For universities, the new academic year has nearly arrived. If it’s anything like last year, controversial speakers will be a consistent challenge for administrators and students alike.
More often than not, the speakers that generate the most controversy are those labeled right-wing reactionaries by their critics. Last fall, Richard Spencer, a white nationalist, launched
SAN FRANCISCO — After leaving Harvard’s doctorate program in systems biology to join Google as a software engineer in 2013, James Damore joked on his Facebook page that he knew he had made the right move as he enjoyed a morning smoothie with oats. It was the type of workplace
When Michael Deng, a college freshman, joined an Asian-American fraternity, he was looking for a sense of belonging and identity. Two months later he was dead.
Just a year ago, after the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the University of Texas at Austin’s admissions program by a single swing vote, the question seemed to be edging, at last, toward an answer: Colleges could, the justices ruled, consider race when deciding whom to let
Many professors who have expressed their views about race and politics this year have found themselves targets of both the left and right. Nothing is too abstrusely academic, it seems, to seed an attack campaign fueled by websites that surveil social media to find gotcha-worthy gems. The Professor Watch List, for one, created last
Several refrains marked the election campaign of Donald Trump. “Make America great again.” “Build the wall.” But another phrase commonly uttered by the president continues to animate his base: “The system is rigged.”
This sentiment also underscored some reactions to a recent report from The New York Times, based on a memo it had obtained, which
The nation’s long fight over affirmative action at colleges has flared back up with a report this week that the Trump administration’s Justice Department plans to go after race-conscious admissions policies. While colleges have good reason to be concerned about such news, the fears it has aroused in them may be exaggerated and somewhat misplaced.
Why?
Many college leaders and diversity advocates were stunned by the news Tuesday that the U.S. Justice Department is preparing to investigate and sue collegesover their affirmative action policies. Just over a year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the admissions policies of the University of Texas at
A committee of the University of North Carolina system Board of Governors voted Tuesday to bar a prominent university civil rights center from engaging in litigation, a decision that alarmed both civil rights and academic freedomadvocates.
The Committee on Educational Planning, Policies and Programs voted 5 to 1, with one member abstaining,
The New York Times reported on Tuesday evening that the U.S. Department of Justice is planning “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.” The report was based on an internal document from the department that left many questions unanswered. Read more about what this could look like