Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
Washington Post
Excerpt: The University of Virginia’s governing board voted Friday to dissolve its office of diversity, equity and inclusion, joining other efforts by President Donald Trump and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to remove DEI initiatives in the state and beyond.
The Board of Visitors, overwhelmingly controlled by Youngkin appointees, voted unanimously in favor of a resolution that dismantled the office. It said state law does not call for such stand-alone offices, but the resolution allows the university to transfer programs “permissible” by law to other homes. It was not immediately clear what would qualify as permissible.
by Ed Yingling '70
Washington insiders believe it is very likely that a significant increase in the tax rate on university endowment income will be enacted this year. They cite the need for additional tax revenue to offset the Trump tax cut agenda and the antipathy of many Republicans to what has been happening on campuses for the last two years. They also focus on the fact that then-Senator JD Vance introduced a bill in the last Congress imposing a 35 percent tax on endowment income.
Michael I. Kotlikoff
New York Times
Excerpt: Cornell University recently hosted an event that any reputable P.R. firm would surely have advised against. On a calm campus, in a semester unroiled by protest, we chose to risk stirring the waters by organizing a panel discussion that brought together Israeli and Palestinian voices with an in-person audience open to all.
The week before, I extended a personal invitation to our student community, explaining that open inquiry “is the antidote to corrosive narratives” and is what enables us “to see and respect other views, work together across differences and conceive of solutions to intractable problems.”
Ian Bogost
The Atlantic
Excerpt: The start of spring semester is a hopeful time on college campuses. Students fill the quads and walkways, wearing salmon shorts or strappy tank tops. Music plays; Frisbees fly. As a career academic, I have been a party to this catalog-cover scene for more than 30 years running. It looks made-up, but it is real. Every year in the United States, almost 20 million people go to college, representing every race, ethnicity, and social class. This is college in America—or it has been for a long time.
But college life as we know it may soon come to an end.