September 26, 2024
1 min read
Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley’s Blog
Excerpt: In the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht asked “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” As someone who has been a teacher for over 30 years, I find myself increasingly asking the same question as trust and enrollments fall in higher education. There has been a precipitous decline in enrollments across the country as universities worry about covering their costs without raising already high tuition rates. From 2010 to 2021, enrollments fell from roughly 18.1 million students to about 15.4 million.
There is also an increasing view of higher education as an academic echo chamber for far left agendas. For many, there is little appeal in going to campuses where you are expected to self-censor and professors reject your values as part of their lesson plans.
Read More September 25, 2024
1 min read
William Harris
FIRE
Excerpt: FIRE’s 2025 College Free Speech Rankings show that roughly a quarter of students think it is not clear that their administration protects free speech on campus. And if a free speech controversy were to erupt? More than a quarter believe their administration would be unlikely to defend a speaker’s right to express their views.
America's colleges and universities should be bastions of free speech. Yet, these abysmal scores show they are not. Alumni don’t have to reward universities that flunk out on free speech: They can donate to FIRE in lieu of making a gift to their alma mater.
Read More September 24, 2024
1 min read
M.J. Koch
The Free Press
Excerpt: At The Spence School, a tony all-girls private institution on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Anne Protopappas was larger than life. “Bonjour!” she’d smile to students, wearing her quintessentially French red lipstick with Plato tucked under one arm and croissants in the other to offer her next class.
But in February, she was fired. Unable to find another teaching job, she is suing the school, its trustees, and its two top officials, Head of School Felicia Wilks and Director of Teaching and Learning Eric Zahler. Protopappas’s firing stems from a May 2023 incident that took place in her Advanced French class, which was being taken by eight Spence seniors. Out of the blue, according to the complaint, one student asked, “Why did France ban the hijab?”
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