Institutional Governance & Accountability

Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Last Dec. 5, the presidents of three leading universities stepped before Congress for a hearing on campus antisemitism that was widely criticized when they failed to offer forthright responses on whether hypothetical calls for the genocide of Jews would violate their institutions’ policies. Those three presidents—representing Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—were followed by four others in two separate hearings in April and May as pro-Palestinian student protests swept campuses across the nation last spring.

Of the seven campus leaders who testified, only two remain on the job (though one was already on the way out). Here’s a look at where all seven leaders are today.

Yascha Mounk
Persuasion

Excerpt: Cass Sunstein is an American legal scholar and the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University. Sunstein was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under Barack Obama, and is considered to be the most widely cited legal scholar in the United States. Sunstein is the author, with Richard Thaler, of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, The World According to Star Wars, and Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide.

In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Cass Sunstein discuss his “law of group polarization” and how it contributes to today’s factionalism; how echo chambers work (and why social media makes them worse); and whether meeting the challenge of misinformation requires new government regulations.

Roger Pielke Jr.
American Enterprise Institute

Faculty in U.S. universities overwhelmingly hold views on the political left. That probably won’t be news to most THB readers. Today’s post documents just how extreme today’s left-leaning ideological uniformity has become among professors and shows that in the past, across disciplines faculty were much more politically diverse.

Opinion Department
Cornell Daily Sun

Excerpt: Maria Lima Valdez ‘25 protested her suspension for her private Instagram post saying “Zionists must die,” arguing “it was not a call to action.” What is Valdez referring to, if not inciting violence?

While the means to achieve the outcome are unspecified, it would be overly naive to assume Valdez is referring to a “magical” disappearance of people. The phrase explicitly advocates for the individuals’ death based solely on their ideological identity. It does not critique “Zionism,” the ideology itself, but rather its followers. By targeting people, the post reduces their humanity to their ideological affiliation. The rhetoric openly calls for their elimination and thus crosses from opinion to constituting dangerous incitement to the worst hatred.

Melinda Manning
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: It’s incredibly gratifying when we can see those very changes that we once fought for—and never expected to be implemented. Almost 12 years ago, I was a college administrator who filed both Title IX and Clery Act complaints with the Department of Education against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the university that was both my employer and my beloved alma mater.

Over the years, UNC repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, even after being placed under federal monitoring and having to pay a hefty fine. I seriously doubted that their systems for conducting Title IX investigations would ever improve in any meaningful ways. I am happy to say that I was wrong.

Minding the Campus
Richard Vedder

Excerpt: For decades, international testing data have shown that the United States, for all its leadership in technological innovation and economic success, has been, at best, so-so in teaching fundamental knowledge to young Americans. Moreover, the situation appears to have worsened, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has not recovered to anemic pre-pandemic levels since. And, a recent RealClear Investigations report documents that our K-12 schools are enhancing mediocrity by worsening an already wrongheaded grade inflation by continuing to give students high grades even as their learning continues to decline. As one refreshing voice of sanity, Maryland education chief Carey Wright put it, “If you set the bar low, that’s all you are going to get. But if you set the bar high for students, and support teachers and leaders, it [higher student performance] is doable.”