Higher Education

Last Friday, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer expressed her shock and disbelief that Arizona State University would not award President Barack Obama an honorary degree since he was their commencement speaker. However, over the weekend, the University announced it would instead name "their most important scholarship" after Obama - instead of awarding the president an honorary degree. "Here's the…

It's not often during midday cable news broadcasting you get to see raw emotion from one or two of the hosts. However, when President Barack Obama gets snubbed, there are exceptions to the rule. On MSNBC on April 10, co-hosts Contessa Brewer and Carlos Watson put their disapproval on display for viewers to see while reporting a decision by Arizona State University not to award Obama an honorary…

The University of Maryland -- my alma mater, for full disclosure -- has made national headlines this week with a pirate-themed porn flick originally scheduled for a full-length screening last Saturday at the campus theater. Under pressure from state legislators, campus officials backed down, yet a student group stepped in the gap, pledging to screen the film in a lecture hall yesterday evening.…

Former professor Ward Churchill, who infamously likened some 9-11 victims to Nazis in an essay written on September 12, 2001, won a civil trial on a technicality yesterday, winning $1 in damages for having been unjustly dismissed from his teaching position at the University of Colorado. In a Friday New York Times story from Denver, Kirk Johnson and Katharine Seelye team up to cover the trial of…

It seems that deciding which college is best for gay students goes beyond the usual questions of affordable or not, private or public, close to home or far away, and Big Ten or Big East. It also involves finding out which colleges are considered most sensitive to LGBT concerns. This week's "My Story" section in Newsweek focused on the plight of freelance journalist Julie Halpert's lesbian…

On Monday evening, CNN’s Roland Martin began his eight-week run as fill-in anchor for Campbell Brown on her Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull program, who took maternity leave with the upcoming arrival of her unborn baby. As the show began, he gave an “opening statement” of sorts as to how he hoped to anchor the program: “I’m not going to bother with the silly notion of who’s a liberal or a…

Both MSNBC’s David Shuster and CNN’s Rick Sanchez pulled their scoop straight from Media Matters’ blog, and focused on Newt Gingrich’s Twitter comments criticizing President Obama’s upcoming commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, instead of the controversy over the speech itself. Shuster targeted the former Speaker of the House during the “Hypocrisy Watch” segment on Tuesday’s 1600…

Major media began shielding Barack Obama from criticism early in the presidential primaries. It's no surprise, then, when they continue to do so today. However, the media's collective, instinctive tone-deafness in regard to grassroots activities continues to stun and amaze.NewsBusters has so far noted several grassroots efforts that have been ignored – despite similar left-leaning efforts…

On a Friday night, where can you look to find a little anti-religious media bias? No other than MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show." In her "Ms. Information" segment, Maddow engaged in a rant about Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., opposition to language in the stimulus bill that could forbid the practice of religion in institutions of higher learning where stimulus funds are used, as a Feb. 3 story by the…

If you were to construct, from everything you know about the species, a stereotypical, liberal member of the MSM, Jennifer Siebens would be it. Recently, Ms. Siebens gave an interview to the student newspaper--the Oberlin Review--at her alma mater, Oberlin College. In it, she revealed her admiration for the radical movements of the '60's and current infatuation with President Barack Obama. Yes, I…

"For an illegal immigrant, getting into UCLA was the easy part," lamented the headline for a Groundhog Day article by Los Angeles Times's Jason Song. "A San Pedro girl's undocumented status means no financial aid. Money is tight, classes are tough, and just getting to campus takes 2 1/2 hours," reads the subheader for Song's February 2 Column One story.Yes, despite the national and state…

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer could be going out of business.  And the culprit is . . . capitalism.  That's Pilgrim's Complaint. Tim Pilgrim, that is.  The professor of journalism at Western Washington University was quoted today in the P-I's article about its own pending demise. The P-I's parent company, the Hearst Corp., has put the paper up for sale, and prospects aren't good for finding a…

So, once again, students in the Colorado university system and their parents will be asked to pay more for tuition. The Rocky slips this university talking point into its report: "Low state funding has driven heavy tuition increases every year since the beginning of the decade." Of course, how the money's being spent escapes all attention.  Good luck figuring out how much it takes to educate a 4…

Only a professor, preferably a sociology professor, one with way too much time on his hands, could have come up with this one.  His solution to the Detroit crisis that has the Big Three automakers on the brink of bye-bye?  Unionize their foreign competitors manufacturing in the USA!Now why didn't we think of that?  Because we're not Jonathan Cutler, associate professor of sociology at Wesleyan…