Your Cart is Empty
Peter Berkowitz
RealClearPolitics
The public increasingly sees through the righteous image that American higher education wishes to project. Professors and administrators say that they curtail only injurious and hateful speech despite their tendency to equate injurious and hateful speech with conservative opinions. They maintain that they promote diversity, equity, and inclusion to rectify injustice and enhance education and not, as evidence suggests, to reward minorities and women whose thinking conforms to progressive orthodoxy. And they offer an undergraduate curriculum that allows students to fashion a slate of classes that suits their individual needs, tastes, and skills but which – typically lacking a mandatory and coherent core – leaves graduates destitute of that basic knowledge of America, the West, and other civilizations that informs the judgment of responsible citizens.
Professors’ and administrators’ tendency to dismiss criticism of their institutions as springing from flawed perceptions of campus life is worse than the tendency among individuals to insist that they have been wrongly judged and unfairly maligned. That’s because higher education supposedly specializes in fostering thoughtfulness by inquiring, weighing evidence, and considering arguments from multiple sides.
Comments will be approved before showing up.
Contributions by current Princeton faculty reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show 98% went to Democratic candidates or Democratic affiliated groups; 2% went to independent candidates or affiliated groups; and 0% went to Republicans or affiliated groups. This shows an alarming lack of viewpoint diversity as measured by donations to political candidates. Our findings are in line with similar studies of Yale and Harvard faculty.
International students’ internship opportunities may soon be significantly limited. Following new guidance from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the University indicated in a Sept. 1 email that Curricular Practical Training will likely no longer be approved for all undergraduate and most graduate students. CPT is a temporary work authorization that allows international students on F-1 visas to pursue off-campus internships.
The new guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security do not change the underlying regulation, but instead represent a stricter interpretation of the existing policy compared to previous years.
Princeton fell to 176th out of 261 schools, earning an F for the second year running. The drop is despite strong marks from Princeton's own students. What's holding Princeton back is its written policies and its refusal to adopt institutional neutrality, both fixable without touching campus culture at all. The university could improve quickly if it acted on the PFS-provided recommendations already sitting with its administration.
