Anthropology began as archeology--not just the archaeology of "prehistoric" human or quasi-human bones and stones, but also the study of other things presumably archaic. The most notable of these was the social life and thought of the world's remaining peoples who could be taken as proxies for those who supplied these bones and used these stones…

In this article, the authors talk about the relevance of American political science and America. Political science has enormous strengths in its highly talented practitioners and sophisticated methods. However, its disconnection from its host society, while not so severe as for fields like English and sociology, nonetheless poses an existential…

The latest episode in the long-running struggle for control of the Constitution, and the political power that goes with it, is playing out in the federal courts in California. The contending philosophies are originalism, which holds that the Constitution should be read as it was originally understood by the framers and ratifiers, and the congeries…

In this article, the author provides a detailed legal history of originalism and investigates whether, and to what extent, originalism is a part of law school teaching on the Constitution. He shares the results of an examination of the leading constitutional law textbooks used in the top fifty law schools and a selection of responses gathered from…

Lawyers are among the most unhappy, least respected wealthy people in America. There are, no doubt, many reasons for the morale crisis in the legal profession. After all, not many people like lawyers. Further, many aspects of legal work are objectively stressful. Litigation is rife with conflict even in the most courteous jurisdictions, and trials…

In this article, the author explains how forty years of politicized hiring in the law schools has left its destructive mark. The results are potentially catastrophic: Market forces and internal law school policies may be combining to produce a legal education bubble the likes of which the country has never seen. (Contains 11 footnotes.)

While many law students and recent grads have come to feel that legal education is an expensive waste of time now that the job market for lawyers has collapsed, some seasoned law practitioners have their own concerns about the worth of a legal education. Their concerns, however, relate to product quality rather than product marketability.…

When the author entered Columbia Law School in 1951, first-year tuition was $600--$5082.07 in today's money (according to the U.S. Department of Labor's CPI inflation calculator). Today (with some additional compulsory payments) it is over $50,000. How could this have happened? Law schools were once noted for providing inexpensive education, what…

In this article, the author describes the seemingly all-powerful Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and the negative effects of its single-minded obsession with "diversity." He suggests ways in which true diversity of viewpoint might be injected into law school education. The key is to raise awareness and apply the same standards to all…

Numerous surveys and studies show that the faculty and administrations of America's major public campuses are, politically, well to the left of the typical American. This would not be cause for concern if these political preferences were merely expressed by faculty and administrators in their private activities as citizens and had no significant…

On December 31, 2013, Hillsdale College--a small liberal arts college in rural south-central Michigan--will no longer be authorized to recommend students to the state of Michigan for teacher certification. Hillsdale's over a century-and-a-half tradition of preparing teachers for public schools will, sadly, come to an end. Hillsdale will lose the…

Is there a bubble in higher education? In this article, the author responds point-by-point to those who argue against the overwhelming signs that there is. In the process, he makes a convincing case that higher education badly needs an overhaul in order to operate more effectively and efficiently. (Contains 38 footnotes.)

The defining characteristic of a bubble is unsustainable growth that eventually reverses. Bubbles typically arise when uncertainty leads to unsustainable trends, and the authors argue that there are two areas in which higher education has experienced what appear to be unsustainable trends, namely, college costs (the costs to students, parents, and…

One broad-based solution that critics like Charles Murray favor to the problem of too many students going on to college is to direct more young people into relevant job-training and certificate programs. Murray's argument, articulated in "Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality," is based on the belief…

The claim that faculty conduct research is one of the main justifications for the modern university. Supposedly, academe carries out important, cutting-edge inquiries in which society has an interest. In fact, states this author, research at American universities is becoming narrow and artificial, out of touch with social realities, and of…