Free Republic

Boeing reportedly dismantled its global diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) department as part of an overhaul of its operations ordered by the company’s new top executive — becoming the latest major company to ditch the controversial initiative. The aerospace giant — which was slammed by tech mogul Elon Musk for prioritizing DEI over safety and quality controls after a near-catastrophic blowout during an Alaska Airlines flight — said staff from its DEI office would be absorbed into another human resources team focused on talent and employee experience, according to Bloomberg News. Sara Liang Bowen, a company vice president who was...

For several years, the National Association of Scholars (NAS), where I work, has monitored the rise of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) in higher education. DEI entered the mainstream somewhere between the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the death of George Floyd in the spring of 2020. In addition to being a set of ideals, sometimes including “anti-racism” and/or “social justice,” DEI is a set of practices and programs descended from affirmative action and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Recent backlash from both the public and conservative lawmakers, however, has caused some universities, such as the University...

Ralston College counts among its first graduates a 24-year-old man who, in his third term of study, asked me what he could do to help ensure our fledgling institution would endure for 100 years. His query deepened a conviction that had guided me for the previous decade as I traveled the world in search of philanthropists and world-class academics to help found a university dedicated to preserving and advancing knowledge: It is what young people want but cannot easily find. Answering their call has been inspiring and, at times, challenging. While it is a challenge that my colleagues and I...

The Minority Teachers for Illinois Scholarship Program violates the 14th Amendment, alleges the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) in its Tuesday complaint on behalf of the American Alliance for Equal Rights in the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. The racial criteria included in the program have been "excluding students from a state-funded scholarship program because of their race" since its inception, per PLF's press release. The Minority Teachers for Illinois Scholarship Program is not a private initiative; it is funded directly by appropriations from the state budget. The program received $1.9 million, $4.2 million, and $7...

During the Covid pandemic, the University of North Carolina (like many institutions of higher learning) went test-optional. However, the Board of Governors rightly reversed that policy this year, re-establishing a requirement that some students applying to UNC submit a score from a standardized college-entry exam and recognizing the SAT and ACT for that purpose. So far, so good (though UNC should really re-expand its testing requirement to all students). The experiment of going testing-optional has proven to many universities the benefits of using admissions exams as part of a holistic admissions process. But the SAT and ACT are no longer...

Most industries and occupations have trade associations to promote their interests through lobbying, marketing, and public relations. Lawyers are no exception. One difference between, say, the American Urological Association and the American Bar Association, however, is that instead of merely providing opportunities for professional networking and vacation junkets dressed up as “conventions,” the left-leaning ABA is clothed with quasi-governmental regulatory authority over the entire field of legal education. The ABA effectively oversees the operations of nearly 200 law schools in the United States. Absurdly, this professional cartel regulates itself! The U.S. Department of Education limits eligibility for federal student loans...

The aftermath of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) has put a spotlight on the capriciousness of admissions practices at selective colleges. In SFFA, the Supreme Court ruled that race-based admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After immense consternation about the impact of the ruling, dire warnings, and earnest discussion about how colleges should respond, the truth is that we have limited insight into what’s changed, how colleges are actually responding, or whether they’re even abiding by the law. Here’s what we do know: At...

One often hears liberal-arts professors, as well as college and K-12 administrators, advocating two ideas about academics in America: (a) the importance of a broad, well-rounded, liberal-arts education and (b) the equating of that education solely with the head, not the heart. In 1931, John Dewey chaired a national curriculum conference that declared the liberal arts important for “the organization, transmission, extension and application of knowledge” (emphasis added). That concept has given us the educational system we have today, and it is not what was promised. A “Well-Rounded” Education Don’t misunderstand my point; there is great value in a broad,...

Many generations of young Americans have learned in school under the grading system. We took tests in subjects and would find out how well we had done when the instructor returned them, often with red marks to show where we’d made mistakes. The instructor would go over the tests, often spending extra time on the questions that had given students the most trouble. Then we would move on to new material, followed by another test. At the end of the class, we’d receive an overall grade to indicate how well we had done—an A for excellent work, a B for...

Electricity rates in U.S. states have diverged sharply in recent decades. In 2004 residential electricity in the five most expensive states was only twice as expensive on average as in the five most affordable states. Today it is 160% more expensive. What explains the difference? State policies. Eight of the 10 most costly states have enacted renewable portfolio standards, “net zero” carbon-emission mandates, and regional cap-and-trade schemes. All eight are controlled by Democrats. New York gets special honors. The Empire State has refused to develop the prodigious shale gas resources that have enriched Pennsylvania. And it has blocked construction of...

Government makes many promises, the Biden Administration more than most. Results are another story. For the latest example of the latter, consider the “internet for all” plan that President Biden tapped Kamala Harris to lead. Fiasco is the word for it. The 2021 infrastructure law included $42.5 billion for states to expand broadband to “unserved,” mostly rural, communities. Three years later, ground hasn’t been broken on a single project. The Administration recently said construction won’t start until next year at the earliest, meaning many projects won’t be up and running until the end of the decade. Blame the Administration’s political...

Things should be what they are, in higher education as elsewhere. Colleges advertising a liberal-arts curriculum should immerse their students in literature, history, and philosophy. STEM giants such as Georgia Tech should provide, to the extent possible, world-class labs. Community colleges should offer affordable credits to local residents. The University of Alabama should teach football. (I’m joking. Mostly.) This principle is particularly true for religious schools, which have a special obligation to be faithful to their stated purposes. Zaytuna College, a Muslim institution in California, should (and does) teach the Koran. Jewish Yeshiva University ought not to shill for “Palestine.”...

Average course grades tend to be lower in some college subjects than others. Engineering and the “hard” sciences, for example, retain reputations for being “harder” subjects than the humanities and social sciences, even though a naïve observer could just as well assume that students in the latter subjects are smarter. Do score-average comparisons really matter, though, in practical terms? After college, most graduates will be compared to one another from within their chosen fields. A “C+” engineering graduate will still be chosen ahead of a “C-” engineering graduate, just as an “A+” history grad will be chosen ahead of an...

In the sociological imagination, capitalism is now regarded as a sin standing next to sexism and racism. Routinely, sociologists call for their colleagues and students to oppose capitalism and use their classrooms as places where people can understand the repressive nature of “neoliberalism.” In fact, a former president of the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy, argued in his presidential address that one of the main purposes of sociology is to stand in opposition to capitalism. He warned the ASA that “unfettered capitalism fuels market tyrannies and untold inequities on a global scale.” Later in the same remarks, Professor Burawoy argued...

The House on Friday voted, 215-191, to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s vehicle emissions rule, with eight Democrats joining Republicans. Kamala Harris says she doesn’t support an electric vehicle mandate, but that’s what the Biden EPA rule effectively is. The EPA in March finalized greenhouse gas emissions requirements for auto makers through 2032. EPA’s models show that gas-powered cars will make up no more than 30% of sales by 2032. EVs made up a mere 7.6% of auto sales last year and less than 4% for General Motors and Ford. In eight years they will have to increase their EV...

Candidate Trump has disavowed the document (seriously or not). The former president may well lose the election. Nevertheless, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is a serious outline for governance in a conservative administration and deserves to be considered as such. Among the Project’s contents is a chapter on the United States Education Department (ED). The chapter, written by Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation with substantial input from seven other education-policy notables associated with the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, provides an agenda for conservative education reform that is one part bold, one part thorough, and one part cautious. It is...

Anyone who is keeping up with the latest happenings in higher education knows that this year has seen many institutions backpedaling on DEI programs. From Florida limiting public funding for DEI at its colleges, to the University of Wyoming closing its DEI office, to schools in Kansas, Idaho, and Oklahoma enforcing bans and limitations, the public’s patience with the Left’s “diversity” schemes seems finally to be running out. In May of this year, the UNC System joined these ranks when the Board of Governors repealed and replaced Section 300.8.5 of the policy manual, thus effectively banning DEI offices, employees, and...

[Editor’s note: Earlier this month, University of Austin provost Jacob Howland delivered remarks to the new institution’s inaugural faculty. The Martin Center is pleased to present the following (lightly edited) transcript of his talk.] Today, August 12, 2024, is the birthday of the University of Austin. This is the very first meeting of the assembled faculty and the first day of the first faculty orientation in the history of UATX. Today we begin to form our academic culture and to prepare for the arrival of our first class of undergraduates. “Don’t you know,” Socrates asks when he first takes up...

The $400 billion federal clean-energy lending program that has faced criticism for moving too slow is stepping up efforts to push cash out the door before the election. The Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office was turbocharged by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which gave it hundreds of billions of dollars to lend to clean-energy businesses. So far, it has only used a tiny fraction of that capacity. Biden administration officials fear that if Donald Trump is elected, the office would stop making loans. The program was largely dormant while Trump was president. “The election is everything,” said Adam Forgie, the...

A recent Gallup survey found that confidence in America’s colleges and universities has plummeted in the past decade, with only 36 percent of today’s adults expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in our higher-education system—down from 57 percent in 2015. Respondents offered several reasons for their low opinions, including the cost of obtaining a degree, the difficulty in finding a high-paying job even with a degree, and the perception of college campuses as indoctrination centers. I’d like to focus, in this essay, on the first of those reasons. The others are important, too, and may well...