West Virginia...oh Mama, Yale Case v Title IX, and Woke/Rewoke
Also, a Shortstack of Important Reading
Welcome to our inaugural issue of PaideiaTimesWeekly, a new feeder stream, through Substack, for our respected quarterly, Paideia Times, the information gateway to the essential questions facing higher education trustees. Enjoy.
—Peter Meyer, Managing Editor
West Virginia. More than a Canary in a Coal Mine
The news out of Morgantown, West Virginia, this week was dire. “A month of intense public and on-campus pressure did not dissuade the Board of Governors from siding with the administration to slash programs and positions.” Twenty eight academic programs and 143 faculty positions would be cut from the state’s flagship campus. The announcement, presaged by WVUs respected president, E. Gordon Gee, in a speech in August, was made the week before fall classes began for its nearly 20,000 students. The news sent shockwaves through higher education’s administrative ranks, as The Wall Street Journal headlined an op-ed piece, WVU’s cuts “are a taste of higher ed’s future.” As was made clear by news out of New York State, where three venerable schools had closed or were on the ropes, including the 200-year-old SUNY Potsdam college, where enrollment had plummeted 43 percent since 2010 and the school faced a $9 million operational deficit. “There will be no bailouts,” warned its president Suzanne Smith. Added SUNY Chancellor John King, Potsdam’s problems were “not unique to this campus.”
Further Reading
West Virginia University Slashes Majors and Cuts Staff Despite Protests (The Wall Street Journal)
Is There Still Time for WVU? (Academe Blog)
Yale Case to Set a Standard Women May Not Be Comfortable With
A rape charge by a former Yale student that had resulted in a male student’s expulsion from the prestigious Ivy League school in 2018 has now landed the victim in criminal court as a defamation defendant, according to a long story in The New York Times this week. Says the Times, the expelled student, Saifullah Khan, could upset years of federal Title IX practice on campuses across the country that not only protected rape victims from having to confront the alleged rapist during campus hearings but also shielded them from defamation charges if, as happened with Mr. Khan, the alleged perpetrator was exonerated of the rape charge in a subsequent criminal proceeding. Universities across the country are following the case closely, as is the Biden administration, which is supposed to be rewriting Title IX rules as we write (see story in current Quarterly issue: FedEd Delays Release of Title IX Final Regulations).
Further Reading
Protecting a Predator [at Columbia] (New York Magazine)
One of America’s First Women’s Colleges Is Accused of Paying Men More (New York Times)
Woke and Rewoke Were on a Bridge….
“The worst kept secret in American postsecondary education,” begins the final report of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce released this week, “is the long-standing and pervasive degradation of First Amendment rights.” And this week’s news not only shows the breadth of the amendment’s reach, but its depth. The report sites “shout downs,” “disinvitations of speakers,” and “cancellations” as now “commonplace at our colleges and universities.” See also our current PTQ as well as Further Reading below.
Further Reading
Is ‘Peak Woke’ Behind Us or Ahead? (New York Times)
High Stakes in Florida (City Journal)
A Civil Rights Catastrophe at New College of Florida (American Greatness)
Washington College Protesters Cancel Event with Princeton Professor As the College President Sits in the Audience (Jonathan Turley)
Reply to John Wilson’s Critique of the Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry (Academe Blog)
The Conservative Censorship Campaign Reaches Its Natural Conclusion (The Atlantic)
Harvard’s Former President Unwittingly Indicts Campus Radicalism (National Review)
A Professor’s Remarks on Sexual Consent Stir Controversy. Now He’s Banned From Campus (New York Times)
Rescue College Classrooms with the Freedom from Indoctrination Act (American Enterprise Institute)
The Limits of Academic Freedom (National Association of Scholars)
Short Stack
The Other Most Important Higher Ed News This Week
Florida temporarily suspends political ideology surveys in state colleges, universities (Orlando Sentinel)
A Sentimental Education (Hedgehog Review)
By Abandoning Civics, Colleges Helped Create the Culture Wars (New York Times)
College Students: School Is Not Your Job (New York Times)
College-Ranking Whiplash (City Journal)
Trump wants to close the Department of Education, joining calls by GOP rivals (CNN)
Remaining members of Pac-12 take legal action to confirm governance (University Business)
Dartmouth Men’s Basketball Team Makes Latest Bid for Unionization by College Athletes (Wall Street Journal)
Federal judge rules DACA unlawful — again (Higher Ed Dive)
With a New Formula, U.S. News Rankings Boost Some State Universities (New York Times)