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Emma Whitford
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: As of last week, faculty at Ohio State University can no longer make land acknowledgments—verbal or written statements that recognize the Indigenous people who originally lived on the university’s land—unless it is directly relevant to class subject matter.
The new policy from the university’s Office of University Compliance and Integrity is one of many created in response to Ohio’s SB 1, a sweeping higher education law passed in March that seeks to eliminate DEI offices and scrub all mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion from university scholarships, job descriptions and more.
Len Gutkin
Chronicle of Higher Education
Excerpt: Princeton’s president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, has fiercely defended DEI initiatives in the face of pressure to disavow them from the Trump administration. But in his forthcoming book, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right, he recommends that colleges jettison at least one such initiative, namely “politically loaded practices like mandatory diversity statements for job candidates.”
Given that Eisgruber has accused other college leaders, as The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch put it, “of carrying water for the Trump administration,” his concession on diversity statements matters. If even the Ivy League’s biggest defender of the status quo ante Trump has turned against diversity statements, it seems likely that they’re on the way out.
Cathy Young
The Bulwark
Excerpt: Last week's right-wing freakout over the Cracker Barrel logo redesign—apparently amounting to white-guy erasure—had more than its share of sublimely ridiculous moments. But none, perhaps, were more emblematic of the current “anti-woke” crusade than the call to action from author, activist, and Manhattan Institute fellow Chris Rufo.
Of course, what also makes it noteworthy is that Rufo isn’t just some random social-media blowhard. In recent months, he has emerged as the unofficial ideologue of the Trumpian assault on the liberal cultural establishment.
Jennifer Schuessler and Vimal Patel
New York Times
Excerpt: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an increasingly prominent free-speech organization, has long been known as a fierce opponent of campus political correctness. Since its founding in 1999, it has been celebrated for defending conservatives and other dissidents from the prevailing liberal culture at America’s universities.
Jennifer Schuessler and Vimal Patel
New York Times
Excerpt: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an increasingly prominent free-speech organization, has long been known as a fierce opponent of campus political correctness. Since its founding in 1999, it has been celebrated for defending conservatives and other dissidents from the prevailing liberal culture at America’s universities.
The group, long a scourge of university administrators, also finds itself working to help protect schools it has criticized in the past from new threats. When FIRE filed a brief in support of Harvard’s lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s cuts in research funds, the group noted its own record as “a leading critic of Harvard’s inconsistent and insufficient protection of free speech and academic freedom.”
Robert Shibley
FIRE
Excerpt: Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services accused Harvard of violating Title VI, which bans discrimination based on race or nationality at any school that takes federal funding. Last week, it was reported that Harvard is nearing a $500 million settlement with the administration to end legal battles.
In the past two years alone, HHS noted, Harvard has accepted nearly $800 million from the government. But the threat to Harvard’s funding is just the headline. The sweeping theory of “harassment” HHS used to justify its claim has the potential to cause huge damage, not just at Harvard but across the nation, by collapsing protected speech and misconduct into a single charge that could turn campus protest into a civil rights violation.
