent research challenging the "contact hypothesis," which asserts that putting individuals of disparate cultural backgrounds in the classroom and other social…

Higher education accreditation, created to help safeguard the quality of academic programming, has instead become a kind of insider's game that protects American colleges and universities from close scrutiny, when not pressuring them to become more politically correct. In this article, the author presents a survey of the sorry current state of…

Today's trustees have the central role of choosing university presidents, and often provide valued advice on management of the institutional fisc. But according to the now accepted gospel of "shared governance," when it comes to the heart of academic practice, curriculum, and scholarship, theirs, despite theoretic power, is mainly a task of…

Interest in military history is as strong as it has ever been--except on American college campuses. Lt. Gen. Josiah Bunting III examines why today's undergraduates need to study the facts of war, and why knowing its causes and consequences remain a vital part of our common knowledge.