Free Republic

Early in the introductory college economics course, instructors talk about the Law of Diminishing Returns. An illustration: A farmer has a 100-acre field on which he wants to harvest wheat. If he does all the work himself, he can get 5,000 bushels of grain. With a second worker helping him, he can get 8,000 bushels, and with two helpers, 9,000. As more workers are added, output rises, but by sharply diminishing amounts. Another example: The first ice cream cone a consumer eats adds a lot of pleasure (what economists call “utility”), but if the consumer is forced to eat lots...

I read with interest and trepidation the Martin Center’s March 16 article “Davidson College Affirms Free Speech,” which noted that Davidson had adopted a version of the Chicago Principles as its new speech policy. My interest came from the recognition that the college had made an abstract commitment to preserving freedom of speech on campus. My trepidation came from the tone of celebration the article embodied—the implication that adopting the new policy would actually protect unpopular speech. There is an old saying that it is good to learn from experience but better to learn from someone else’s experience. In the...

A debate on diversity, equity and inclusion is scheduled to soon take place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An esteemed panel of scholars will tackle the question: “Should academic DEI programs be abolished?” One group of individuals who will not be defending DEI at the upcoming event is the phalanx of highly paid diversity, equity and inclusion deans at MIT. They were asked. They declined.

Sen. Ted Cruz also warned the Texas Board of Law Examiners against the Stanford law students A law professor at George Washington University said he may file complaints intended to prevent Stanford Law School students who ambushed Judge Kyle Duncan from being admitted to the California Bar if campus administrators do not punish them for their disruptions. Professor John Banzhaf of George Washington University Law School sent a letter to Professor Jenny Martinez, dean of Stanford Law School, warning of his plans. “I am writing to advise you that I plan to file formal complaints with bar admission authorities opposing...

The Stanford College Republicans are calling on Stanford Law School to remove a DEI dean after she disrupted a conservative judge’s speaking engagement. Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach sided with hecklers by accusing Judge Kyle Duncan of “disenfranchisement” during his Mar. 9 engagement. Duncan, a U.S. Circuit Court judge appointed by former President Trump, spoke on “Guns, Covid and Twitter” as part of an event hosted by the Stanford Federalist Society. Protesting students, according to Campus Reform, took issue with his stances on voter ID laws and transgender youth.

I don’t think you should send your kids to any universities. [I told] my daughter, “Don’t go to college. Become an electrician.” I never would have imagined 10 years ago that I would [say] that. … It’s better to stare at a wall … [or] do nothing than to learn things that are false. -- Peter Boghossian, former Philosophy Professor Portland State University, Feb. 28, 2023It is astonishing when a liberal philosophy professor tells people, including his own daughter, not to go to university because they have become “indoctrination mills.” Many other types of professors can make a living outside...

University of Alabama officials have backed off their investigation into the chalking of pro-Kanye West messages on campus after a free speech group pressed them on the inquiry. The decision comes after the public university announced in January it would investigate the chalkings by two individuals which showed support for the rapper who now goes by the name “Ye.” He has said he intends to run for president again in 2024, after running in 2020. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression celebrated the university’s decision to reverse course.

The idea of a kid suing their parents might seem kind of crazy and depending on which culture you come from, pretty darn ungrateful. After all, they were the people who brought you into this world and presumably fed you, clothed you, housed you, and raised you. Of course, it could also be argued that if your kid grows up to want to sue you, it's probably a result of one of three things: you either did a crumby job raising them, they got influenced by some type of external groups of people/ideologies that turned them into scumbags, or, you...

ANALYSIS: The College Fix has reported on more than a half-dozen incidents in last 75 daysIt’s been a busy start to the campus hate-crime hoax watch this year. The College Fix has already reported on seven so far in 2023: two in January, three in February, and two more so far in March.Penn State officials recently announced that allegations its fans directed racist language at Rutgers University basketball players are without merit. An investigation into the Feb. 26 game found “no apparent racial slurs were used by Penn State fans,” the university reported.The incident mirrors a similar accusation against Brigham...

Wellesley College, an all-women’s school that has long prided itself as a place for “women who will make a difference in the world,” has truly lost the plot. Currently, the school’s policy is that students who were “assigned female at birth who identify as men are not eligible for admission,” but students who were “assigned male at birth who identify as women are eligible for admission.” ... Wellesley hasn’t truly been an all-women’s college since 2015, when it last updated its policy to accept applications from biological males who identify as women. But even that policy allowing biological men to...

Students at Wellesley College, a top liberal arts school that has only accepted women for the past 150 years, are set to vote Tuesday on whether transgender and nonbinary applicants should be allowed to apply. The private Massachusetts college, which boasts on its website about being a place for “women who will make a difference in the world,” is holding the referendum after some students flagged concerns about the current admission policy. Wellesley — whose alumnae include Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright — at the moment only accepts students who “live and consistently identify” as women. The referendum, which is...

The effects of the COVID-related government shutdowns three years ago continue to reverberate. A new report from the Associated Press indicates that many American teens have become disillusioned with college and have opted to skip it in favor of going to trade school or working a job that does not require an undergraduate degree. Between 2019 and 2022, college enrollment in the U.S. fell 8%, and the decline in college enrollment since 2018 has been the steepest on record, the AP claimed. Though enrollment increased slightly from 2021 to 2022 after most schools returned to in-person classes, the numbers have...

In a recent letter to the Stanford University student paper editor, a transgender PhD student says “she” is tired of debating the right of trans folks “to exist” … and wants hormones “handed out like Skittles.” Adi Mukund, who’s studying biophysics, says in “her” Stanford Daily linked-filled letter that “sex is more complicated than a simple binary,” and that children “know their gender identity, do not transition on a whim, rarely stop, are able to make the decision to transition.” Mukund also claims that persuading people who are considering gender transition is “harmful,” that allowing trans females to use women’s...

A recent study from the National Student Clearinghouse revealed that undergraduate college enrollment dropped 8% from 2019 to 2022, and this decline is even after the resumption of in-person classes.According to a study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce college dropouts, earn 75 percent less compared with those who get bachelor’s degrees.Experts fear that fewer college graduates could worsen labor shortages in sectors such as health care and information technology.There are many possible reasons for this decline in college enrollments.According to the most recent quarterly tally by the Federal Reserve, student loan borrowers in the United States...

You’ve heard the complaints: When am I ever gonna use this? How is this relevant to the real world? How is reading Shakespeare going to make me a better banker? I don’t run into this kind of thinking as frequently in the economics classroom, but I hear my students’ complaints about their other courses pretty regularly (and maybe professors in those courses hear students’ complaints about mine). Why, they wonder, are they expected to study art history? Or biology? Or “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”? Or Mesoamerican mythology? When are they ever gonna use this stuff? My answer?...

A black director of a “woke” California college’s Office of Equity, Social Justice and Multicultural Education claims she was fired for questioning the institution’s anti-racism “orthodoxy” and what the term “anti-racism” even means. Dr. Tabia Lee said De Anza College, a community college in Cupertino, retaliated after she objected to several campus policies aimed at inclusion. “I was working in a California community college, and I noticed that there was a lot of resistance to my even asking questions about anti-racism, policy efforts and language,” Lee told nonprofit Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.

A federal judge appointed by former President Trump was ambushed by about 100 student protesters and a woke diversity dean who derailed his talk at Stanford Law School and accused him of causing “harm” to students. Tirien Steinbach, the school’s associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, subjected U.S. Circuit Judge S. Kyle Duncan to a lengthy harangue and made it clear to him his presence on campus was unwelcome, video of the event shows. “It’s uncomfortable to say this to you as a person. It’s uncomfortable to say that for many people here, your work has caused harm,” Steinbach...

The judge in the picture above in Kyle Duncan. He is a sitting judge on the 5th Circuit Cour of Appeals. The hideous creature on the right is Tirien Steinbach. She is the Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Stanford University (did you even know there was such a thing?) Duncan was invited by the Stanford Chapter of the Federalist Society to give a speech on guns, COVD mandates and Twitter. As he was to being speaking he was ambushed by the hideous creature who then spouted off about how terrible Duncan was. But she then launched into an...

Sometimes a single incident efficiently summarizes a larger trend. So it is with New York University’s selection of its new president, Linda Mills, a licensed clinical social worker and an NYU social work professor. She researches trauma and bias, as well as race and gender in the legal academy. She is a documentary filmmaker and teaches advocacy filmmaking. She serves as an NYU vice chancellor and as a senior vice provost for Global Programs and University Life. In all these roles, Mills is the very embodiment of the contemporary academy. The most significant part of her identity, however, and the...

On February 28th, the Supreme Court heard arguments on President Biden’s plan to extinguish an estimated $400 billion in student debt. Biden deserves credit for highlighting a debilitating federal program in desperate need of reform. His proposal, however, would make the problem far worse, not better. Any serious reform would force academic institutions to take some responsibility for the education they provide—and to show some responsibility to the many young Americans they induce to go deeply into debt. The problems run deep. American higher education has become a hollow bubble of an industry coasting on brand equity and past glory....