The AFSA Weekly Review
The week's top news, views and other higher-ed reform highlights
AFSA HIGHLIGHTS
University of Washington alumni seek to revive the spirit of free inquiry The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. An independent new alumni group — Husky Alumni for Academic Excellence — has articulated a mission that is ambitious yet essential: “To reinvigorate free and open academic inquiry and to foster a campus ethos where civil discourse and intellectual courage flourish.”
Alumni Associations Need Reinvention The “Alma Matters” substack page. A new Manhattan Institute issue brief calls for the reinvention of alumni associations. The Alumni Free Speech Alliance has already answered that call.
Free speech is no laughing matter Princetonians for Free Speech. The writer of a canceled collegiate comedy sketch explains why censorship wasn’t the answer — and why the show should have gone on.
Higher-Ed Reform’s Coming of Age The “Alma Matters” Substack Page. So why is higher education broken? Is it because it’s becoming a more dubious economic investment for students? Or because universities and the people who inhabit them no longer consider themselves engaged in the task of moral education — in educating free people and self-governing citizens? It’s both.
NEWS
Penn Professor's Fight for Free Speech Heads to Federal Court The Washington Free Beacon. Amy Wax, the tenured law professor who was sanctioned for her controversial remarks about racial issues, sued the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday for breach of contract and race discrimination, putting a dispute over tenure and academic freedom that has dragged on for almost three years into the hands of a federal court.
Conservative professor’s lawsuit against ASU’s DEI training may proceed, judge rules The College Fix. A conservative professor’s lawsuit challenging Arizona State University’s “Inclusive Communities” faculty training may proceed, a judge recently ruled, prompting campus leaders to now seek relief from the state’s court of appeals in an attempt to dismiss the case.
Florida professors sue over DeSantis-signed DEI restrictions The Tallahassee Democrat. A group of Florida professors filed a federal lawsuit Thursday in an attempt to block a 2023 Gov. Ron DeSantis-signed law banning funding for public college and university diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. It "represents an alarming overreach of government control, threatening the very foundation of free expression in Florida’s public universities,” said Jerry Edwards, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, in a statement.
Inside Princeton’s disciplinary process for pro-Palestine students The Daily Princetonian. In interviews with the ‘Prince,’ six students subject to University disciplinary proceedings described a tangled process that appeared fixated on searching for protest leaders to blame and employed tactics they described as invasive. The students were all investigated for supposed participation in pro-Palestine disruptions last spring.
Speakers call on peers to organize, defend free speech, at “Censorship in the Sciences” conference The College Fix. More than 150 scholars met at the University of Southern California to tackle one of the biggest problems facing higher education today — how to fix a censorious academia that prioritizes group-think and diversity dogma over free speech, freedom of inquiry, and intellectual diversity.
Even Harvard M.B.A.s are struggling to land jobs The Wall Street Journal. Harvard isn’t the only elite business school where recent grads seem to be stumbling on their way into the job market. More than a dozen top-tier M.B.A. programs, including those at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and New York University’s Stern School of Business, had worse job-placement outcomes last year than any other in recent memory.
What happened to enrollment at top colleges after affirmative action ended? The New York Times. After the Supreme Court ended race-conscious college admissions in 2023, the 2024-25 academic year was seen as a kind of test: What effect would the decision have on freshman classes?
Judge rebukes Stanford “misinformation expert” for using misinformation in court filings Minnesota Reformer. A federal judge tossed out the testimony of a Stanford misinformation expert who submitted a court document, under penalty of perjury, that included misinformation on an election law case.
Professor says college fired him for telling 3 students U.S. is fascist after election Inside Higher Ed. The tenured faculty member said Millsaps College argued that his email could be misconstrued as speaking on behalf of the institution. He’s appealing to the board.
VIEWS
How the rise of woke ‘educrats’ is destroying higher education The New York Post. Today’s university officials often placate or even foment the illiberal mobs that stifle education. And that’s largely a story of growing bureaucracies. More commentary on this topic can be found here.
Georgia unplugs the bias machine The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. Will 2024 be the year the lights went out on DEI in the Peach State?
DEI statements erode the diversity that matters Minding the Campus. However well-intentioned, DEI statements function more as “compelled speech” than as mechanisms for choosing the best candidates while undermining academic freedom. And that is a problem, not just for higher education but for prospective students and faculty as well.
Student governments should ditch national politics Real Clear Politics. Perhaps it's time for student government associations to get out of politics -- and get back to the functions they were supposed to perform.
A crisis averted is not a crisis solved: DEI reforms face resistance Minding the Campus. So long as a school’s leadership remains obsessed with DEI in place of merit, excellence, and actual equality, window-dressing changes to dial down DEI will always fall short of providing the systematic redress of which American higher education is in dire need.
Mandating meritocracy is the only path to sustainably make universities great again Minding The Campus. Anything short of mandating meritocracy will create another border wall-type situation once progressives regain power, as they already scheme to do. Without permanently making universities great again — places where critical thinking and rationality prevail — the Make America Great Again administration will fail to counter yet another onslaught of progressive canards.
PODCASTS
Intellectual Diversity and Informed Patriotism The Higher Ed Now Podcast. Joshua Dunn discusses intellectual diversity and "informed patriotism" with Dr. Michael B. Poliakoff on ACTA’s Higher Ed Now Podcast. Dunn recently took the helm at the new Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
Keith Whittington Explains Why Free Speech Can't Be Taken for Granted In a Yale Law School podcast, Professor Keith Whittington explains why free speech can't be taken for granted.
