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Each year, the undergraduate college at Harvard awards the Sophia Freund Prize to the graduating senior with the highest GPA. For decades, the prize went to one student, sometimes two if there was a tie. In 2025, there was a 55-way tie. The top students all had a perfect GPA. Hundreds more were nearly perfect. Last year, flat A’s accounted for 66 percent of grades. A’s and A–’s accounted for 84 percent.
Grade inflation is about more than numbers. Putting a perfect GPA in reach of so many students perversely deters them from taking classes that could threaten it. It’s as if students start college with a shiny new car and hope to go four years without a scratch. Who would dare go off-road?
Incidents decreased most significantly on college and university campuses, by 66% (from 1,694 to 583).
The most significant factor contributing to the decrease in incidents on college campuses in 2025 was the decline of the anti-Israel encampment movement that drove the spike in incidents on campuses in the spring of 2024. Antisemitic incidents related to anti-Israel protests, including encampments, decreased by 83% on college campuses in 2025 compared to the year before. But the threat of antisemitism on college campuses is far from gone. Incidents on college campuses remained almost three times higher in 2025 than in 2021.
The medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles, allegedly gave preference to Black and Hispanic applicants over the last three admissions cycles, in violation of federal law and a 2023 Supreme Court ruling, the Justice Department said Wednesday as it released the results of a yearlong investigation into the institution.
The findings, outlined in a seven-page letter, mark the first time that the Justice Department has publicly claimed that a university discriminated based on race during the admissions process.
Harvey C. Mansfield, who enrolled at Harvard in 1949, joined the faculty in 1962, and retired in 2023, has been called many things: “great dissenter,” “prophet,” “racist, homophobic and misogynist,” “sophist,” “slipshod.” Mansfield prefers “annoying Socratic gadfly.” A dean once advised that he’d be more persuasive if he argued less. Mansfield says he tried, but it didn’t work. “Retirement seems to strengthen my voice.”
Mansfield spoke to us over zoom from his house in Ipswich, Mass., where he now spends the bulk of his time. Dressed in a suit and red tie, he discussed affirmative action for conservative professors, why the academy needs bipartisanship more than nonpartisanship, and whether old professors stick around too long. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The 80+ scholars who gathered at UC Berkeley for HxA’s West Coast Regional Conference didn’t come to vent or to mourn a lost university. They came to get organized and lead their campuses in reform. Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier set the tone from the first minutes of his keynote about what must be done for change in the academy to occur.
“There used to be times when it took just a letter to get a speaker disinvited,” he said. “This is not the case right now.” Institutional neutrality is gaining ground. Diverse speakers are being welcomed on campuses where they once weren’t. On these things, “we look back and things are moving in the right direction.” But Diermeier was clear that acknowledging progress is not the same as declaring victory. Much work remains.
The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law has brought a new meaning to the heckler’s veto. Some of us criticized the law school for its failure to hold students accountable for disrupting a recent Federalist Society event featuring James Percival, general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.
While the law school administration does not appear interested in holding the protesters accountable, it has threatened the Federalist Society that it could face discipline if it identifies any of the students who disrupted the event. This perfectly surreal position was stated in a letter from Bayrex Martí, UCLA’s assistant dean for student affairs.
