Past Newsletters
September 23, 2024
President Levin Welcomes Incoming Students
Excerpts (link in the original):
“In his first Convocation address as Stanford University president, on Tuesday evening [September 17], Jonathan Levin reflected on his own first days at Stanford and encouraged students to embrace uncertainties, grapple with big questions, and be grateful for the opportunities and community around them....
"In his address, President Levin stressed that asking questions is central to the college experience. He encouraged students to engage in Socratic dialogue, following the example of the Greek philosopher Socrates, who used probing questions to challenge others with strong convictions.
“’Unlike the people around him, he [Socrates] was comfortable not knowing,’ Levin said. ‘He was comfortable asking questions and not having answers.’ ...
“[Levin] advised students to find a balance in their approach to Stanford. He said that during his many years on the Farm, he’s observed that the most successful students set goals and make plans, but also remain open to serendipity. ‘They put themselves out there to try new things and to take a risk in meeting new people,’ he added.
“Lastly, Levin reminded students to be grateful for the rare opportunity ahead. ‘We should all try, through humility and service, to be deserving of these circumstances, and to help the people around us make something of these opportunities.’”
Full article at Stanford Report
Update re Bias Reporting
The special edition of our Newsletter last Tuesday, September 17, had text and links regarding Stanford’s revised policies re speech, protests and related matters. The changes also included ending the controversial Protected Identity Harm Reporting system and merged this area into Stanford’s Title VI policies and procedures re discrimination. We have therefore updated our prior article about bias reporting at our Stanford Concerns webpage, including the benefits of the changes but also some ongoing concerns.
Excerpts (from our Stanford Concerns webpage, links in the original):
. . . .
“Stanford’s newly revised website focuses on Title VI rather than ‘bias’ and where it further says:
‘To be considered a violation of Title VI, unwelcome conduct must create a ‘hostile environment,’ meaning it must be based upon an individual’s actual or perceived protected class (e.g., race, color, national origin, shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics) that, considering the totality of the circumstances, is subjectively and objectively offensive, and is so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from a university education program or activity.’
“These changes are a very welcomed improvement, although much will depend on who administers this revised policy since a wide range of statements and actions could still be covered by the revised policy. In addition, it looks like Stanford is still planning to post reports on a public dashboard. It also looks like Stanford is still using the same module in the computerized case management system that it uses for all aspects of student activities and behavior (see the article "Stanford’s Computerized Case Management System" at our Stanford Concerns webpage) and that it has been using for these same monitoring and reporting purposes in the past. Stanford had previously renamed this particular module “Protected Identity Harm Reporting” instead of the term “Bias Reporting” that is used by most other schools that are using the same system. But the fact remains, this module remains largely the same as before and remains part of the far more comprehensive system for monitoring and managing all aspects of student life.
“Assuming our discussion above is correct, a report for Title VI purposes about someone saying or doing something, even if not followed up on, will still be permanently stored in that student’s profile in the computerized case management system, will still be cross-referenced with all other students, and can still be pulled up at any time in the future by the student services staff if ever there is a future issue about the student who was the subject of the Title VI report. And in which case, the prior Title VI (discrimination/bias) report, even if the student didn’t know one had been made about her or him, can be used against them in any new matters.
“Which is why, as we said in our September 17 Newsletter and have said numerous other times in the past, we again urge that Stanford advise students at least annually of their rights to review their files and be able to correct incorrect and even false information that has been reported about them. See also in paragraphs 2. h, i. and j. at our Back to Basics webpage....”
Study of Yale Faculty Shows Significant Lack of Intellectual/Political Diversity
Editor’s note: Longtime readers know that the purpose of these Newsletters and the related website is not to promote political doctrines but rather to raise issues about free speech and critical thinking and from all parts of the political spectrum. We thus present the following not to promote or attack specific political viewpoints but rather to note concerns about the apparent lack of intellectual diversity that has developed in recent years at major universities.
Excerpts (links in the original):
“The Buckley Institute is proud to present our annual Report on Faculty Political Diversity at Yale. This report examines the voting history and political affiliation of Yale’s faculty members as part of our mission to promote free speech and intellectual diversity on campus....
“The discrepancy was most apparent in the social sciences and the humanities. Across 14 departments in those two areas (as classified by Yale), the report identified 312 Democrat faculty (88%) and only 4 Republicans (1.1%), a ratio of around 78 to 1. Of those 14 departments, Buckley identified zero Republicans in 10, or 71% of the total, including American Studies, Economics, and Philosophy....”
Full news release at Buckley Institute website and including a link to the report
The Politicization of Science Funding
Excerpts (links in the original):
“How should taxpayer money earmarked for science funding be used? This is a $90-billion-per-year question....
“The traditional, time-tested criteria have been scientific merit, the track record of the investigators, and alignment with the agency’s mission. Decision making relies on a peer-review process involving reviewers with appropriate expertise, clear guidelines for assessment, and avoidance of personal or professional conflicts of interest. The success of this merit-based approach to science funding can be seen in the achievements and excellent worldwide reputation of the U.S. research enterprise.
“But this is changing, and not for the good. To get funding today, scientists must show that their research will advance the goals of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI)….
“In practice, this means that scientists seeking research funding must now profess their belief in the existence of systemic barriers in their institutions and present plans for how, through their research, they will advance the goals of DEI, such as by giving preference to historically underrepresented groups in the hope of achieving representation proportional to their numbers in the general population. Agencies require researchers to dedicate resources to DEI activities, and some even recommend the hiring of paid ‘DEI consultants.’ What’s more, they require researchers to submit diversity statements that will be evaluated along with the scientifically substantive parts of the research proposal....
“The NIH’s efforts toward advancing racial equity also offer an invitation to ‘Take the Pledge,’ which includes committing to the idea that ‘equity, diversity, and inclusion drives success,’ ‘setting up a consultation with an EDI [DEI] liaison,’ and ‘ordering the ‘EDI Pledge Poster’ (or … creat[ing] your own) for your space and hav[ing] your team sign it.’
“As Kevin Jon Williams, a cardiovascular researcher at Temple University, explains, this creates a moral dilemma for scientists of ‘diverse’ ancestry who are skeptical of the DEI regime. ‘If I refuse to identify myself as African American, our application is more likely to lose on ‘diversity’ grounds. It’s a double wrong. Not only is the system rigged based on nonscientific -- and possibly illegal -- criteria; it encourages me to join in the rigging.’ Williams doesn’t mince words: ‘I can never forgive the National Institutes of Health for reinjecting racism into medical research.’
“For its part, NASA requires applicants to dedicate a portion of their research efforts and budget to DEI activities, to hire DEI experts as consultants -- and to ‘pay them well.’ How much do such services cost? A Chicago-based DEI firm offers training sessions for $500 to $10,000, e-learning modules for $200 to $5,000, and keynotes for $1,000 to $30,000. Consulting monthly retainers cost $2,000 to $20,000, and single ‘consulting deliverables’ cost $8,000 to $50,000. Hence, taxpayer money that could be used to solve scientific and technological challenges is diverted to DEI consultants. Given that applicants’ DEI plans are evaluated by panels comprising 50 percent scientists and 50 percent DEI experts, the self-interest of the DEI industry is evident.
“Instructions to applicants and examples of successful proposals make it abundantly clear that DEI plans must adhere to a specific ideological doctrine. According to NASA, ‘the assessment of the Inclusion Plan will be based on […] the extent to which the Inclusion Plan demonstrated awareness of systemic barriers to creating inclusive working environments that are specific to the proposal team.’ Thus, to get funding, scientists must declare that their own institution and research groups are uninclusive and discriminatory, which is an offense to the many scientists who have worked hard to ensure fair and transparent hiring practices in their institutions. These requirements effectively constitute DEI loyalty oaths as prerequisite for funding....
“We know from the history of totalitarian regimes that when science is subjugated to ideology, science suffers. And the current approach to linking DEI considerations to funding decisions weakens achievement- and merit-based criteria in science funding, which means that money paid by hardworking taxpayers is not being used to support the best scientific projects.
“Moreover, when funding agencies use their power to further a particular political or ideological agenda, they contribute to public distrust of science and scientific institutions. When scientists become complicit by infusing ideology into their research, they are no longer perceived as trustworthy experts -- nor should they be. Should the public withdraw its support for science, loss of funding will ultimately ensue, with attendant detrimental consequences to the nation....”
Full op-ed by Princeton Prof. Robert P. George and USC Prof. Anna I. Krylov at Chronicle of Higher Education and based on a paper recently published in Frontiers of Research Metrics and Analytics
See also "Stanford Tech Marketing Course Requires a DEI Statement to Enroll" at College Fix and also linked below
The Sorry State of Medical School Curricula
Excerpts (links in the original):
“If medical schools are short-changing rigorous training in science for the political indoctrination of future doctors, there are real consequences. Lives are on the line. This is why documenting the extent to which medical education has become politicized is critically important....
“Several prominent medical school professors and students have shared accounts revealing the distorted priorities of America’s medical schools, sparking concerns. Stanley Goldfarb, previously the associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and currently the chair of the board for Do No Harm, was the first to draw attention to the issue in 2019 with a Wall Street Journal article and book, both titled, ‘Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns.’
“Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School, expressed similar concerns in a more recent piece in the Free Press, warning that ‘diluting rigor and precision with ideological agendas will degrade the quality of medical education.’ Kevin Bass, who attended medical school at Texas Tech, cataloged his experiences in the New York Post, declaring: ‘Ideology has replaced health care.’ …”
PDF copy of report, including re Stanford Medical School, at Do No Harm Medicine website
See also “How the Modern Law School Promotes Political Division and Lawfare” at Minding the Campus
Other Articles of Interest
Stanford Tech Marketing Course Requires a DEI Statement to Enroll
Full article at College Fix
It Took Years, but Elite Colleges Are Learning the Value of Institutional Neutrality
Full op-ed by ACTA’s Steve McGuire at The Hill
A Guide to Distinguishing Legitimate Protest from Antisemitism
Full op-ed at LA Times and republished at MSN
Learning Civics from History
Full op-ed by Harvard Prof. James Hankins at Law & Liberty
What Makes You Ready to Be a College President?
Full article at Chronicle of Higher Education. See also articles at Diverse Issues in Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed.
An AI Tutor Helped Harvard Students Learn More Physics in Less Time
Full article at Hechinger Report
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
A free, seven-week program led by Stanford H&S Dean Debra Satz and Stanford Prof. Larry Diamond; first session is this Wednesday, September 25.
A Stanford Treasure - Monterey Bay Scientists on Preserving Kelp Forests
Synthetic Neuroscience Grants Promote Transformative Brain Tech
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“[A university] cannot insist that all of its members favor a given view of social policy; if it takes collective action, therefore, it does so at the price of censuring any minority who do not agree with the view adopted.” – From the Kalven Report, the second of the three parts of the Chicago Trifecta
Special Edition
September 17, 2024
Stanford Takes Major Steps Forward re Free Speech
Today, Stanford's office of the provost sent a letter to all students about campus speech and related issues. A full copy of the letter is linked here. It is, in our view, a major step forward in creating a campus climate where, per Jon Levin’s Stanford Magazine interview, respectful discourse and critical thinking can thrive.
Excerpts:
. . . .
“Our community comes together this September amid a presidential election, continued conflicts around the globe, and impassioned public debate about a wide range of issues. At Stanford, our work of research and education is contributing to deeper knowledge and understanding of many of these issues....
“Freedom of expression is a fundamental value for the university’s knowledge-bearing mission, alongside the inclusion of all viewpoints and the promotion of rigorous and reasoned academic debates. The freedom to explore and present new, unconventional, and even unpopular ideas is essential to the academic mission of the university; therefore, Stanford shall promote the widest possible freedom of expression, consistent with the university’s legal and moral obligations to prevent harassment and discrimination. Accordingly, university policies must not censor individuals’ speech based on the content of what is expressed, except in narrow circumstances.” …
This text is followed by further discussion and these links:
1. A new Freedom of Expression webpage and a two-page summary of specific policies and procedures for events, including but not limited to protests.
2. A “What’s New” webpage that highlights major elements of these new policies and procedures.
3. The previous Protected Identity Harm Reporting program, which for several years was subject to criticism on campus and nationwide, has been replaced with a new set of policies and procedures and including these FAQs.
We trust that orientation for new students will emphasize these important values, that there will be ongoing dialog among students and faculty about implementation of these values, and that the administrative staff will understand that Stanford exists for educational purposes and that their activities must therefore give priority to these values.
We assume Stanford's computerized case management system will continue to be used to monitor and act upon student behaviors, including behaviors that are subject to these revised policies and procedures. Which is why we again urge that Stanford annually advise students of their rights to review their files and be able to correct incorrect and even false information that has been reported about them.
But let’s also keep all of this in context. These are major developments in restoring a campus climate of free speech and critical thinking, and in that regard, we believe President Levin, Provost Martinez and the rest of Stanford’s leadership are setting a standard that will be a model for colleges and universities nationwide.
September 16, 2024
Board of Trustees Commends Recent Actions in Support of Academic Freedom
Excerpt (links in the original):
“The Stanford Board of Trustees has approved a resolution reaffirming the university’s commitment to free inquiry, the avoidance of institutional orthodoxy, and the open exchange of ideas. The timing coincides with the 50th anniversary of the 1974 board adoption of Stanford’s Statement on Academic Freedom.
“The resolution commends the Faculty Senate for adopting in May of this year a Statement of Freedom of Expression and an Institutional Statements Policy, both of which complement and strengthen Stanford’s long-standing principles of academic freedom.
“'Stanford remains steadfast in its dedication to academic freedom, which serves as a key foundation for the university’s truth-seeking scholarship and impactful research,' said board Chair Jerry Yang. 'We are immensely grateful for the Faculty Senate’s deliberations earlier this year on this critically important issue, which benefits our entire university community and beyond.'” ...
Full article at Stanford Report
See also “Law School Professor to Serve as Special Advisor to the Provost on University Speech” at Stanford Report
Editor’s note: While we appreciate recent actions by Stanford's faculty, provost and trustees, we think it is important to also read this Stanford Report article regarding discussions in May of this year and which, in our minds at least, raise these follow-up questions:
1. Why won’t Stanford’s administration, faculty and/or trustees simply adopt all three parts of the Chicago Trifecta and resolve issues that otherwise are going to plague the campus in the months and years ahead? And why spend so much time and resources reinventing the wheel? We again note that all three reports that comprise the Chicago Trifecta were written during prior times of considerable campus turmoil regarding campus speech and academic freedom, were considered and acted upon by highly distinguished faculty members at the University of Chicago and subsequently copied by other leading universities nationwide, use extraordinarily concise language and have withstood the test of time.
2. If there are one or more specific items in the Chicago Trifecta with which Stanford’s administration, faculty and/or trustees disagree, why not propose alternative language to those specific provisions and explain the reasons for the changes?
3. Why did Stanford’s Faculty Senate insist that the proposal they adopted in May of this year be treated solely as a statement and not a policy? What's the difference, especially when it then is posted as a Core Policy Statement (see below)?
4. For several decades, the 1974 Statement on Academic Freedom was set forth solely in the Faculty Handbook, and then of all things buried in the handbook’s chapter on research. It recently was moved to a section in the Faculty Handbook called Core Policy Statements but where the other provisions solely concern faculty discipline and appeals. So what is being done to give this and related statements and policies greater visibility and distribution, and what does Stanford’s leadership intend to do to stimulate greater dialogue among its faculty and students on these important issues?
Saving the Idea of the University
Excerpts (link in the original):
. . . .
“Universities must be places where different ideas and opinions lead to personal growth, scientific breakthroughs, and new knowledge. But when a group of students takes over a building or establishes an encampment on shared campus grounds and declares that this shared educational space belongs to only one ideological view, the power and potential of the university dies -- just as it would if a president, administrators, or faculty members imposed their personal politics as the position of the institution....
“In the 1950s, the social psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments that showed how easy it is to quash the differences of opinion essential for advancing knowledge. In one experiment, Asch brought groups of college students together to take a simple perceptual test with two possible responses, one right, one wrong. The catch: In each group, all students were instructed to say in turn the incorrect answer -- except for one unsuspecting student, who went last.
“The results were stark. Three-quarters of the unwitting students went along at least once with the incorrect answer that the majority had given. When asked why, the hoodwinked students typically articulated a fear of ridicule and said they doubted their own knowledge. In short, conformity won.
“But when Asch ran a modified version of the test, the results looked very different. If even a single other student gave a dissenting, correct answer, the unbriefed student chose the consensus view only a quarter as often.
“Instead, students, faculty members, even university presidents should feel able and willing to speak out and break with uniformity when good evidence compels it.
“At Dartmouth, our faculty members do exactly this.... [followed by discussion of approaches used at Dartmouth, including faculty with different perspectives teaching together]
“As Asch’s work showed, being willing to stand alone can be very difficult, especially when one looks around and sees the consequences that can come with a failure to conform. Appeasement can feel safe and easy -- if that means giving in to the demands either of student protesters or of vocal donors. But when the future and credibility of American higher education is at stake, university leaders have no choice but to be laser-focused on the academic mission of their institutions, even when doing so prompts discord and disagreement. It’s the engagement in argument that makes universities great.”
Full op-ed by Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock at The Atlantic and republished at MSN
See also our compilation of the Shils Report regarding principles for academic appointments (the important third part of the Chicago Trifecta)
See also The Threat from Within, speech in 2017 by former Stanford Provost John Etchemendy: “The threat from outside is apparent.... But I’m actually more worried about the threat from within. Over the years, I have watched a growing intolerance at universities in this country -- not intolerance along racial or ethnic or gender lines -- there, we have made laudable progress. Rather, a kind of intellectual intolerance, a political one-sidedness, that is the antithesis of what universities should stand for. It manifests itself in many ways: in the intellectual monocultures that have taken over certain disciplines; in the demands to disinvite speakers and outlaw groups whose views we find offensive; in constant calls for the university itself to take political stands. We decry certain news outlets as echo chambers, while we fail to notice the echo chamber we’ve built around ourselves.”
Stanford Prof. Jay Bhattacharya - What Happens When Scientific Discourse Is Hijacked by Dogma
Excerpts (links in the original):
“The COVID era has been difficult for scientists whose ideas run against the grain of powerful scientific and government bureaucracies. Even for university scientists with unblemished reputations in the before times, the price of speaking up has been vilification by social media companies, the media, and, unfortunately, even scientific journals and our fellow scientists. It is a wonder that any scientists dared to speak out, with only their commitment to the truth as a reason to do so....
“One of the authors of this piece, Jay Bhattacharya, coauthored the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) in October of 2020, which called for the focused protection of the vulnerable elderly, for opening schools, and for lifting lockdowns. In response, the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a piece falsely alleging that the GBD had received support from the dreaded Koch brothers. In Left-leaning academia, such an accusation is like the mark of Cain, and many scientists feared associating with the GBD as a result, though they agreed with its ideas.
“Embarrassingly, the BMJ had to issue a correction to the article because there was no Koch funding for the GBD. But the defamatory damage was already done, and many scientists stayed silent as schools closed and children were harmed, even though they knew better. They did not want to be similarly smeared.
“Next month, a conference will be held at Stanford University, featuring civil discussions among scientists who differ on how best to manage pandemics and prevent their occurrence. Four-plus years into the COVID-era, it is far past time for such a discussion....
“Amazingly, some scientists and media figures have vilified the conference for including lockdown skeptics like Dr. Vinay Prasad of UCSF and Dr. Scott Atlas of Stanford University among the speakers. A Baylor doctor, Peter Hotez, a devotee of Tony Fauci and author of The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science, accused the conference of indulging in ‘anti-science aggression’ for the crime of having scientists who disagree speak with one another. ‘While I'm all for free speech, this type of anti-science aggression doesn't have to be promoted by the Stanford leadership, given the chilling message it sends to the serious science faculty/students,’ wrote Hotez on Twitter in a typical act of projection. Elsewhere he wrote about ‘antiscience as a killing force,’ further explaining ‘My point: ‘health freedom’ antiscience aggression = a leading killing force’.
“Scientists should be able to disagree on public health policy without being branded monsters. The public is watching this spat and has lost trust in science, medicine, and public health.
"Society forfeits the benefits of science when scientific discourse is hijacked by dogma, when dissenting views are silenced out of fear of career repercussions, and when questioning the prevailing narrative invites accusations of bigotry or even murder.
“Science thrives on skepticism, on challenges to the status quo. When the pursuit of scientific truth is sacrificed on the altar of ideological conformity, science ceases to be a beacon of enlightenment and instead becomes a tool of oppression. Let's hope the upcoming Stanford conference marks the beginning of a course correction.”
Full op-ed by Stanford Prof. Jay Bhattacharya and Rutgers Prof. Bryce Nickels at Newsweek
See also “Stanford’s Roles in Censoring the Web” at our Stanford Concerns-2 webpage and including prior essays by Prof. Bhattacharya and others
How to Restore Trust in American Higher Education
Excerpts:
. . . .
“The turbulent campuses seem far removed from the desired ‘marketplace of ideas,’ where diverse perspectives on contemporary issues are discussed with civility and respect. A ‘cancel culture’ where speakers are shouted down or even kept off campus is the norm at some universities. Arguably even worse, the honesty and integrity of the academic research is increasingly questioned, with well-documented incidents involving faculty and administrators plagiarizing and deliberately falsifying research results. One respected publisher, Wiley, recently closed down a number of academic journals because of continuing evidence of downright fraudulent results....
“Universities are inherently inefficient and costly. Internal forces within schools are constantly pressuring the president for costly changes -- higher salaries, more staff, nicer facilities. With the possible exception of medical care (which has had huge qualitative improvements), no other major form of consumer spending has increased prices as much as higher education in the four decades between 1980 and 2020. Expensive facilities (for example, classroom buildings with fancy atriums) often are constructed to meet a frenzied ‘edifice complex,’ but heavily utilized typically only about eight months a year. Most faculty offices are used less than 20 hours weekly for fewer than 35 weeks a year. Students getting bachelor’s degrees are typically in classes about 33-36 months total, easily attainable in three calendar years but typically stretched out over four years or more. Moreover, partly a byproduct of grotesque grade inflation, time-use studies show most students actually study an average of under 30 hours weekly -- less than middle school students....
“Mitch Daniels as Purdue’s president froze tuition fees for a decade while reexamining the noncore activities of the school, a model worth emulating....
“Over time, the balance of collegiate power has shifted largely to an army of administrators typically far outnumbering those actually teaching students and conducting research. Rather than supporting the teaching/research mission, often these administrators detract from it, diluting the emphasis on learning and discovery. I once estimated that if we reduced the administrator-student ratio to what it was a generation ago, we could reduce tuition fees 20 percent and restore emphasis on job No. 1: educating students and expanding discovery and pursuit of truth....”
Full op-ed by Ohio U Prof. Emeritus Richard K. Vedder at Independent Institute
See also “Stanford’s Ballooning Administrative Bureaucracy” including charts and comparative data at our Stanford Concerns webpage. See also our recommendations for Back to Basics at Stanford.
See also op-ed by DePauw Prof. Jeffrey M. McCall at The Hill (links in the original): “Colleges and universities face many challenges as the new academic year gets underway. But the American public has no sympathy for these supposed ‘enlightened’ institutions, because college administrators and boards of trustees are only facing the consequences for the bad decisions they themselves have made. Colleges have failed to effectively manage the rhetorical sphere around higher education. Students, parents and the public at large have been kept largely in the dark as tuition hikes, vacuous curriculum expansions, administrative bloat and ideological activism have taken root....”
Students Increasingly Treat College as a Transaction; Who or What Is to Blame?
Excerpts (link in the original):
. . . .
“How widespread is this crisis? It’s difficult to know. Professors frustrated by these dynamics fear being accused of undermining student-success efforts on their campus if they publicly criticize students’ work ethic or challenge their behaviors. And students rarely speak openly about why they feel disengaged or shortchanged by their education, or why they are inclined to cheat. But a key study, described in the 2022 book The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be, sheds light on some aspects of these evolving dynamics....
“What they heard from students alarmed them: a preoccupation with grades, jobs, and institutional reputation; little discussion or understanding of the intellectual opportunities campuses present; feelings of alienation. The findings troubled them enough to issue a warning: ‘While in fact there remains much to admire in U.S. higher education,’ they wrote, ‘the sector has lost its way and stands in considerable peril.’ …
“While highly selective colleges are unlikely to experience this dystopian future, students at these institutions describe an environment in which the pressure to succeed can also lead to a transactional attitude.
“This past spring, Niheer Patel, then a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote an opinion piece for the student newspaper describing this ecosystem, 'Where Dreams Come to Die.' Patel came to Penn expecting to find people who were highly driven and hoping to do good in the world. But the drive he found was toward landing jobs in consulting and finance, the dominant careers for recent graduates....”
Full article at Chronicle of Higher Education
Other Articles of Interest
The Top U.S. Colleges That Make New Graduates Rich
Full article at WSJ and where the top ten are, in descending order: MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Georgia Tech, Penn, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Babson, Missouri S&T and Carnegie Mellon
See also our prior article (September 6, 2024) where Stanford was ranked third in the WSJ’s overall rankings
How Colleges Are Changing Their Rules on Protesting
Full article at NY Times including a discussion of specific actions at specific schools; see also summary of college protest policies at Chronicle of Higher Education
Alternative Viewpoint - Elite Colleges Are More Diverse Than Ever; They’re Still Unequal
Full op-ed by Boston U Prof. Anthony Abraham Jack at Chronicle of Higher Education
More About the Chilling Effect of AAUP’s Decision Allowing Academic Boycotts
Full op-ed at WSJ
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
MicroDicer and MicroGrater Make Quick Work of Tumor Dissection
Researchers Make Mouse Skin Transparent Using a Common Food Dye
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression Can Lead to Lasting Changes in the Brain
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“I’m looking forward to using Stanford as a model for other universities, especially in terms of protecting expression and developing protocols that ensure all community members are heard, while sustaining our rich educational environment.” – Stanford Law School Professor Bernadette Meyler who also is the newly named special advisor to the provost on university speech
September 9, 2024
Follow-Up on Recent College Free Speech Rankings
Last Friday's Newsletter dated September 6, 2024 included a summary and links to FIRE’s recently released free speech survey and where Stanford was ranked #218 out of 251. We therefore are providing this link to a follow-up article by Stanford alum and FIRE’s CEO Greg Lukianoff about reactions to the survey and other matters, as published at Substack.
A Second Chance for Universities
Excerpts:
“As students return to school this fall, universities have a second chance at managing difficult conversations about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. This past spring, we saw news and social media videos showing groups pitted against one another. Violent images, like those that surfaced out of UCLA, included students battering each other with sticks, using chemical sprays, and launching fireworks as weapons. Hateful rhetoric like “F--- you, Jew” and “take off your hijab and get a job” have further fueled these firestorms. Students were being attacked for their identity and beliefs, causing them to feel unsafe on the campuses they called home. Did it have to be this way? Is this the only vision for free speech on college campuses?
“Recently, I participated in a Braver Angels Common Ground Workshop on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Braver Angels, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bridging America’s partisan divide, teaches Americans of all ages how to share their perspectives in a healthier, more productive way. Our core approach is built on structured dialogue. In my workshop, we had five people who leaned pro-Israel and five who leaned pro-Palestine sitting across a table from one another. Two trained Braver Angels moderators led the conversation and established explicit norms and ground rules. Throughout the workshop, I felt safe to share my most honest opinions and always felt heard despite disagreements....
“Creating spaces for structured dialogue on college campuses requires change. Firstly, there needs to be a shift in institutional culture towards valuing and prioritizing open discussions. This includes training faculty and staff in conflict resolution and dialogue facilitation by providing them with the necessary resources and support. Secondly, there should be a commitment to structural reform, including establishing dedicated offices or roles focused on promoting dialogue and helping navigate conflicts. Policies should encourage staff to engage in debates without fear of repercussions, creating guidelines that ensure safety in facilitating and participating in controversial dialogues. Universities could also partner with organizations like Heterodox Academy, FAIR, BridgeUSA, and Braver Angels to bring their expertise in facilitating constructive disagreement at universities to their campuses....”
Full op-ed at Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism website
See also the articles at our Stanford Concerns webpage regarding Stanford’s program for reporting bias, Stanford’s list of proscribed words and phrases, and Stanford’s computerized program for controlling student behavior and ask yourself: Aren’t these and similar staff-initiated and staff-run programs key contributors to the negative campus climate re free speech? And how many of the staff members who create and administer these programs are part of the 18,369 non-teaching personnel at Stanford?
We also suggest it is time for Stanford to create an office or ombudsperson for free speech and who will speak up on behalf of students and faculty who believe their rights of free speech and academic freedom are being infringed upon and even to participate at Cabinet and similar meetings to help counteract contrary pressures.
Other Articles of Interest
License Plate Cameras to Be Installed at Entrances to the Stanford Campus
Full article at Stanford Report
See also “Stanford’s Security Regime Takes Root” at Stanford Review September 28, 2023, “Faculty Senate Debates Expansion of Video Surveillance" at Stanford Daily April 21, 2022, and “240 New Security Cameras on Campus Raise Privacy Concerns” at Stanford Daily November 27, 2023
How Colleges Plan to Deal with Student Protests
Full article at The Hill
UCLA Aims to Rebuild Trust with New Free Speech Zones, More Security, More Dialogue
Full article at LA Times
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“A sure sign that a college or university is failing in its promise to provide a liberal education is the prevalence of ideological dogmatism and intolerance, and the presence of groupthink.” -- Princeton Prof. Robert P. George
September 6, 2024
Editor's note: Because there are so many items of current interest, we are distributing this edition of the Newsletter a few days earlier than usual.
Stanford Is #3 in New Best U.S. Colleges Ranking by WSJ and College Pulse
Excerpts (links in the original):
"Princeton University took first place in the WSJ/College Pulse ranking of U.S. colleges for the second year in a row. But there are plenty of new schools in the upper echelon of the ranking.
"Half of the colleges in the top 50 this year are new, with a wide range of schools -- large and small, public and private, technical and liberal-arts -- serving their students especially well and leaving them broadly satisfied with their college experience.
"Our ranking measures how well each college sets graduates up for financial success. We look at how much a school improves students’ chances of graduating and their future earnings, balancing these outcomes with feedback from students on college life. We don’t measure reputation, nor the college’s own finances....
“[While Princeton was first,] schools with strong tech or business programs also fared well, including No. 2 Babson College and No. 3 Stanford University. Stanford is one of 17 California colleges in the top 50, up from six last year and by far the most for any state...."
See the full ranking and methodology here, and with the top ten being Princeton, Babson, Stanford, Yale, Claremont McKenna, MIT, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech and Davidson.
See also College Pulse "the voice of college students" homepage
Stanford Is #218 Out of 251 in New Free Speech Ranking by FIRE and College Pulse
Editor’s note: Last year, Stanford was ranked #207 out of 237 schools in the comparable 2024 survey.
The top ten in the new 2025 survey, in descending order, are: Virginia, Michigan Tech, Florida State, Eastern Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Claremont McKenna, North Carolina State at Raleigh, Oregon State, North Carolina at Charlotte and Mississippi State.
And the bottom ten, also in descending order, are: Pomona, Indiana, UT at Austin, USC, Syracuse, Barnard, Penn, NYU, Columbia and Harvard.
Stanford student quote from the survey:
“Generally, other students are not particularly accepting. If you don't follow whatever Instagram or TikTok is claiming to be the most 'moral' political view at the moment, people don't want to hear it and they will label you as non-politically correct. This behavior usually comes from liberal students -- I'm saying this as a very liberal person myself. I don't think I have non-politically correct viewpoints. I often agree with these students, but the manner in which they enforce their viewpoints across campus is something I disagree with. I study communication and psychology and I've put a lot of time and effort into understanding the propaganda that is spread on social media. Stanford students on both sides are constantly posting infographics with no citations, video/photo media that is doctored or not even of what they claim it is, and straight up incorrect information. Stanford desperately needs a mandatory media literacy class for freshmen where they learn to identify propaganda. It's very concerning." – Survey respondent from Stanford Class of 2024
Full report at FIRE website including specific writeup for Stanford
See also “Free Speech Is in Trouble - Higher Education Needs Higher Standards” by Stanford alum and FIRE CEO Greg Lukianoff at The Hill
See also Stanford's system for reporting allegedly biased statements and actions of others as well as Stanford's computerized systems for overseeing all aspects of student behavior at our Stanford Concerns webpage
Carleton Faculty Members Discuss Statement on Academic Freedom
Excerpts (link in the original):
“Colleges and universities across the country are busy revisiting and revising their free speech and academic freedom policies. Here at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, we were part of a special committee charged with drafting a new academic freedom statement. The statement was approved by the faculty and the Board of Trustees last academic year and has now been incorporated into Carleton’s faculty handbook. The full text of the statement appears below -- followed by some bullet points that spell out what we see as the statement’s key features....
“The four pillars of academic freedom are as follows:
1. Freedom of inquiry and research: faculty are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of results. Research for pecuniary return should be based on an understanding with the College.
2. Freedom of teaching: faculty are entitled to freedom in the classroom in teaching their subject and in developing their pedagogy. Inside the classroom, professors have the authority to decide what to teach based on their academic expertise and the parameters of a particular discipline or field. They also have the prerogative to decide how to teach based on their pedagogical goals and the broader objective of helping students develop critical thinking skills.
3. Freedom of intramural speech: faculty governance depends on academic freedom, with professors holding the primary responsibility for educational matters ranging from design and content of the curriculum to recommendations for faculty hiring and promotion. Academic freedom protects speech in the context of faculty governance.
4. Freedom of extramural speech: faculty are private individuals and community members. As such, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline when speaking on matters of public concern. However, as associates of learned professions and employees of the College, they should remember that the public may judge their institution by their utterances. Hence, they should make an effort to indicate that they are not speaking for Carleton when engaging in extramural speech....”
Full op-ed by Carleton professors Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder at Substack
See also our compilations of the Chicago Trifecta regarding freedom of speech, a university’s involvement in political and social matters, and standards for the hiring and promotion of faculty
The First Amendment Seen as an Arms Control Agreement
Excerpts:
. . . .
“Here's something that might produce, if not a smile, at least a nod: Seeing the First Amendment, in its current form, as an arms control agreement. Some people would much like to ban critical race theory on campus. Other people would like to ban teaching, or perhaps speech, that puts the United States and U.S. history in the most unfavorable light -- emphasizing, for example, what might be seen as the centrality of slavery and racism.
“Some people would like to ban antisemitic speech on campus. Other people would like to ban racist and sexist speech, regarding it as incompatible with the educational mission. How, it might be asked, can students learn, if they are demeaned by virtue of their skin color or their gender?
“If we understand the First Amendment as an arms control agreement, we can give essentially the same answer to all these people. Properly understood, the Constitution requires all censors to lay down their arms.... [Followed by discussion of specific court decisions and universities.]
“For the current period, the lesson is not obscure. College and university administrators have been, and might be, sorely tempted to punish points of view that are inconsistent with their values and that seem beyond the pale. They should avoid that temptation. They should lay down their arms.”
Full op-ed by Harvard Prof. Cass Sunstein discussing his recently published book “Campus Free Speech,” as posted at the Eugene Volokh Conspiracy website and republished at Reason
See also "Cass Sunstein Wants to Help Universities Navigate Free Speech" at Inside Higher Ed
What the Freshman Class Needs to Read
Excerpts (link in the original):
“All universities claim to provide some kind of intellectual foundation for their students. Sadly, the reality of what freshmen and sophomores are required to study usually belies the admissions-office propaganda.
“In our view, liberal education requires that students, like rowers, face backward in order to move forward. If they are to become active and reflective individuals, they must learn to regard the past not merely as the crime scene of bygone ages, but as the record of human possibilities -- an always unfinished tapestry of admirable and shameful lives, noble and base deeds. They must develop an ear for the English language and the language of ancestral wisdom as well as the various languages of intellectual inquiry, including mathematics. They need a good grasp of modern statistical methods. But they must also allow themselves to be inwardly formed and cultivated by the classics -- what the English critic Matthew Arnold called ‘the best which has been thought and said.’ …
“A core curriculum cannot be both foundational and comprehensive. The further Columbia has strayed from its original purpose, the more skewed the Core Curriculum has become, as the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat recently noted. The 20th-century readings, he writes, now cover ‘progressive preoccupations and only those preoccupations: anticolonialism, sex and gender, antiracism, climate.’ Instead of reading George Orwell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or Hannah Arendt, students read Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, and the Combahee River Collective Statement -- which, as Douthat argued, are ‘texts that are important to understanding only the perspective of the contemporary left.’ This looks to us like a clear case of a university teaching its students what to think, not how to think.
“But at least Columbia offers a genuine core. Pity the poor freshmen at Harvard and Stanford, who each year look in vain for anything remotely as coherent....”
Full op-ed by Niall Fergusson and University of Austin Provost Jacob Howland at The Atlantic; article also available here
Admissions at Elite Universities
Excerpts (links in the original):
“Since the Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. University of North Carolina in June 2023 that repealed race-conscious admissions policies, many observers have wondered what would happen to the racial makeup of elite universities. In the past, such schools have proudly advertised the data on the racial makeup of incoming freshmen. So far this year, most have remained strangely silent.
“Last week, however, MIT broke the silence by reporting that the percentage of underrepresented minorities enrolling had precipitously dropped. Whereas black and Hispanic students, respectively, made up 15 percent and 16 percent of MIT’s Class of 2027, the Class of 2028 is just 5 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic. Meanwhile, Asian Americans have increased their enrollment from 40 percent to 47 percent, while the white share stayed essentially unchanged at 37 percent. That Asian Americans were the primary beneficiaries of the removal of racial preferences is consistent with the work we have published on the SFFA cases....
“While MIT is to be lauded for actually releasing its numbers, the picture is more complicated than MIT and the media let on: it depends heavily on how one defines ‘diversity.’ As MIT and the media are using it, the term seems to mean ‘representative of the national population.’ Asian Americans are a diverse group, representing many different cultures and ethnicities. But MIT and the media treat them as a monolith. To them, the diversity they bring as individuals of particular cultures and ethnicities is less important than their representativeness of the U.S. Asian-American population as a whole.
“The framing of the MIT numbers also neglects another component of diversity. Compared with the classes of 2024 through 2027, the number of first-generation college students rose from 18 percent to 20 percent, and the number of students eligible for Pell grants increased from 20 percent to 24 percent. MIT actually became more diverse based on socioeconomic measures, perhaps partly in response to the ruling....”
Full op-ed by Duke Prof. Peter Arcidiacono at City Journal
Other Articles of Interest
Revised Policies Nationwide Will Impact Campus Protests
Full article at FIRE website including FAQ’s re student protests and re political speech
College Free Speech Policies Are a Mess and a Liability
Full op-ed by former Northwestern Law School Dean Kimberly A. Yuracko and Northwestern Prof. Max M. Schanzenbach at Chronicle of Higher Education
Editor’s note: Stanford, unlike Northwestern and most other private colleges and universities around the country, in fact is subject to First Amendment requirements pursuant to California law.
The Fight for Political Neutrality in America’s Classrooms
Full review of book "You Can't Teach That" by Yale (formerly Princeton) Prof. Keith Whittington at Law & Liberty
See also “Academic Freedom Under Fire” by Harvard Prof. Louis Menand at The New Yorker
Yale Divinity Students Forced to Read from Witch’s Spell at Orientation
Full article at College Fix
UC Faculty Challenge University’s Free Speech Suppression
Full article at Brownstone
Survey Finds College Students Reluctant to Discuss Race, Abortion, Israel
Full article at College Fix along with a link to the report itself
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
From School of Humanities & Sciences - Stanford Participates in Pathway to College for Military Vets
From Neurosciences Institute - Depression's Distinctive Fingerprints in the Brain
From Graduate School of Business - How Does Workplace Secrecy Affect Employees?
From Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) - Covert Racism in AI and How Language Models Are Reinforcing Outdated Stereotypes
From Graduate School of Business - A Little Humor-Bragging Could Help You Land Your Next Job
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“I couldn’t imagine a better job than getting to be the president of Stanford. It’s a great institution, and I think the same is true of our peer universities. We play a very important role in the country and in the world. Yes, we face many significant and contentious issues that have to be the subject of discussion and debate on campus, and that does create challenges to be a university president.” – Stanford President Jon Levin
September 2, 2024
President Jon Levin’s First Interview with Stanford Daily - ‘A Stronger Culture of Inquiry’
Excerpts:
.....
“We are here as the University to facilitate discovery and learning, and an important part of having that happen is to create an environment on the campus where all of the students and all the faculty get the opportunity to think for themselves. And to feel encouraged to be able to speak up, even if they have a viewpoint or an opinion that might be contrary to the majority of people on the campus, and that there are forums on the campus to talk about those issues so we can learn from each other....
And asked later in the interview about Stanford’s alleged war on fun: “I think my pro-fun position continues. One, I’ve stated my pro-fun position. But the second [thing] is, coming to college at Stanford, there are many things about it that are really special for students. It certainly was in my experience. It just opens your mind in so many different ways -- getting to be in Stanford classrooms and getting to be around all the other students and the faculty.
“Education is all about encountering different ideas and different people and different cultures. And the opportunity to do that at Stanford is extraordinary. And, it is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be a time to be able to explore and to meet people and have freedom in a way as you’re coming into adulthood. A beautiful part of the Stanford culture is that there’s also an aspect of joy and a reverence to being a student at the University. That’s something that I personally benefited from and I want all students to have that opportunity....”
Full interview at Stanford Daily
The Examined Life - Ignorance Is Not the Only Thing from Which a True Liberal Education Frees Us
Excerpts:
“Those of us who teach or study at American colleges and universities are facing the academic year that is about to begin with more than a little trepidation. Will there be protests? Encampments? The occupation of buildings? The invasion of classrooms? Riots?
“The fact that we are asking those questions should itself prompt us to ask a more fundamental question: What is the purpose of higher education?
“Most American colleges and universities proclaim themselves to be providers of ‘liberal education’ (or ‘liberal arts education’). But what does that mean? Why should students want it? Why should their parents pay -- a lot -- for them to get it?
“The word ‘liberal’ in this context means ‘freeing.’ So, what is it that liberal education is supposed to be freeing us from?
“An obvious answer is that liberal education frees us from ignorance. A liberally educated person knows some things -- some things worth knowing -- about, for example, history, philosophy, literature, politics, economics, religion, civics, art, music, biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics....
“Ignorance, however, is not the only thing from which a true liberal education frees us. It frees us from conformism -- that is, slavery to fashionable opinions and causes. A sure sign that a college or university is failing in its promise to provide a liberal education is the prevalence of ideological dogmatism and intolerance, and the presence of groupthink....
“That is the truth James Madison had in mind when he remarked that ‘only a well-instructed people can be permanently a free people.’ …”
Full op-ed by Princeton Prof. Robert P. George at Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism website
D.E.I. Is Not Working on College Campuses; We Need a New Approach
Excerpts (links in the original; bracketed language added):
“With colleges and universities beginning a new academic year, we can expect more contentious debate over programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Progressives are doubling down on programs that teach students that they are either oppressed peoples or oppressors, while red states are closing campus D.E.I. programs altogether.
“For all of the complaints, some of these programs most likely serve the important goal of ensuring that all students are valued and engaged participants in their academic communities. But we fear that many other programs are too ideological, exacerbate the very problems they intend to solve and are incompatible with higher education’s longstanding mission of cultivating critical thinking. We propose an alternative: a pluralist-based approach to D.E.I. that would provide students with the self-confidence, mind-sets and skills to engage with challenging social and political issues....
“D.E.I. programs often assign participants to identity categories based on rigid distinctions. In a D.E.I. training program at Stanford a few years ago, Jewish staff members were assigned to a ‘whiteness accountability’ group, and some later complained that they were shot down when they tried to raise concerns about antisemitism. The former D.E.I. director at a Bay Area community college described D.E.I. as based on the premises ‘that the world is divided into two groups of people: the oppressors and the oppressed.’ She was also told by colleagues and campus leaders that ‘Jews are white oppressors,’ and her task was to ‘decenter whiteness.’
“Rather than correcting stereotypes, diversity training too often reinforces them and breeds resentment, impeding students’ social development. An excessive focus on identity can be just as harmful as the pretense that identity doesn’t matter. Overall, these programs may undermine the very groups they seek to aid by instilling a victim mind-set and by pitting students against one another....
“Pluralism [on the other hand] does not ignore identity or pervasive structural inequalities. Rather, it provides a framework in which identity is construed broadly and understood as a starting point for dialogue, rather than the basis for separation and fragmentation. It commits questions about the causes and persistence of inequalities to the classroom, where they can be examined through the critical, evidence-based methods at the root of a university education. Respecting the diverse perspectives of one’s fellows and adhering to norms such as active listening, humility and generosity enable classroom conversations about contentious social and political issues....”
Full op-ed by former Stanford Law School Dean Paul Brest and Stanford Prof. Emily J. Levine at NY Times
The Dangerous Evolution of Cancel Culture
Excerpt (links in the original):
“Academic boycotts targeting ideas, individuals, and institutions deemed problematic are no longer just in vogue for faculty. This illiberal and anti-intellectual tactic has now been adopted by students -- presumably taking a cue from faculty and administrators -- to cancel faculty who hold views they disagree with.
“I encountered this personally during the most recent course interview week at Sarah Lawrence College, during which I learned that several groups -- like the Sarah Lawrence Socialist Coalition and the Sarah Lawrence Review -- decided that because I support Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself, my lectures will be corrupted and therefore should be boycotted....”
Full op-ed by Stanford alum and Sarah Lawrence Prof. Samuel J. Abrams at Minding the Campus
SCOTUS Versus Free Speech - the Murthy v. Missouri Case
Excerpts (links in the original):
“In a 6 to 3 ruling on the Murthy v. Missouri case, the Supreme Court ruled against me and my fellow co-plaintiffs, in effect rendering the US First Amendment a dead letter in the social media age. At stake in the case was the status of a preliminary injunction issued by lower federal courts ordering the Biden Administration to stop coercing social media companies to censor and shadow ban people and ideas that the government does not like....
“Depositions of high-ranking career staff and political employees and unearthed emails between the government and social media companies like Facebook and Twitter/X revealed the government’s tactics to suppress speech. The Surgeon General’s office, the FBI, the CDC, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House were all closely involved.
“Government agencies funded universities and NGOs to support enterprises with Orwellian names like ‘Virality Project’ and ‘Center for Countering Digital Hate’ to create a target list for the Administration’s censorship efforts. With government backing, these entities -- linked sometimes to prominent universities like Stanford and the University of Washington -- work with corporate teams in social media companies’ ‘trust and safety’ divisions to censor offending speech....”
Full op-ed by Stanford Prof. Jay Bhattacharya at Brightstone
See also “Marc Zuckerberg Regrets Caving to White House Pressure to Censor Content” at Politico and “Stanford’s Roles in Censoring the Web” at our Stanford Concerns-2 webpage
Back to COLLEGE at Stanford
Excerpts:
“This course is only open to Stanford University alumni who have completed three quarters as a matriculated, degree-seeking student, in a degree-granting program at Stanford (bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate)…. [For those who wish to enroll, will need to create a My Stanford Connection/Stanford Online account if don't already have one; differs from the Stanford alumni account.]
“In COLLEGE 101, which stands for Civic, Global, and Liberal Education, first-year Stanford students consider answers to the question: What is the role of education in a good life? As alumni like you know, answering this question is a lifelong pursuit. This course gives you the opportunity to experience a modified version of what Stanford students are experiencing, with a small group of fellow alumni, led by the instructors who are teaching the course to current Stanford students. Together you will revisit some of the fundamental questions about a liberal education and sample some of the most compelling material from the undergraduate COLLEGE 101 course....
“This course will be offered in 10 separate sections: Sections 1-8 will be held live on Zoom, Section 9 (on-campus) and 10 (in San Francisco) are in person. All times listed are Pacific Standard Time. Sections will meet during the timeframe listed every other week for a total of six sessions. Specific dates will be listed when you enroll and can be found on this table.
“This course brought to you by Stanford Alumni Association, Stanford Introductory Studies, and Stanford Online. Questions? Please email backtocollege@lists.stanford.edu.”
Full description and form for enrollment ($250 total tuition for all six sessions) at Stanford Connection/Stanford Online website, including a choice of sections that will meet on specific days and times depending on the section selected
Other Articles of Interest
Report Reveals Ongoing Tensions Over Student Speech
Full article at Inside Higher Ed
Pro-Palestinian Protestors Shut Down U. of Michigan Student Government
Full article at Campus Safety Magazine
How to Fix American Higher Education with Morals and Markets
Full op-ed by Cornerstone University President Gerson Moreno-Riaño at The Hill
I Told You Something is Coming and Now It’s Here
Full talk by Victor Davis Hanson at YouTube (8:54 minutes)
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
From Bio X - Stanford Team Develops First New Clinical Imaging Platform in a Quarter of a Century
From School of Medicine - How the Smallest Units of Life Rule Our Health
From Graduate School of Business - A ‘Grumpy Economist’ Weighs in on Inflation’s Causes And Its Cures
From Department of Psychology - Finding Hope in a Cynical World
From School of Engineering - New Gels Could Protect Buildings During Wildfires
From School of Medicine - How to Avoid a Pickleball Injury
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“As you begin your time at Stanford, embrace the freedom to explore ideas and challenge assumptions. This university is a place where free speech and critical thinking are not just rights, but responsibilities. It is through these principles that we advance knowledge, foster innovation, and prepare you to make a difference in the world." -- Former Stanford President John Hennessy
August 26, 2024
Update re Stanford's Administrative Overhead
From time to time during the past two years, we have posted charts and other information about the large number of administrators and other non-teaching personnel at Stanford, something that is especially of concern when compared with comparable numbers at other major colleges and universities throughout the country.
For example, Stanford Facts 2024 (pages 32 and 33) states that Stanford now has a total of 18,369 non-teaching personnel as compared to 1,730 members of the Academic Council (faculty). And our Newsletter last week featured numbers just published by the Chronicle of Higher Education that show, among other things, that Stanford has the highest number of financial and business administrators of any college or university in the country, both public and private, made all the more concerning when one realizes that most of these other schools have two to three times the number of students yet a fraction of the staff. In addition, the website How Colleges Spend Money on which many of our prior charts were based has now supplemented its data with an additional year and revised some of its other numbers.
We have therefore updated the material at our Stanford Concerns webpage with these new numbers and charts, and we urge readers to take a look at the updated information that is set forth there.
We also again bring to readers’ attention the proposals that have long been posted at our Back to Basics at Stanford webpage -- including that there be a significant reduction in Stanford’s administrative personnel not directly involved in teaching and research and that every dollar saved, dollar for dollar, be devoted instead solely to undergraduate scholarships, research grants and independent projects and to graduate student fellowships.
Stanford has recruited some of the most capable students and faculty found anywhere, so why is it assumed that these highly intelligent people cannot manage their own interactions without interference from an ever-expanding bureaucracy? In this regard, we are reminded of comments regularly made by former Stanford Vice President Ken Cuthbertson: “People like the janitor and me get our kicks out of providing the means and services that allow faculty and students to teach and learn under the best possible conditions. After that, our task is to stay the hell out of the way.”
Again, we urge readers to look at the updated information at our Stanford Concerns webpage and we likewise welcome reader comments on these and other issues at our Contact Us/Subscribe webpage.
California Public Universities Ban Encampments, Masks
Excerpts (link in the original):
“Student activists at public universities in California will no longer be able to build tent cities or hide their faces behind masks following new rules.
“California State University introduced its new policy Thursday [August 15], banning encampments, overnight protests, and ‘unauthorized barricades,’ according to EdSource.
“Students ‘who attempt to start an encampment may be disciplined or sanctioned,’ CSU spokesperson Hazel Kelly told EdSource....
“Similarly, University of California President Michael Drake announced Monday [August 19] in a letter to UC chancellors that all campuses within the [UC system] must prohibit ‘unauthorized structures’ and encampments.
“In addition, they must ban ‘anything that restricts movement on campus, which could include protests that block walkways and roadways or deny access by anyone on campus to UC facilities,’ EdSource reported.
“‘I hope that the direction provided in this letter will help you achieve an inclusive and welcoming environment at our campuses that protects and enables free expression while ensuring the safety of all community members by providing greater clarity and consistency in our policies and policy application,’ Drake stated in the letter...."
Full article at College Fix. See also “Colleges Face Growing Demands to Step Up Enforcement on Student Protesters Who Cross a Line” at Chronicle of Higher Education.
Forthcoming FIRE/College Pulse Survey Shows Most College Students Don’t Know Their College’s Protest Policies
Excerpt (links in the original):
“Ahead of what could be another tumultuous year for free expression on college campuses, forthcoming FIRE/College Pulse survey data shows just a fraction of undergrads have a solid understanding of their own campus’s protest policies.
“Conducted near the end of the Israeli-Palestinian campus protests, between May 17 and June 25, 2024, the survey sampled 3,803 undergraduates at 30 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S.
“Asked how aware they are of their college’s written speech policies on campus protest, almost half of students surveyed said they are either ‘not aware at all’ (19%) or ‘not very aware’ (29%). Only 19% of students -- less than a fifth -- responded they are ‘extremely’ (6%) or ‘very’ (13%) aware of the relevant policies....”
Full article at FIRE website
See also newly added free speech pages at U North Carolina website
Other Articles of Interest
What I Want a University President to Say About Campus Protests
Full op-ed at NY Times
How Colleges Can Repair Their Reputations
Full op-ed by former Purdue President Mitch Daniels at Washington Post
More Than 1,000 Scholars Sign Petition Against AAUP for Supporting Academic Boycotts
Full article at College Fix
The Ongoing Censorship of Canadian Psychologist Jordan Peterson
Full article at Zero Hedge
Losing America’s Memory 2.0 - A Civic Literacy Assessment of College Students
Full report at American Council of Trustees and Alumni website
College Presidents for Civic Preparedness Now Up to 70 Members and Growing
Including Amherst, Carnegie Mellon, Claremont McKenna, Cornell, Dartmouth, Davidson, Duke, Georgetown, Grinnell, Harvey Mudd, Howard, Indiana U, Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, St. Olaf, U Illinois, Notre Dame, U Tennessee, U Virginia, U Wisconsin, Vassar, Wake Forest, Wash U St. Louis and Whitman.
Full article and annual report at Institute for Citizens & Scholars website. See also Stanford Civics Initiative homepage.
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
Drugs That Improve Brain Metabolism Could Help Alzheimer’s Patients
"Blocking the kynurenine pathway in lab mice with Alzheimer’s Disease can improve, or even restore cognitive function by reinstating healthy brain metabolism."
How the Brain Helps Cancers Grow
Electric Reactor Could Cut Industrial Emissions
Dialysis May Not Be the Best Option for Some Older Adults with Kidney Failure
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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." – Aristotle
August 19, 2024
Editor's note: Why a Newsletter last Friday and again on Monday? Because there is so much happening, we thought it best to break up the material into two parts. We don’t mean to flood your in-boxes but appreciate instead that readers can pick and choose what items might be of interest. As always, we welcome your comments, questions and suggestions (click on the Contact Us/Subscribe button at the top of this webpage).
Stanford Civics Initiative
Editor’s note: A year ago, we called readers' attention to the Stanford Civics Initiative, a project that involves faculty and students throughout the university and with assistance from the nonprofit Zephyr Institute. In light of current issues at Stanford and colleges and universities nationwide, we again bring this initiative to your attention.
Excerpt:
“The Stanford Civics Initiative (SCI), home-based in Stanford’s Department of Political Science, is the project of a group of Stanford faculty from the Departments of Political Science, Classics, Philosophy, and Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, working together with the staff of the Zephyr Institute. We are united by our belief that U.S. universities have a responsibility to offer students an education that will promote their flourishing as human beings, their judgment as moral agents, and their participation in society as democratic citizens. A healthy democracy requires that citizens and leaders be conversant with the great ideas of the past and present, ideas that produced and sustain their system of government. Citizens living in a pluralistic society must learn to engage one another in rational discourse. They must find ways to meet new challenges and to promote the common good, together.
“The Initiative aims to provide students with a series of superbly taught courses relevant to the ideas and practices of democratic citizenship. The SCI is intended to further Stanford’s mission, as laid out in the University’s Founding Grant, to prepare students for virtuous and effective citizenship by ‘teaching the blessings of liberty, regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government as derived from the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.’
“The university has a vitally important role to play in the education of citizens. That role was recognized not only in Stanford’s Founding Grant, but also in Stanford’s first required survey course: ‘The Problems of Citizenship,’ introduced in 1923. Now, a century later, the need for addressing problems of citizenship is more pressing than ever. The Initiative serves the needs of all Stanford students who are eager to pursue a curriculum that would enable them to explore in-depth issues of the common good and human flourishing, who seek to debate important ethical and moral issues, and who want a classroom setting that encourages both frankness and civility as they delve into big ideas. We believe that students’ own ethical judgment is improved and their deepest commitments are strengthened when they have the chance to make and to respond to reasoned arguments from all sides of morally challenging issues.” …
Full statement at SCI website
See also sample courses and sample publications
Latest Chronicle of Higher Education Rankings
On August 16, 2024, the Chronicle of Higher Education released its annual almanac (127 pages total) with extensive data and charts. Here are some items that stood out to us.
Best ratio of undergraduate students to tenured or tenure-track professors at private universities (page 44):
#1 Caltech (3.8). #2 Johns Hopkins (6.3). #3 Duke (6.8). #4 MIT (6.9). #5 U Chicago (8.3) #6 Yale (8.4). #7 Harvard (8.7).
#8 Columbia (9.3). #9 Stanford (9.8). #10. Wash U St. Louis (10.7).
Largest number of staff in business and financial operations (page 46; also consider comparative enrollments of each of these schools):
#1 Stanford (4,140). #2 UCLA (4,078). #3 U Washington (4,069). #4 U Michigan (3,305). #5 Harvard (3,290).
#6 Ohio State (2,652). #7 Johns Hopkins (2,503). #8 U Maryland College Park (2,383). #9 U Minnesota Twin Cities (2,131). #10 Duke (2,095).
Highest average pay for full professors at private universities in 2022-23 (page 58):
#1 Stanford ($288,663). #2 Princeton ($280,268). #3 MIT ($268,486). #4 Yale ($268,188). #5 Harvard ($264,272).
Highest average pay for full professors at public universities in 2022-23 (page 58):
#1 UCLA ($248,620). #2 UC Berkeley ($230,856). #3 UC Santa Barbara ($222,396). #4 UC San Diego ($212,651).
#5 UC Irvine ($203,773). #6 U Virginia ($198,212).
Highest paid administrators and faculty at 4-year private colleges and universities in 2021 (page 59):
Stanford was usually not on the lists for various categories, although in athletics:
#1 Gary Patterson at Texas Christian ($17,163,326). #2 David Shaw at Stanford ($7,392,068). #3 Jerold T. Wright at Villanova ($6,651,081). #4 Michael Kryzewski at Duke ($6,443,725). #5 Patrick Fitzgerald at Northwestern ($5,898,137).
Highest Paid CEOs (presidents, chancellors, etc.) at 4-Year Private Colleges and Universities in 2021 (page 61):
#1 Amy Gutmann at Penn ($22,866,127). #2 Lee Bollinger at Columbia ($3,865,304). #3 Andrew Hamilton at NYU ($3,554,120). #4 Carol Folt at USC ($3,479,049). #5 Robert Zimmer at U Chicago ($3,427,953).
Stanford was not on the list of the 50 highest paid CEOs at private colleges and universities. On the list of CEOs at public universities, the highest paid was Reny Khator at U Houston ($1,901,444) followed by CEOs at U Kentucky, U Delaware, U Nebraska, Texas State U system, U North Texas, U Texas Austin, Iowa State, Penn State and Florida State.
Highest admissions selectivity (percent of applicants admitted) for doctorate degrees at private universities in 2022-23 (page 67):
#1 Caltech (2.7%). #2 Harvard (3.2%). #3 Stanford (3.7%). #4 Columbia (4.0%). #5 MIT (4.0%).
Highest admissions selectivity (percent of applicants admitted) for doctorate degrees at public universities in 2022-23 (page 67):
#1 UCLA (8.6%). #2 UC Berkeley (11.3%). #3 U North Carolina Chapel Hill (17.1%). #4 Georgia Tech (17.1%).
#5 U Michigan (17.7%).
Full articles and charts at Chronicle of Higher Education website
Campus Protests Pushed Ivy League Presidents Out; How Some Leaders Are Holding On
Excerpts (links in the original):
"Running a high-profile university during a war in the Middle East where students, faculty and alumni are at odds has turned into one of the toughest jobs in America to keep....
“Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier described his North Star as an unwillingness to appease one side or the other through intense protests, arrests and student expulsions on his campus.
“‘You have to be clear about what your purpose is, and then act accordingly,’ he said. ‘If you believe that your purpose is to have a platform where ideas can really flow then you should think twice about taking a position on this issue or that issue because it may undermine’ campus debate....
“If a university had not already adopted institutional neutrality before Oct. 7, it was in a bind once the war began.
“If, for example, presidents had previously condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the murder of George Floyd, they often felt compelled to weigh in when Hamas militants murdered 1,200 Israelis in October or when the Israeli military responded by attacking Gaza. If they didn’t, their silence was noted....
“At Dartmouth College, President Sian Beilock said she asked herself after Oct. 7, ‘What are we trying to do here?’
“She turned to faculty and asked what education was happening on the topic. It turned out the university had strong resources in both Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern Studies. They had been team teaching on the politics of Israel and Palestine for years. She asked them to stream it so everyone could learn from the debate....”
Full article at WSJ
See also article about Stanford’s new president, Jon Levin, at Stanford Magazine
See also our compilations of the Chicago Trifecta (freedom of expression, a university’s involvement in political and social matters, and standards for the appointment and promotion of faculty)
What Does Academic Freedom Really Mean?
Excerpts (link in the original):
“After opposing academic boycotts as ‘inimical to the principle of academic freedom’ for nearly 20 years, the American Association of University Professors declared this month that boycotts may be ‘legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education.’
“Earlier this summer, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in a case challenging Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, which bans the teaching of ‘divisive concepts’ related to race and gender. Insisting there is no ‘purported right to academic freedom,’ Florida argued that the classroom speech of faculty at public colleges and universities is ‘government speech,’ subject to state control....
“In the new book ‘Academic Freedom: From Professional Norm to First Amendment Right,’ David Rabban examines these and a host of related questions. Rabban demonstrates that the law remains ‘frustratingly inconsistent and confusing’ and proposes a ‘theory of academic freedom as a distinctive subset of First Amendment law.’
“Like Rabban, we believe a more precise understanding of academic freedom is urgently needed....
[Followed by a detailed discussion comparing academic freedom with concepts of free speech.]
Full op-ed by Cornell Prof. Emeritus Glenn C. Altschuler and Hamilton College Prof. Emeritus David Wippman at The Hill
Other Articles of Interest
Colleges Can’t Say They Weren’t Warned
Full op-ed at NY Times
Real AI Threats Are Disinformation, Bias and Lack of Transparency
Full op-ed by Stanford Prof. James Landay at India Times
College Students Lack Rudimentary Knowledge of History and Civics
Full op ed at College Fix
We Must Live Up to the Promise of Free Speech
Full podcast interview (55 minutes) at ACTA website
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
Massive Biomolecular Shifts Occur in Our 40s and 60s, Stanford Medicine Researchers Find
Stanford’s Farm-to-Table Camp Cultivates Kids’ Love for Veggies
City of Belmont Releases Environmental Review of Proposed Stanford Campus
**********
“Institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition.” –- AAUP 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure
August 16, 2024
A Model Statement re Academic Freedom
Editor’s note: We recently came across a webpage at Stanford’s Department of Political Science that sets forth what we believe is a well-considered statement about academic freedom as it affects both faculty and students and suggest it or something like it be considered for more widespread use at Stanford.
Excerpts (link in the original):
“The Department of Political Science is committed to academic freedom as a foundational value of higher education and research. As Debra Satz, Dean of Humanities and Sciences, writes ‘academic freedom is, in the first instance, the freedom of the scholarly community to pursue, disseminate, and openly discuss their work.’
“Academic freedom is a prerequisite for the duties associated with the role of a scholar. These duties include the creation, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge in the spirit of truth-seeking....
“Academic freedom is more limited than the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. To adapt an example from the legal scholar Robert Post: ‘Although the First Amendment would prohibit government sanctioning an editorialist for the New York Times if he were inclined to write that [the astrological signs of world leaders explain the incidence of inter-state wars], no [political science] department could survive if it were unable to deny tenure to a young scholar similarly convinced.’ Of course, scholars have constitutional rights to express outlandish views as private citizens or in public discourse. They do not have the same protections if they propagate such views in their position as scholars....
“Students also possess a set of rights as members of the Stanford academic community. They have the right to provide feedback on teaching and to disagree with their professors without fear of reprisal. They have the right to have their work judged by the internal standards of the relevant discipline and not, for instance, on the basis of their personal or political views, or on the basis of the political implications of their results.”
Full statement at Stanford’s Department of Political Science website
See also our compilations of the Chicago Trifecta (freedom of expression, a university’s involvement in political and social matters, and standards for the appointment and promotion of faculty)
Higher Ed’s Crisis of Confidence
Excerpts (links in the original):
“Higher education . . . is in the midst of a worsening ‘crisis of confidence.’ Consider surveys from the last six months alone. In March, the American National Election Study (ANES) pilot found only 26% of Americans approve of ‘how colleges and universities are run these days.’ A May survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression discovered that a mere 28% of the public has ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ of confidence in colleges and universities. Last month, Gallup reported that the number of Americans with ‘little’ or ‘no’ confidence in higher education tripled since 2015, with distrust increasing ‘among all key subgroups in the U.S. population.’ Gallup’s data also showed more than two-thirds of Americans believe higher education is headed in the ‘wrong direction.’ ...
“Why have Americans lost faith in higher education? This deepening stream of discontent is fed by many tributaries, including the soaring costs of a degree and the growing misalignment between what colleges teach and what today’s job market demands. One of the most important factors, however, is the perception that colleges and universities are more interested in political indoctrination than in ‘truth-seeking.’ In the ANES data, for example, nearly 60% of Americans -- including 47% of liberals -- said ‘most colleges have a liberal bias in what they teach students.’ Similarly, Gallup found that 41% of those distrustful of higher education attributed their distrust to colleges and universities being ‘too liberal,’ trying to ‘brainwash’ students, or failing to encourage students to think for themselves." …
Full op-ed by Cal State Long Beach Prof. Kevin Wallsten at Real Clear Education
New Rules Re Student Conduct at Colleges Across the Country
Excerpts:
“University presidents are taking a stricter approach to the rules of daily life for students, hoping to tamp down protests and return campus life to a state of normalcy.
“The University of Denver is banning protest tents. Indiana University wants people to stop writing on the walls or holding late-night rallies. At Harvard University, students and others will need advance approval to use bullhorns or sidewalk chalk....
“A number of schools are turning the turmoil into opportunity, or trying to, with new programs aimed at helping students have more constructive arguments.
“William & Mary, a public university in Virginia, is training staff and faculty on the nonprofit Aspen Institute’s Better Arguments Project, which has principles such as ‘take winning off the table’ by focusing on learning rather than on one-upping debate opponents.
“‘People are hungry for tools that can help us manage a really difficult time in our national history and on our campuses,’ said Ginger Ambler, senior vice president for student affairs and public safety.
“At the University of Denver, orientation will include workshops on freedom of expression, where students will discuss the types of rhetoric to which they might be exposed on campus, including hate speech, and how to handle themselves in those situations.
“The university also plans to expand a program that brings a communications professor into classes and arranges debates to help students get comfortable disagreeing with each other....”
Full article at WSJ
Columbia Restricts Access Ahead of Fall Semester to Mitigate Protests
Excerpt (links in the original):
“Columbia University announced it has indefinitely restricted campus access to ‘non-affiliates’ in preparation for the start of the 2024-2025 academic year.
“Columbia administrators announced over the weekend that starting Monday [August 19], the school would move to ‘orange’ status,' which only allows students and staff with university ID cards on campus and places limits on entrances and exits, NBC New York reports. Guests will be allowed on campus but must go through a pre-registration process that university officials announced back in June....”
Full article at Campus Safety Magazine
See also "Columbia President Resigns After Months of Campus Turmoil" at NY Times
More Disclosures About Stanford Internet Observatory
Excerpts (links in the original):
“In March 2023, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP) put out an article asserting that the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) -- comprised of the CIP, the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), Graphika, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) -- was not a ‘government cut-out’ controlled by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
“Racket has sent out numerous Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests about the Election Integrity Partnership. Recently, we received several new batches of results from the University of Washington that cast doubt on their earlier assertions....
[Followed by a screenshot of an email addressed to a NY Times reporter and a newly appointed fellow at Stanford Internet Observatory.]
“The response came from Matthew Masterson, at the time a non-resident policy fellow at the Stanford Internet Observatory. Masterson then only just finished working as a senior cybersecurity advisor at CISA, a position he held from March 2018 to December 2020. He stayed at CISA through the 2020 election, then moved to Stanford just in time to receive Ovide’s inquiry as a private citizen. His response is humorous in its frankness:
“’Happy to talk regarding the work we (the feds) did in coordination with social media companies to anticipate and respond to efforts to undermine the election.’
[Followed by more screenshots of email exchanges that took place during the subsequent year.]
“These emails illustrate the synergies between the ‘anti-disinformation’ industry and the national security state. In theory, the two factions are supposed to be separate entities, but in practice, they represent the same interests. It’s not often that a single disclosure offers evidence of the alacrity with which outfits like the EIP did the bidding of federal law enforcement agencies. We should be grateful for their candor....”
Full article at Substack. See also “Stanford’s Roles in Censoring the Web” and “Stanford Prof. Jay Bhattacharya: The Government Censored Me and Other Scientists, and We Fought Back” at our Stanford Concerns -- 2 webpage
See also Stanford Internet Observatory press release re current status
See also Part 4 of our Back to Basics at Stanford webpage, “Greater Control Must Be Exercised Over the Centers, Accelerators, Incubators and Similar Entities and Activities at Stanford”
Editor’s note: Questions we have previously raised: Who gets to decide what is and isn’t true and subsequently gets to enforce the answers? Is it a proper role for Stanford not only to research the issues, but then to be the implementer of the solutions and the rejecter of alternative viewpoints? Is it appropriate that the Stanford name is seen as an endorsement of these activities? At what point does an entity, especially at Stanford, lose its independence and, in turn, its trustworthiness?
Also, how did it come about that Stanford reportedly spent a million dollars or more on lawyers to assert the position that it was appropriate for entities at Stanford, or anywhere for that matter, to play a role in censoring Stanford's own faculty members and even in areas that are within the recognized expertise of those faculty members?
AAUP Abandons Academic Freedom
Excerpt (link in the original):
“Last week, the American Association of University Professors set aside its hundred-year defense of academic freedom by opening the door to any number of individually initiated academic boycotts. Individual students and faculty have always had the right to advocate for academic boycotts, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. But an unqualified right ‘to make their own choices regarding their participation in them’ and not face discipline for doing so validates ‘rights’ that have not previously existed.
“That will include the right to refuse to write letters of recommendation for highly qualified students who wish to study at Israeli universities, an action that will be defended as only boycotting Israeli institutions. Not that any affected student will accept the distinction.
“I predict that hundreds of those and other individual micro-boycotts of Jewish and Israeli students and faculty will be initiated during the 2024-25 academic year as a consequence of the AAUP policy change. There will also be dedicated group efforts to criminalize collaborative research projects between faculty in America and Israel, projects that often entail institutional endorsement and support...."
Full op-ed by former AAUP president and U Illinois Prof. Emeritus Cary Nelson at Chronicle of Higher Education
See also Stanford alum and Sarah Lawrence Prof. Samuel J. Abrams “The AAUP Is Wrong”
See also National Association of Scholars, "The AAUP's new statement places academic freedom on the backburner for temporary political gain."
See also Diverse Issues in Higher Education
Other Articles of Interest
Stanford Produced Most Olympic Medals and Most Gold Medals of All U.S. Schools
Full article at WSJ
A Trustee’s Guide to Preventing Encampments and Occupations on Campus
Full document (20 pages) at ACTA website
Colleges Prepare for Students to Return After Spring Protests
Full article at Center Square
Cornell Student Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for Threats Against Jews
Full article at College Fix
U Chicago Law Students Fight Graduate Student Union Dues Being Used for Anti-Israel Boycott
Full article at College Fix
How College Enrollments Have Changed in the Past Decade
Full article and charts at USA Today
Colleges Are Cutting Majors and Slashing Programs After Years of Putting It Off
Full article at Associated Press
It’s Time for Colleges to Play Moneyball
Full op-ed at Minding the Campus
National Science Foundation Will Require Prior Consent for Research Impacting Tribes
Full article at Minding the Campus
Two-thirds of Colleges Are Prioritizing Online Versions of On-Campus Programs
Full article at Higher Ed Dive
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
Paving a Path for Human-Centered Computing
Tapping Interdependent Motivation Shrinks Racial Achievement Gaps in Schools
Engineers Conduct First In-Orbit Test of Swarm Satellite Autonomous Navigation
* * * * * * * * * *
“The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.” -- Former Democrat Senator and Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy
August 12, 2024
Yes, You Do Have to Tolerate the Intolerant
Excerpts (links in the original):
“Free speech is under attack.
“In the United States, government officials are increasingly telling social media companies which forms of damaging ‘misinformation’ they should censor, and now have the Supreme Court’s implicit blessing to do so. In Europe, overly broad restrictions on hate speech have been used to threaten people making unpopular statements with jail time. According to a government-sponsored draft bill in Canada, political opinions that could be construed as supporting genocide would be punished with life imprisonment.
“Plenty of arguments against free speech lack any credible pretense of sophistication. They simply jump from the undoubted fact that many people say dumb or disgusting things on the internet to the understandable, if wrong-headed, wish that anybody who says such things should be made to shut up. But those who argue for restrictions on free speech with an ounce of sophistication have increasingly begun to invoke an idea by a philosopher whose work they otherwise studiously ignore: Karl Popper and his ‘paradox of tolerance.’...
“People of vastly differing political persuasions, fighting for vastly different political purposes, now press into their service the work of a philosopher whose books they have likely never read. But for all of their differences, they have two things in common: First, they distort the nature of Popper’s thought. And second, they have created a deep and dangerous confusion about what freedoms liberal democracies should grant their members -- including those whose views may rightly be perceived as less than tolerant....
“The emphasis on skepticism and free inquiry that stood at the core of Popper’s views on science also shaped his political thought. He was deeply concerned about the fact that, even after World War II, many of his contemporaries continued to believe that there was something anachronistic about liberalism. These thinkers argued that liberal democracies would likely be outcompeted by other political systems, including both fascism and communism, that gave vastly more power to its rulers....
“Fears about placing too much power in the hands of a society’s rulers were also front of mind for Popper throughout the chapter of Open Society in which he went on to discuss the Paradox of Tolerance. Ever since Plato, he lamented, political philosophers have focused on the question of who should rule. Once the question is posed in that way, it is inevitable that people will give such answers as ‘the wise,’ the ‘faithful,’ or ‘the proletariat.’ But in Popper’s mind, even the best ruler is likely to do terrible things if his power goes unchecked. The better question, he suggested, was: ‘How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?’ Throughout his work, Popper made clear that his answer to that question included strict limits on the power of the state and a special emphasis on what he called ‘intellectual freedom.’ …
“The idea that there is something paradoxical about tolerating intolerant views is a product of anxiety and self-doubt. It is understandable that this anxiety and self-doubt has grown in our politically turbulent times -- as evinced by the headlines about the upcoming American elections or the recent riots in the United Kingdom. But the historical record suggests that liberal democracies have reason to be a lot more sanguine about the appeal of their values. When they allow genuinely open debate about sensitive issues, plenty of people will say plenty of offensive things; but the arguments that carry the day have, so far, proven to be the tolerant ones -- not all the time, but much more so than under any alternative form of government.
“Conversely, when societies start to censor and exclude, they nearly always do so in the name of truth or toleration or enlightenment. But the people who get to make decisions about who should be censored or excluded are, virtually by definition, the powerful rather than the marginalized. And as Popper recognized, the powerful have since the origins of recorded history been very adept at convincing themselves that they are defending freedom even as they tighten the screws of tyranny. His abiding obsession was to warn his readers about the ‘propagandists who, often in good faith, developed the technique of appeal to moral, humanitarian sentiments for anti-humanitarian, immoral purposes.’
“Eighty years later, his argument for an open society which refuses to let the powerful decide what ideas we can publicly question remains as urgent as ever.”
Full op-ed by Johns Hopkins Prof. Yascha Mounk at Substack. See also Karl Popper bio at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
See also the following articles at our Stanford Concerns webpages, all of which describe activities we believe should not be taking place at Stanford, or at any other college or university, and for the reasons discussed in the above op-ed:
Helping Students Think in Morally Complex Ways
Editor’s note: We are impressed that the educational culture of this Carlsbad, California middle and high school is not the result of a vast bureaucracy but rather a set of simply stated values that then are self-executing by the students and faculty themselves. In our opinion, it’s an example of what could be done by de-bureaucratizing colleges and universities in a similar way.
Excerpts (links in the original):
“Consider this moment in history from a teenager’s perspective. The world inflamed by wars, hatred, and conflict. Social media platforms that encourage individuals to affirm one correct answer to every problem and assume a posture of aggressive self-righteousness in response to every challenge. No one believes anything can really change, and time seems to be running out.
“What’s missing from this dire picture is what psychologist Darcia Narvaez calls ‘moral complexity,’ or mature moral functioning. This includes practicing emotional regulation to allay reactivity and avoid impulsive judgments; holding multiple, often competing viewpoints in mind while deliberating between them; and, over time, developing head-and-heart expertise through ethical engagement with a specific community or cause.
“In other words, being a complex moral agent means being resilient, flexible, pragmatic, and kind. As Narvaez notes, citizenship scholars agree that the skills needed in the 21st century include ‘critical thinking, cooperation, tolerance, conflict resolution,’ and ‘the skills of a positive, mature moral functioning.’ Practiced collectively, these skills could change our world for the better.
“Yet it goes without saying that there aren’t enough adult exemplars of these skills visible today. In countless ways, adolescents are led to believe that what’s on offer is what moral maturity looks like. So the cycle repeats, cynicism deepens, and little does change....
“Conceived at Phillips Exeter Academy, the Harkness method makes the whole classroom into a student-centered space for listening and discussion. Typically the teacher or another student tracks participation using a variety of data gathering devices, which they share with the class during a debrief following the discussion. The purpose of Harkness is to promote student leadership and peer learning as well as accountability and self-reflection, so that one’s participation in discussions grows more thoughtful over time.
“On that particular day, I sat outside the circle and let students talk freely. Speaking politely through their masks of different shapes and colors, these pandemic-era eighth graders seemed to have a genuine thirst for moral knowledge. They clearly wanted to know what was true, and within the Harkness container, they engaged each other respectfully. Instead of jumping toward judgment and yelling at each other, as can happen with adolescents in less structured contexts, this group had practiced well enough to regulate their emotions and deliberate carefully....”
Full article by Pacific Ridge School teacher Michael Fisher at UC Berkeley Greater Good Magazine
See also Academic Excellence at Pacific Ridge School
See also our Back to Basics at Stanford webpage
Duke Doctor Fired After Questioning Mandatory DEI Pledge
Excerpts (links in the original):
“A former Duke University Health System emergency medicine physician is speaking out after he says he was terminated for questioning statements about systemic racism in his employer’s pledge.
“Dr. Kendall Conger had been with the Raleigh, North Carolina medical provider for 12 years before he lost his job this summer. He also was an adjunct associate in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the Duke University School of Medicine.
“The physician said he opposes racism and believes people should be treated with respect, but the pledge went too far by claiming racism is a 'public health crisis.'
“In a recent phone interview with The College Fix, Conger said he felt frustration with the lack of clinical data backing the pledge....
“Color Us United, a group dedicated to a race-blind society, recently launched a petition criticizing the university and its related health system for ‘unethical, dangerous, and potentially illegal practices in hiring and training.’
“‘Judging applicants, employees, or patients according to things like skin color is shockingly inappropriate and completely unacceptable,’ the petition states. ‘The primary function of any doctor or employer of doctors is to take care of patients, not promote political activism or racial ideology.’..."
Full article at College Fix
You Are Supposed to Pretend - Can Harvard and Other Universities Be Saved?
Editor’s note: This is a compelling, one-hour panel discussion from a few months ago that included former Suffix Prof. Kathleen Stock, Harvard Prof. Steven Pinker, FIRE CEO Greg Lukianoff and Columbia Prof. John McWhorter and where, among other things, they discuss specific and often personal examples of the anti-intellectual behaviors that have arisen at our modern universities. They also discuss the obstacles to achieving reforms but ongoing efforts to do so.
Excerpt (from the YouTube program description):
“Leading academics come together to discuss and debate whether Western universities can be saved from peril. With free speech on campus in jeopardy, and weekly Palestine protests following years of attacks on curriculum and the pulling down of statues, can they be salvaged or do new universities need to be built?”
Full video (one hour) at YouTube
Proposal for Campus Teach-Ins on Freedom of Speech
Excerpts:
“With the academic year just a few short weeks away at college and university campuses nationwide, many are bracing for a reprise of last spring’s ugly protests, encampments and violent clashes among faculty, staff and students.
“Many administrators seemed like deer caught in headlights, unable or unwilling to acknowledge how serious the problem was at their institutions. Their feeble public responses made matters worse....
“Here’s a practical and impactful step that can be implemented at various higher education institutions right before classes begin. Remember teach-ins? This educational format became popular in the 1960s, as campuses brought all students together to learn about threats to the environment on what became known as Earth Day. Other teach-ins soon became popular, including those regarding the Vietnam War....
“Organizing a successful teach-in on freedom of speech needs to be approached thoughtfully and supported by necessary resources from various academic units. It will require organizing a range of speakers and a defined agenda. Community outreach will also be necessary.
“One critical element should be considered. The college or university president should marshal all required support for a freedom of speech teach-in and have all activities coordinated directly from his/her office. That will send a strong signal about its importance....”
Full op-ed by U Tennessee Prof. Stuart N. Brotman at DC Journal
Other Articles of Interest
Harvard Asking Applicants How They Handle Disagreement
Full article at Capital Gazette, and also at Bloomberg (paywall after a few articles per month)
The State of Civics Education and Free Speech on American College Campuses
Full Q and A with ACTA Fellow Steve McGuire at ACTA website
Colleges Race to Ready Students for the AI Workplace
Full article at WSJ
The Growing Trend of Attacks on Tenure
Full article at Edvocate, and a more complete discussion at Inside Higher Ed
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
The Challenge of Aligning AI Chatbots
A Bronze Age Technology Could Aid the Switch to Clean Energy
Shortcomings in Heart Transplant Wait Lists for Kids
* * * * * * * * * *
I’m honored to start my term as Stanford president. I do so with the same sense of possibility I had when I first arrived at Stanford more than 30 years ago and an enduring belief in the excellence, innovation, and freedom that Stanford represents.” – Stanford President Jon Levin
August 5, 2024
Book Review - Stanford Alum and Former Harvard President Derek Bok Discusses the Plusses and Minuses of America's Elite Universities
Excerpts (links in the original):
“Derek Bok has served as president of Harvard twice, from 1971 to 1991 and again from 2006-07. He has written much about higher education and is by no means a reflexive defender of the status quo -- see, for example, his The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges, which I reviewed here.
“Bok’s latest book is Attacking the Elites: What Critics Get Wrong -- and Right -- About America’s Leading Universities. He explains that his motivation for it was the absence of response from our ‘elite’ higher-education institutions to the surge in criticism from both sides of our political divide. As his subtitle suggests, he thinks that much of the criticism is weak, but not all of it. Since many will read the book (or at least its title) and say, ‘Bravo to Bok for answering those pesky critics,’ let’s see how well he’s done.
“First, Bok ruminates about what it means to be an ‘elite’ college or university and whether the nation benefits from having them. The elite schools, he says, are distinctive by virtue of admitting only a small percentage of their applicants (they’re selective), because they employ professors with stellar reputations (on the basis of having published lots of books), and because they have high rankings in the places that purport to tell us which schools are best.
“Fine, but does this ‘eliteness’ necessarily lead to excellent education? Later in the book, Bok admits that there are reasons to doubt that.
“More significantly, is it good for the U.S. to have such colleges and universities? Bok says yes, declaring, ‘The justification for a system of higher education marked by such inequality ultimately rests on the proposition that a few individuals, both students and adults, have exceptional ability to produce lasting and important additions to knowledge or to make other significant contributions to society in later life.’ Of course, some ‘elite school’ professors and graduates do great things, but so do many who attended colleges that aren’t regarded as elite, as do many who never went to college at all....
[Followed by a discussion of Bok’s observations about what seems to be going well and what needs improvement.]
Full book review at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal website. See also Amazon.
The Growing Threats to Academic Freedom
Excerpts (links in the original):
“The ability to teach and conduct research free from political interference is the cornerstone of higher education and its contribution to the public good. Academic freedom, however, has become increasingly threatened.
“V-Dem Institute, a global research organization that monitors indicators of democracy around the world, determined that academic freedom has ‘substantially worsened’ in the United States in recent years. This is largely due to political and social polarization.
“In recent months, professors across the country have sounded the alarm about infringements on academic freedom following crackdowns on pro-Palestine protesters on campus. The current conflict, however, is only the latest iteration of an intensifying decline in academic freedom....”
[Followed by a discussion of the five alleged causes: (1) legislation and academic gag orders, (2) activist governing boards, (3) donor influence, (4) erosion of tenure, and (5) delegitimization of higher education.]
Full article at The Conversation
Students Express Ambiguity About Free Speech
Excerpts (link in the original):
“For all the cries about free speech when it serves their purpose, 70% of students on campus believe that ‘speech can be as damaging as physical violence’ according to a new Knight Foundation campus survey.
“Sixty percent believe that ‘[t]he climate at my school or on my campus prevents some people from saying things they believe, because others might find it offensive,’ which is down from 65% in 2021, but still substantial. At the same time, students believe it has become more difficult to express themselves, with black students feeling it most....”
Full op-ed at Simple Justice. See also “Key Trends in Student Speech Since 2016” at Knight Foundation website and “70 Percent of College Students Say Speech Can Be as Damaging as Physical Violence” at Reason Magazine.
Discussing Controversial Subjects with the Use of Mapping
Excerpts (link in the original):
“In the fall of 2022, before classes had begun at Carnegie Mellon University, Simon Cullen sent a survey to students enrolled in his philosophy course, called ‘Dangerous Ideas in Science and Society.’ He was curious about what was driving the massive popularity of the class, in which students explore multiple sides of hot-button issues like abortion, guns and immigration.
“‘Why are you taking this class?’ was the first survey question.
“The answers from students astonished him. Learning and discussing ideas not allowed in their high school classrooms was one common answer. Speaking openly about controversial topics without getting attacked was another.
“Students get plenty of practice doing both of these things in Cullen’s class. But they also learn how to visualize, or map, arguments using informal reasoning. Cullen, an assistant teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon, teaches students how to diagram their arguments with supporting reasons and objections.
“At a time when concerns are mounting that sizable shares of students are intolerant of opposing views and graduating without critical thinking skills, Warren and Cullen are among a growing number of university faculty who want to teach students how to argue with civility....”
Full article at Higher Ed Dive
Anti-Semitism and the Demise of the American University
Excerpts (links in the original):
. . . . .
“The dark secret of anti-Semitism is that ignorance alone cannot explain it away or absolve those who adhere to it. If anything, the most vivid episodes of history’s anti-Semitism have begun with a country’s elites. The Inquisitors of early-modern Spain were from the elite of the Catholic world, hand-picked by monarchs and sanctioned by the Pope. In addition to founding the Inquisition, Pope Sixtus IV (1414-1484 AD) oversaw the construction of the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Library. He also founded Uppsala University in Sweden. Half a millennium later, the Nazis emerged not out of an uneducated rabble, but out of Germany’s elites. Proto-Nazi intelligentsia carefully created a deep philosophical basis for their worldview and set about promoting it. At least 80 members of the Nazi SS were German intellectuals. Other than the ideology in question, today’s elite anti-Semites are engaged in the same exercise with their theories of oppression and intersectionality and efforts to translate theory into activism.
“Adherents of intersectionality view the world through a matrix of ‘marginalized’ groups -- a binary society divided into the ‘oppressed’ and the ‘oppressor.’ This idea of a ‘matrix’ of oppression is the philosophical glue behind several academic fields built around ideas of shared grievance with a consistent lack of methodological rigor. While pervasive throughout today’s colleges and universities, research driven by intersectionality is fueled by confirmation bias more than anything scientific. Rather than trying to disprove a theory, studies on intersectionality rely on piling up data favorable to the argument. Over time, this creates fields lacking any notion of objectivity; instead, it lends academic weight to ideology rather than the production and dissemination of knowledge. In other words, many ideas found on today’s campus are worthless. Now, the world is taking notice...."
Full op-ed at National Association of Scholars
Other Articles of Interest
U.S. Diversity on Full Display at Paris Games
Full article from Reuters at US News
Financial Armageddon Is Coming for College Sports
Full op-ed by Ohio State Prof. Emeritus Richard Vedder at Minding the Campus
Two Major Academic Publishers Signed Deals with AI Companies; Some Professors Are Outraged
Full article at Chronicle of Higher Education
What Happened to American Civics?
Full op-ed at Brownstone Institute
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
From Graduate School of Business: Why Research Matters
From School of Engineering: AI and Autonomous Driving
From School of Medicine: Health Risks of Forever Chemicals
"Free expression enables genuine diversity. It recognizes that a person’s identity -- be it racial, ethnic, sexual or any other identity -- doesn’t just manifest in ways that we see but also in ways that we hear through dialogue and debate. Diversity comes with unique worldviews and belief systems, and we cannot celebrate a person’s diversity without hearing them out.” – Cornell alums Dave Ackerman and Dr. Loretta Graziano Breuning at DC Journal
July 29, 2024
Stanford’s Incoming President Jon Levin Discusses a Culture of Dignity and Related Issues
Excerpts from Stanford Magazine:
. . .
“It’s no secret that it’s been a tough year to be a university president. Consider the headlines: ‘Wanted: New College Presidents. Mission: Impossible’ (the Wall Street Journal). ‘Is Running a Top University America’s Hardest Job?’ (the Economist). ‘You Could Not Pay Me Enough to Be a College President’ (the Chronicle of Higher Education). And, perhaps, a tonic: ‘Why Being a University President Is the Best Job in the World’ (Forbes).
“Levin is naturally inclined toward the latter camp. ‘Jon’s the perpetual optimist, glass overflowing all the time, but not in an over-the-top way,’ says [Stanford Prof. William Robinson]. ‘It’s understated, and it’s like, ‘We can do this.’
“Take the question uppermost in the public’s mind: how to handle free expression, dissent, and protest on campus. ‘I think the principles are very simple. The execution is not always simple,’ Levin says. ‘The university has a very noble and distinctive purpose, which is inquiry and learning. And in order to support that mission, we give students and faculty a very broad range of freedom of inquiry -- what to study and think about; and expression -- what they can say and write. It’s actually different than in a democracy. In a democracy, it’s there to protect the citizens from tyranny. At the university, the freedom is there to promote inquiry and learning. And at the same time, we have other rules around expression that are there to protect the freedoms of other people. You can’t disrupt a class; you can’t disrupt an event; you can’t interfere with other people being able to get to class or go to events or participate in activities.’
“To get a sense of Levin’s approach in action, look to the GSB. ‘I’m really proud of the culture of the school, and that was in evidence this year,’ which he calls a ‘very complicated’ one. ‘Particular students, but also the faculty and the staff, were so willing to engage in discussion and debate and to talk about complex issues and to do everything in a really open, curious, respectful way,’ he says. ‘I think it was a model for how educational institutions should navigate challenging times.’ He relies on a set of ideas from sociology, introduced to him by GSB professor Neil Malhotra, MA ’05, PhD ’08, to set the tone. ‘You can have an environment where people respond to disagreement or something going wrong or a conflict by escalating. It’s a culture of honor,’ says Levin. ‘You can have an environment where they respond by appealing to authority or social media. It’s a culture of grievance. Or you can have an environment where people respond by talking to each other. That’s a culture of dignity. So we want a culture of dignity, and that’s something we talk about with the students here from the very moment that they arrive. I always tell them -- I use this line from Ted Lasso -- 'Be curious, not judgmental.’
“Meanwhile, the university itself, Levin says, should not be a discussant. ‘Universities are not social justice organizations,’ he says. ‘They create immense societal good. And it is absolutely the freedom of the faculty and the students to be involved in political affairs, but it’s not the role of the university. Universities would do well where they can institutionally step back from politics and leave room for the faculty and students to debate and have discussion.’
“Furthermore, Levin says, he has come to the view that it’s ‘really not a good idea’ for university leaders to issue statements on political topics. That ‘actually undermines the educational mission because it sets the wrong example for students,’ he says. ‘What we really want is students to come to recognize that most of the issues that come from the world are complex and more nuanced than they might have otherwise thought. So we want students to think slowly, to ask a lot of questions, not to rush to think that everything is simple and clear-cut and has an obvious answer that just needs to be said more loudly and more forcefully than the way everyone else is saying it. And certainly not to be said in a 400-word email sent around 30 minutes after some global event.’ …
Full article at Stanford Magazine. See also Stanford Report.
Higher Education Is Key to Bridging Political Divisions
Excerpts (links in the original):
“Amid an especially fraught presidential election, polarizing armed conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, and deepening political divides over issues like immigration, the economy, and even our democracy itself, the nation is facing a politically charged moment that shows no signs of abating. Tribalism is on the rise, as is an intense -- and historic -- distrust of many of our nation’s most important institutions, including Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidency. Higher education has not been spared from this crisis of faith, with just 36 percent of Americans now expressing confidence in the country’s system of colleges and universities....
“Americans across the political spectrum agree that the country is facing a civic awareness. But healing America’s partisan divide requires more than just decreasing the temperature, calming the political rhetoric, and waiting for the election to pass. America's civic and educational infrastructure needs repair on a deeper, more fundamental level. Bridging this divide requires a renewed commitment to teaching college students about what it means to participate in a democracy—and to ensuring more learners complete their education so they can put that knowledge to work....”
Full op-ed at Real Clear Education
Other Articles of Interest
Academic Integrity in Academic Publishing
Full op-ed at Academe Magazine
Why You Should Still Want to Be a College President
Full op-ed at National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities website
Major Increase in Percent of Recent Graduates Who Now View Higher Ed as a Good Investment
Full 2024 graduation employment report at Cengage website; see also Diverse Issues in Higher Education.
3,000 Arrested at Campus Protests, But Most Charges Dropped
Full article at The Hill
University of California Spends $29 Million on Protest Security and Cleanup
Full article at College Fix
Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
How Stanford’s Law and Policy Lab Helps Establish Government Policy
Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology Studies How Elephants Communicate
How Saharan Dust Regulates Hurricane Rainfall
Modified Cell-Based Therapy Shows Promise for Lymphoma
SLAC and Stanford Researchers Advance Understanding of a Key Celiac Enzyme
“If we want a better society that produces better solutions to the problems it faces, we need to be teaching nonconformity at every single level of the education process . . . And yet our education system is incentivizing conformity and groupthink. Unless this environment drastically improves – and quickly, we shouldn’t be surprised that trust in the accuracy of professors’ and experts’ findings diminishes.” – From The Canceling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott
July 22, 2024
FIRE Survey Shows Rising Reports of Campus Censorship, Including Self-Censorship
Excerpts (links in the original):
“In a year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict went from barely a blip on most students’ radars to an almost all-consuming concern. Findings from FIRE’s forthcoming 2025 College Free Speech Rankings survey reveal that far more students this year than last year worry about censorship and self-censorship related to the war in Gaza.
“As of May 2, FIRE analyzed almost 1,900 open-ended responses from university students nationwide for this year’s CFSR survey. The survey asked students who reported self-censoring at least once or twice a month, ‘Please share a moment where you personally felt you could not express your opinion on your campus because of how you thought other students, a professor, or the administration would respond.’ In almost 9 in 10 responses, students explicitly stated concerns about censorship when discussing Israel, Palestine, and/or Gaza with friends, classmates, and/or professors. Students also overwhelmingly reported witnessing or experiencing censorship and/or self-censorship when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“One student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote that the university’s administration ‘threatened to suspend students over protesting the Israeli genocide of Palestine.’
“Another at Emory University reported that ‘according to other upperclassmen, my school has recently started tracking people’s data to see if they have attended any protest going on in campus, in regards to the Palestine-Israel conflict.’ …
“According to the 2024 barometer survey, since the war in Gaza began on October 7, both students and Middle East scholars experienced higher levels of censorship than they did before the war began, with scholars facing pressure from external advocacy groups and administrators and students facing pressure from peers and the administration....
“The barometer survey results further reveal that 76% of U.S.-based scholars of the Middle East have felt a greater direct or indirect need to self-censor since the start of the war. And 69% reported self-censoring on topics involving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (By contrast, in 2023’s barometer survey, conducted only a little more than a month after October 7, that percentage was 57%.)
“Even before October 7, FIRE reported faculty members were self-censoring more than they did during the McCarthy era. The barometer survey’s findings suggest that conditions for free speech on campus are deteriorating even further....”
Full article at FIRE website
ACTA Survey Shows Today’s Students Are Dangerously Ignorant of Nation’s History
Excerpts (link in the original):
“When Benjamin Franklin famously said, ‘A republic, madam, if you can keep it,’ he was, as usual, prescient.
“This summer, the democratic republic known as the United States of America is 248 years old, and civically minded organizations around the country are already busily working on plans to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday in 2026. Such a milestone is a cause for real celebration; by most reckonings, we are the longest-lasting democracy in history. Democracies are fragile: The Athenian democracy never made it to 200. Americans should use this anniversary as an opportunity for sober reflection on the current state, as well as the future, of our own democratic republic....
“How much do today’s college students really know about their nation’s past? The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has conducted a fresh national survey of college students to answer just this question. The results are concerning.
“Sixty percent of college students could not correctly identify the term lengths of members serving in U.S. Congress. Sixty-three percent were unable to identify the chief justice of the Supreme Court. These are multiple-choice questions. Students did not have to recall John Roberts’s name, they merely had to recognize it, and a large majority failed. The same is true for the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, whose name was only known to 35% of students. Sixty-eight percent did not know that impeachment trials occur before the Senate, despite living through two presidential impeachments as well as the impeachment trial of a cabinet official....
“In a democratic republic such as ours, citizens must be informed for the commonwealth to function. As George Washington said in his Farewell Address, ‘In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.’ Far from being enlightened, our students today are seldom even taught the basics. This must change, for the sake of the students and for the future of our nation.”
Full op-ed and survey at ACTA website
See also “Do Our Students Know Enough?” at Diverse Issues in Higher Education and “Ten College Presidents Act on Civic Preparedness” at Civic Preparedness website.
See also Ohio State Prof. Emeritus Richard K. Vedder: “The results show that collegiate Americans today are extremely knowledgeable about relatively trivial matters of transitory interest, but rather clueless about important events, laws, and personalities related to our history and civic institutions. For example, responding to four-answer multiple choice questions, an overwhelming majority know that Jay-Z is married to Beyonce, or that Jeff Bezos is the owner of Amazon...” as also posted at the ACTA website.
UC Regents Ban Views on Israel, Other Political Opinion from University Homepages
Excerpts:
“University of California regents voted Thursday [July 17] to ban political opinion from main campus homepages, a policy initially rooted in concern about anti-Israel views being construed as official UC opinion.
“Political opinions may still be posted on other pages of an academic unit’s website, according to the policy approved at the regents meeting in San Francisco. It will take effect immediately.
“The main homepage of a campus department, division or other academic unit will be reserved for news about courses, events, faculty research, mission statements or other general information.
“Opinion must be published on other pages specifically labeled as commentary, with a disclaimer that they don’t reflect the entire university or campus. Those who want to post statements on their department websites must follow specific procedures and allow faculty members to weigh in through an anonymous vote....
“[An ongoing] review concluded, in consultation with university attorneys, that departments have the right to weigh in on political and social issues, although they cannot endorse candidates. The Academic Senate provided guidelines, such as making clear that statements represented faculty members or groups and not the university and ensuring that minority or dissenting views are not squelched.
“The policy now includes most of those guidelines but makes them mandatory. It requires campus departments to come up with procedures to develop statements, anonymously poll members to reduce pressure on those who may hold minority views and disclose how broadly the opinions are backed -- by a ‘supermajority,’ for instance -- along with vote totals....”
Full article at LA Times. See also Inside Higher Ed.
But see also the University of Chicago Kalven report: “The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic. It is, to go back once again to the classic phrase, a community of scholars.... The neutrality of the university as an institution arises then not from a lack of courage nor out of indifference and insensitivity. It arises out of respect for free inquiry and the obligation to cherish a diversity of viewpoints...."
Alternative Viewpoint - The Illusion of Institutional Neutrality
Excerpts (link in the original):
“In April, I published a tiresomely long explanation of why the newly popular idea of ‘institutional neutrality’ is a dead end. My essay, ‘The Illusion of Institutional Neutrality,’ took up so much space because I wanted there to be at least one easily available account of where this idea came from, why it was about to be promoted as the perfect solution to campus unrest, and why it wouldn’t solve anything at all. Now that Harvard, among other universities, has hoisted the institutional neutrality flag and a whole gaggle of organizations -- left, right, and center -- have expressed their joy that the era of institutional neutrality has arrived, it is time for a mercifully short refresher.
“For those new to this discussion, ‘institutional neutrality’ is the idea that colleges and universities should refrain from taking positions on controversial public issues. They should exercise this restraint so that students and faculty members will have maximal freedom to discuss and debate various sides of those issues. The principle of institutional neutrality can be extended as a call for colleges and universities to refrain from taking substantive positions on all matters, not just currently controversial ones, because who knows what will be controversial tomorrow? A few years ago, it was uncontroversial that humanity had two biological sexes. Now, that is, at least in some quarters, a matter of hot dispute....
“Institutional neutrality turns out to be a soothing phrase to cover a complicated reality. Sometimes the university says the doctrine doesn’t apply to matters that touch key issues to the college’s survival. The debate over taxing university endowments, for example, is not one on which Harvard will ever be neutral, regardless of whether some faculty members are pro-tax and want to debate....
“American colleges and universities, embarrassed by students and faculty members who have behaved egregiously in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel, are scrambling to find high moral ground. Institutional neutrality, however, isn’t it. What these colleges and universities really need to do is find the correct principles and stand on them. That’s not a formula. It’s a call for the hard work of determining when the university should forthrightly take a position -- regardless of the cost -- and when it should just as forthrightly say it welcomes open debate -- irrespective of the costs.”
Full op-ed by President of National Association of Scholars Peter Wood at Minding the Campus. In contrast, see the University of Chicago Kalven Report regarding a university’s involvement in political and social matters.
Other Articles of Interest
Free to Speak, versus Modern Thought Police
This is the third episode in a three-part documentary at PBS and includes commentaries by NYU Prof. Emeritus and former ACLU President Nadine Strosser, U Chicago Prof. Jeffrey Stone and others (a PBS passport may be needed to stream).
See also Stanford’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative at our Stanford Concerns webpage, which includes our downloaded PDF copy of Stanford’s list of proscribed words and phrases and the parallels with what the documentary presents as modern forms of Newspeak in George Orwell's 1984.
Academic Freedom Alliance Calls for an End to Required Diversity Statements in Federal Grant Funding
Link to PDF copy
Medical Education Is at a Critical Crossroads
Full op-ed by Medical College of Wisconsin Prof. Russ S. Gonnering at Brownstone
What I Learned in the 1960s About Universities and Political Statements
Full op-ed by Harvard Prof. Emeritus and former dean of the Harvard Kennedy School Joseph S. Nye at The Hill
Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI
Full article at Chronicle of Higher Education
The Groundwork of Campus Civil Discourse
Podcast at Higher Ed Now
Samples of Current Teaching, Research an