Higher Education

A common feature of our time is the extent to which many in our nation have become preoccupied with diversity. But true diversity obsession, almost a mania, is found at our institutions of higher learning. Rather than have a knee-jerk response for or against diversity, I think we should ask just what is diversity and whether it's a good thing. How do we tell whether a college, a department or…

The 2017 competition for Ingrate of the Year is now closed; the disgraceful distinction belongs to LaVar Ball. Rather than thank President Donald Trump for his part in keeping his son and two other UCLA basketball players from rotting in a Chinese prison for several years, Ball, when asked by ESPN about Trump's role, shot back "Who?" — and complained that "Everybody wants to make it seem like he…

It has been known at least since Saturday that the three UCLA basketball players detained in China on shoplifting charges and forced to stay in the country while the rest of the team went home were accused of stealing merchandise from three stores. Somehow, that news never got through to Vox.com's John Kirby, who shortly after noon on Thursday, claimed that the trio had only stolen "a pair of…

On Tuesday, three UCLA basketball players who were arrested in China last week on charges of shoplifting and who potentially faced 3 to 10 years in prison were released, thanks to intervention on their behalf by President Trump and the U.S. State Department. In sharp contrast to how other wire services have handled the news, two stories at the Associated Press,  waited eight and ten paragraphs,…

When hunting was the major source of food, hunters often used stalking horses as a means of sneaking up on their prey. They would synchronize their steps on the side of the horse away from their prey until they were close enough for a good shot. A stalking horse had a double benefit if the prey was an armed person. If the stalkers were discovered, it would be the horse that took the first shot.…

The most recent cover of Time Magazine — or I should say what's left of it, given its parent company's recent decision "reducing ... circulation and frequency" of the formerly iconic publication — calls President Donald Trump's cabinet "The Wrecking Crew" on a mission of "dismantling government as we know it." Separate reports singled out EPA Director Scott Pruitt, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos…

It was only a matter of time. A New York Times opinion piece attacked conservative opinion media outlets as prejudiced and cowardly (including a rising conservative star) while purportedly criticizing right-wing groupthink in “The Hollow Bravery of Ben Shapiro,” posted Thursday. Contributor Jane Coaston, who has recently penned liberal political essays for the New York Times Sunday magazine,…

If it were a plague, the government would rush to quarantine the infected, as occurred during Europe's Black Death in the 14th century. An immigration debate at Seattle University School of Law is a plague of a different sort, but deadly in a different way. The victim here is the right to free speech.

As George Orwell said, "some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them." Many stupid ideas originate with academics on college campuses. If they remained there and didn't infect the rest of society, they might be a source of entertainment, much in the way a circus is. Let's look at a few stupid ideas peddled by intellectuals.

Do we go around telling women, African Americans, and gay people that their lives don't matter? According to the October 5 episode of How to Get Away with Murder, "I'm Not Her," that's exactly what "we" do.

Our college-age population consists mostly of 18- to 30-year-olds, and likewise our armed forces. I wonder whether they shared common responses to the 2016 presidential election. Many college administrators provided students with therapy dogs, play dough, coloring books, bubbles, videos of frolicking kittens and puppies, and soft music. They even canceled classes and postponed exams so that their…

Our college-age population consists mostly of 18- to 30-year-olds, and likewise our armed forces. I wonder whether they shared common responses to the 2016 presidential election. Many college administrators provided students with therapy dogs, play dough, coloring books, bubbles, videos of frolicking kittens and puppies, and soft music. They even canceled classes and postponed exams so that their…

The New York Times’ Thomas Fuller filed from Berkeley, where the journalist offered some disturbing ambivalence about the whole First Amendment thing, a tone evident in the headline: “Let Right-Wing Speakers Come to Berkeley? Faculty Is Divided.” It’s a pattern at the Times, with recent pieces suggesting free speech was merely a “canard” used by right-wing racists.

On Tuesday, before Ben Shapiro's appearance at the University of California at Berkeley, Bari Weiss, a staff editor and writer in the opinion section at the New York Times, penned an op-ed accurately describing Shapiro's beliefs, defending his right to speak, and criticizing the "sloppy conflation" by leftist politicians and all too many in the press in trying to label all conservatives as "alt-…