Higher Education

The social justice warriors at Freeform are at it again, with the episode "Relation of Lines and Colors" of Switched at Birth revolving around the continuing racial tensions at the University of Missouri—Kansas City following an incident of *gasp* cultural appropriation. The episode, which aired February 21, began with the disclaimer: “While the story that you’re about to see is not based on…

American public school students fall well behind students around the world in math and science proficiency. This is not debatable. According to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, both cited in The New York Times in 2012, "Fourth- and eighth-grade students in the United States continue to lag behind students in…

The fifth and final season of Freeform’s Switched at Birth has the fingerprints of Social Justice Warriors all over it. The second episode, which aired on Tuesday night, “This Has to Do With Me,” provided a “ripped from the headlines” storyline based on the Black Lives Matter campus movement that began sweeping schools and chilling free thought at universities in the fall of 2005.

NYU journalism prof Jay Rosen thinks that for the time being, mainstream media outlets should give inexperienced reporters -- interns -- what’s typically considered among the juiciest of plum assignments: White House correspondent. That, he argued in a Sunday piece on his site PressThink, would be a far more effective way of covering the current administration than we have now. Rosen wrote that…

One wonders just how far spineless college administrators will go when it comes to caving in to the demands of campus snowflakes. For those unfamiliar with the term "snowflakes," it is increasingly being used to characterize college students easily traumatized by criticism and politically incorrect phrases. They demand safe spaces and trigger warnings so as not to be upset by views that challenge…

It would be difficult to think of any principle more basic than that criminal defendants can’t be convicted except by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But left-leaning “fact-checker” PolitiFact doesn’t even know it. In an error-filled January 19 “fact-check,” PolitiFact’s Anna Orso writes about “the ‘clear and convincing’ standard used in criminal trials.”  The clear and convincing evidence…

In June, when UK voters decided to leave the European Union in the "Brexit" referendum, the U.S. press told the American people that the UK economy would suffer greatly as a result. Moody's economist and max Hillary Clinton contributor Mark Zandi predicted that it would be "going down the rabbit hole." At CBS News, Mellody Hobson said that "they're acting as if a recession is a foregone…

The image of America as “a shining city on a hill” (or a similar phrase) has been a staple of conservative political rhetoric for several decades. In a Tuesday piece for The New Republic, Matthew Pratt Guterl, a professor at Brown University, adapted the metaphor for leftist domestic use: “The nation as a whole seems no longer interested in celebrating any vision of equity, justice, and mutual…

Climate scientist Dr. Judith Curry has had enough of academics politicizing her field. She’s leaving academia for the private sector, which she said on Jan. 3, “seems like a more ‘honest’ place for a scientist working in a politicized field than universities or government labs.” Curry resigned her tenured position as of Jan. 1, with “no intention of seeking another academic” position in a…

In an item published on Tuesday, Matt Sedensky at the Associated Press reported on what he observed in a graduate "Faith and Politics" class at Emory University immediately after and during the weeks following this year's presidential election. Class members' immature reactions to the election's result and the reporter's injected commentary are both disturbing, but very useful. That's because…

Aaron Hanlon thinks anti-conservative bias at colleges and universities is a molehill that a lot of people try to make into a mountain. To the dismay of Hanlon, a professor of English at Colby College, some of his fellow liberals are among those who, in his opinion, exaggerate the problem and thereby bolster the right’s case. Last Thursday in The New Republic, Hanlon went after New York Times…

It’s definitely not morning in America for the media, believes NYU's Jay Rosen. The metaphor Rosen uses to illustrate the media’s plight during the first several months of Donald Trump’s administration isn’t a time of day but an entire, harsh season; he headlined his tweetstorm of last Sunday “Winter is coming: what it will be like for the press under Trump.” In September, Rosen alleged that…

On Monday's CNN Tonight, Don Lemon and his panel refreshingly condemned "safe spaces" on college campuses. Lemon raised how some student Trump supporters have called for their own "safe spaces." Dennis Prager recognized the "legitimate factor here that kids who did vote for Trump are ostracized," but added, "I'm still against the safe space even for conservative students." Professor Todd Gitlin…

While a guest on Wednesday's edition of the Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson Tonight program, Mike Rowe --  a cable television host best known for his work on the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs program and the Somebody's Gotta Do It series on the Cable News Network -- criticized students at colleges and universities who burn the American flag because it's not persuasive to destroy “a symbol so…