Free Republic

HLS To Cooperate With Military Recruiters Kagan reverses policy after Pentagon threatens to cut off millions in federal grants By DANIEL J. HEMEL and JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ Crimson Staff Writers Harvard Law School will actively cooperate with military recruiters this fall, despite the Pentagon’s refusal to sign the school’s nondiscrimination pledge, Dean Elena Kagan announced last night. Kagan’s announcement marks a reversal of her November 2004 decision to bar Pentagon recruiters from using the law school’s Office of Career Services. For most of the last 26 years, the office has only provided its resources to recruiters who promise not to...

Holy Cross College is dropping the SAT as an admissions requirement, apparently in the name of boosting ethnic diversity. I disagree with this decision. Not only is it a capitulation to the notion that blacks and Hispanics are somehow unable to get high SAT scores (which is politically correct bigotry, in my book), it also plays into the conspiracy theory that the test is somehow inherently biased against blacks and Hispanics. As Harvard professors Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom have pointed out, Asians tend to do better than whites on the SAT; if the creators of the test were deliberately trying...

<p>Most college presidents argue that their campuses and classrooms encourage the free exchange of ideas. Where else but here, they say, can difficult issues be debated?</p> <p>But as campus officials look for ways to accommodate the growing diversity of their student bodies, an increasingly vocal number of students — most of them white and predominantly conservative or Christian — say there is little room for their opinions and beliefs.</p>

The reforming notion of "accountability" has become both a buzzword and a buzz saw in education. President Bush was able to get a law passed in 2001 requiring standardized testing of public schoolchildren from K through 12. Now some in Congress want to rein in rising college tuitions by making sure federal dollars for higher education aren't wasted on students who don't learn much or just drop out. The idea is being floated because Congress must reauthorize the 1965 Higher Education Act. And with soaring college tuitions, more and more parents are asking what their children are learning and how...

A good report just came from a news gal on KFI radio. The prez (I think) of the University of California Irving has issued a directive to the professors to stop talking about the war in class unless it is appropriate to be part of the class discussions. Many students have complained about the antiwar statements in class, including a diatribe by a math professor. That scumbag had a girl in tears in his classroom. She has a loved one risking his life in Iraq. Freedom of speech, it seems to me, does not include propaganda in the classroom. Let...