- Fear of regulators drives many campuses to restrict speech [Greg Lukianoff of FIRE interviewed by Caleb Brown, Cato podcast] New UCLA Title IX policy requires faculty to inform on “possible” sex harassment, and Prof. Bainbridge objects;
- Tributes to my much admired colleague, the late Cato Institute education scholar Andrew Coulson [Neal McCluskey and Jason Bedrick, Adam Schaeffer, Nick Gillespie/Reason]
- “Total Law School Enrollment at Lowest Point Since 1977; 1L Class Size Lowest Since 1973” [Derek Muller]
- New Jersey: “Elizabeth Public Schools Spend More on Attorneys than Textbooks, Heat or Electricity” [WPIX (autoplays)]
- “I began to see the social sciences as tribal moral communities, becoming ever more committed to social justice, and ever less hospitable to dissenting views.” Jonathan Haidt interviewed by John Leo [Minding the Campus]
- Furor continues over U.S. Department of Education funding of “facilitated communication” with profoundly disabled persons [David Auerbach, Slate]
- “Rhode Island: Children Under 10 Shall Not Be Left Home Alone, Even Briefly” [Lenore Skenazy]
Posts Tagged ‘Title IX’
Campus climate roundup
- New Oxford vice chancellor speaks out against threats to free inquiry as well as overregulation of universities [Iain Martin, CapX]
- Feds: get in line on Title IX or we’ll yank your institutional science funding [Inside Higher Ed, background on Title IX]
- More on scheme proposing mandatory oppression studies for first-year students at American University [Robby Soave/The Daily Beast (and thanks for mention), earlier]
- Back to the days of Plessy v. Ferguson? Oregon State University holds racially segregated retreats [Peter Hasson, Daily Caller] More: University of Connecticut building segregated housing for (some) black male students [Campus Reform]
- Sometimes there really is a good case for taking the names of evil long-dead men off public university buildings, especially if the alternative is to throw a $700,000 subsidy at a murderer-themed café that can’t make it on food sale revenues [The College Fix; UCSD’s Che Guevara cafe]
- “Out in the real world, we have master electricians and mechanics, chess masters, masters of the universe, taskmasters of all kinds, and other such varieties of positions and titles connoting particular skill, knowledge or authority” [Harvey Silverglate, Minding the Campus, on Harvard College “masters” flap (citing “extraordinary recent expansion of the cadre of student life administrators … on virtually every campus throughout the nation”)]
- “Post-Protest Mizzou: Adverse Consequences of the Capitulation” [Thomas Lambert, Pope Center, earlier Lambert on Missouri]
A question about the Title IX campus crackdown
Some prominent scholars and many civil libertarians have been up in arms about the recent federally driven incursions on due process rights of those accused of sex-related offenses at colleges. Faculty, when their rights are adversely affected, have begun suing. Which raises a question: “Why has not one single major university president brought a legal challenge against [the Dear Colleague] letters?” [Coyote]
Campus climate roundup
- “What student protestors should learn from bygone free speech fights” [Conor Friedersdorf]
- You’d expect Oberlin students to have some of the very best demands and you won’t be disappointed [Blake Neff/Daily Caller, my earlier Storify on student demands around the country] “Soon enough, microaggression monitoring was on the table” at Occidental College, and secret snitches will help [Scott Greenfield] President of Washington, D.C.’s American University responds to student demands. tl;dr version: “How high?”
- Diversity means cracking down on religious colleges that discriminate based on church dogma. Right? [Scott Greenfield] Human Rights Campaign huffs and puffs about (perfectly legal) religious-college Title IX exemptions [Washington Post, HRC] Canadian judge: B.C. provincial law society wrongly barred accreditation for conservative Christian law school [Globe and Mail, earlier]
- Just out: “Free Speech on College Campuses” issue of Cato Unbound leads with Greg Lukianoff (“Campus Free Speech Has Been in Trouble for a Long Time”), with responses to follow from Eric Posner and Catherine Ross;
- The year in campus hysteria [Ashe Schow/Examiner]
- Feds’ diversity bureaucracy has engaged in epic power grab in past couple of years, Congress’s omnibus spending bill rewards them with 7 percent funding hike [PowerLine, Bader and earlier, Schow/Examiner]
- “ACLU Silence Enables Campus Anti-free Speech Movement” [Nat Hentoff; related, Emily Ekins]
“To act as though every accusation must be true harms the overall credibility of assault claims.”
The makers of the controversial advocacy film on sexual assault, “The Hunting Ground,” have suggested that by criticizing the film as unfair, Harvard law professors might be creating a hostile environment at their school, which itself might violate Title IX [Samantha Harris, FIRE; The Crimson; Paul Horwitz and Howard Wasserman, PrawfsBlawg; compare recent University of Mary Washington case, in which dean was said to violate Title IX by talking back publicly against accusations]
Jeannie Suk, one of the Harvard professors who has criticized the film, now has an important piece in the New Yorker. One reason we should pay attention to the piece is that its author might soon be silenced, depending on what her institution sees as its Title IX obligations:
This is a piece on a subject about which I may soon be prevented from publishing, depending on how events unfold….If, as the filmmakers suggest, the professors’ statement about the film has created a hostile environment at the school, then, under Title IX, the professors should be investigated and potentially disciplined.
At least for now, though, Professor Suk can speak out:
Fair process for investigating sexual-misconduct cases, for which I, along with many of my colleagues, have fought, in effect violates the tenet that you must always believe the accuser. Fair process must be open to the possibility that either side might turn out to be correct. If the process is not at least open to both possibilities, we might as well put sexual-misconduct cases through no process at all.
Moreover, she points out, an “always believe” premise in the end undercuts the cause of vindicating true accusations:
“always believe” unwittingly renders the stakes of each individual case impossibly high, by linking the veracity of any one claim to the veracity of all claims…. The imperative to act as though every accusation must be true—when we all know some number will not be—harms the over-all credibility of sexual assault claims….equating critique with a hostile environment is neither safe nor helpful for victims.
Feds push sensitivity training at community college level
Under federal pressure, the new compulsory chapel — sorry, the trend toward requiring students to complete sensitivity and diversity sessions — is moving beyond four-year institutions to community and technical colleges whose student bodies are typically more commuter than residential [Graham Shaw, Pope Center] More on diversity and sensitivity training and the doubtful evidence of its actual effects here, etc.
Title IX enforcers descend from Washington on high schools
And they’ll be every bit as zealous as with they are with colleges [Scott Greenfield]
Yik Yak for good
Invoking Title IX, that law of so many uses, some identity advocates are demanding that colleges curtail student access to the chat service Yik Yak, popular for anonymous chatter on campus. While the press routinely portrays Yik Yak as a sump of digital hostility, Virginia Postrel found something quite different when she went on. “On a routine basis, the app grownups love to demonize is much friendlier than the Twitter and Facebook feeds I read daily. For reasons built into its structure, Yik Yak offers fewer rewards for mean, grouchy, tribal, and polarizing posts and more for those that are supportive, funny, inquisitive, and community-building.” Its anonymity “creates a place of support and solidarity amid academic and social struggles” [Bloomberg View, earlier here and here; related, New York Times]
Campus expression roundup
- Mizzou campus cops: if you witness “hateful and/or hurtful speech…call the police immediately” [Eugene Volokh, more (ACLU of Missouri says memo runs “counter to the First Amendment”); James Taranto; earlier on Missouri and Yale episodes]
- “Amherst Students Protest ‘Free Speech,’ Demand ‘Training’ for Offenders” [Katie Zavadski, Daily Beast; Eugene Volokh; Greg Lukianoff and Robert Shibley, New York Daily News; while Vox takes a more positive view of recent rounds of racial intimidation]
- “Dear Colleague” letter, other Obama administration actions encouraged university communities to redefine speech as assault or retaliation under Title IX [Samantha Harris via Katie Barrows, FIRE] More: Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg;
- And now, Claremont-McKenna: it’s not going to take many ruined careers to reduce administrations to the intended compliance. [Claremont McKenna Forum, background on controversy via @adamsteinbaugh] Recommended editorial: “We dissent.” [Claremont Independent]
- Conor Friedersdorf responds with far more patience than I would have shown to a truly awful New Yorker piece claiming that campus free speech alarms are a mere cover for racism (Jelani Cobb: “Right-to-offend advocates [are] trafficking in the same sort of [Jim Crow-era] argument for the right to maintain subordination”) [Atlantic, Noah Rothman/Commentary, earlier episode suggesting New Yorker having its collective doubts whether there is too much free speech in America]
- “Protesters Demand Firing Of Tenured Vanderbilt Law Professor Over Publication Of Op-Ed” [TaxProf; Prof. Carol Swain wrote critically of Islam]
- Pro-liberty liberals have played a hero role in past outbreaks of campus insanity. Will that happen again this time? [Paul Horwitz]
- More: What happened in the Dartmouth library [Charlie Lundquist/The Tab, Alex Griswold/Mediaite, @Popehat (“although I generally support screaming obscenities at Ivy Leaguers this seems of questionable persuasiveness”)] And Columbia [Aaron Short, NY Post (students said to be “uneasy and fearful” over social pressure to join protests)]
Schools roundup
- “Justice Department Sues Public School For Refusing to Manage Student’s Service Dog” [Minh Vu, Seyfarth Shaw]
- Feds finally propose exempting historians and some others (but not folklorists) from IRB/human subject research rules [Zachary Schrag, more]
- Could the University of California’s planned “principles against intolerance” someday restrict the scholarship of criminologists? [Heather Mac Donald/City Journal, earlier]
- “District officials say the staff did everything right..The inhaler doesn’t have Emma’s name on it” [Lenore Skenazy]
- “Remember Your Old Graphing Calculator? It Still Costs a Fortune — Here’s Why” [Jack Smith IV, Mic]
- At hearing, Sen. Lamar Alexander criticizes Department of Education use of Dear Colleague letters to push regulation into new areas [The College Fix, CEI, Scott Greenfield]
- Roughhousing is important for kids. Stop trying to ban it [Virginia Postrel, New York Post]