When the pandemic shut down the country in March 2020, many college and university administrators predicted that civil rights complaints would plummet. With students learning from home and out of physical and social contact with one another, it seemed unlikely that there would be many claims of discrimination or sexual harassment under Title IX…

The Supreme Court is taking up affirmative action at colleges and universities for the sixth time in 50 years. In that litany, an early case was the University of California vs. Bakke. Bakke complained about being denied admission to the university's medical school because seats were guaranteed for minority applicants, thus barring the door to him…

Among his accomplishments, Dr. Martin Luther King served as a driving force in securing basic civil rights for black Americans, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He played a crucial role organizing and leading the protests which led to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation on public buses was…

"Farm to campus" is a growing movement to mobilize the influence and power of colleges and universities to shape the food system. Research done before the Covid-19 pandemic shows that New England colleges with dining services served more than 87 million meals and spent nearly $400 million on food and beverage annually. Farm to…

The NCAA student-athlete compensation rules have changed. That change will have consequences, both intended and unintended. An athlete's name, image or likeness (NIL) may have protectable intrinsic value. The right to license and profit from one's NIL, often referred to as the "right of publicity," is explicitly recognized by statute or…

Sonya Stephens, president of Mount Holyoke College, states that a bill in Florida that would prohibit discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through 3rd grade public school classrooms, dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, is less about protecting students than it is about cynically fueling America's political…

When President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court, it seemed like a major civil rights victory. But that victory could feel like a bitter irony this fall, when the high court hears two cases that will likely obliterate affirmative action. If Jackson gets approved by the Senate, she will probably be making two…

Courage has become a superlative attribute in our age. Higher education is newly interested in courage as a centering ideal. That's good: We need more courage on campus these days. What we have instead is a "mistaken" notion of courage. Courage is not screaming against the things that indispose us. Courage is sharing beliefs with…

The issue of student debt is now at the forefront of public discourse and political debate. There is no question that debt, not just student debt, impacts the economy and hinders the economic wellbeing of many Americans. At the same time, the factors that lead to that debt should not be ignored. Not all student debt is the same, and not all…

UMass Boston leadership has publicly committed to becoming an antiracist and health-promoting university, and the institutional values and commitments are also intricately tied to an academic freedom that wholly defends the right to teach about race, gender and other equity issues. Currently, more than 30 states have enacted bans or have bans…

The world has entered a new era of blended remote and in-person interaction. This new approach has removed boundaries of distance and time. People are more facile with--though some would say burned out by--Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other virtual meeting platforms. This digital revolution has brought educators greater power to engage and…

All content to Wikipedia is added and edited in a crowdsourced model, wherein nearly anyone can click the "edit" button and change content on Wikipedia. An active community of dedicated volunteers is what keeps Wikipedia as reliable as it is today--good, but not complete. More diverse contributors are needed to add more content to…

The hearings of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol have two fundamental and distinct tasks and responsibilities: first, to present a true account, based on conclusive evidence and logic; and second, to persuade the American public that this is indeed the only true and conclusive…

Some of the most common cybersecurity threats are malware, ransomware, phishing and spam. For their victims, including higher education institutions (HEIs), cybercrimes range from inconveniences to data breaches to grand heists. The threat that cyberattacks pose for HEIs is extremely costly and increasingly frequent, according to April 2022…

On the 50 anniversary of the enactment of Title IX, the U.S. Department of Education released proposed new regulations for Title IX policies. For the most part, these new regulations reverse regulatory changes made during the Trump administration. The Biden administration insists the new regs will "restore crucial protections" that had…