RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/08/cancel_culture_infests_cornells_law_school.html

If you’re a prospective law student, do you want to pay $74,000 a year to attend Cornell University’s Law School whose faculty members publish what looks like a false accusation of murder and can’t seem to do better than play “woke pigeon chess” in the court of public opinion, or $25,400 a year for in-state tuition at the State University of New York in Buffalo? SUNY’s web page says, “Our students graduate to work at the same law firms and earn the same starting salaries as those who attend pricey private law schools.” The difference comes to almost $150,000 over three years and, from where I sit, I don’t see what an attorney gets from Cornell for that kind of money.

Law professor William Jacobson reports, “There’s an effort to get me fired at Cornell for criticizing the Black Lives Matter Movement” and, from what I have seen, Jacobson’s criticisms are accurate. Dean Eduardo Peñalver nonetheless used a Cornell web page to say, “In light of this deep and rich tradition of walking the walk of racial justice, in no uncertain terms, recent blog posts of Professor William Jacobson, casting broad and categorical aspersions on the goals of those protesting for justice for Black Americans, do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School as I have articulated them.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/campus-wokeness-harms-america-globally-international-students-tuition-dissent-loan-forgiveness-liberal-education-china-global-elite-11661797706?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

President Biden’s decision to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans for certain classes of borrowers won’t fix the underlying problems of American higher education. An educational system that routinely encourages inexperienced young people to assume excessively burdensome debt is morally broken, and repairing it will take more thought and care than went into the politically motivated student-loan decision. Bureaucracies that demonstrate hypersensitivity on issues ranging from pronoun use and trigger warnings to gender-neutral bathrooms while saddling students with tens of thousands of dollars in unpayable debt are exploiting their students, not helping them.

As Americans discuss the need to address issues such as administrative bloat, attacks on intellectual diversity, controversial admissions practices and spiraling tuition costs, we need to remember that the state of the American academy isn’t merely a domestic question. Since the middle of the 19th century, when American missionaries in China and elsewhere began encouraging promising young people to enroll in U.S. universities, the American academy has been a powerful force shaping global perceptions of the U.S. and its engagement with the world.

Millions of foreign students have attended American colleges and universities. Most return to their home countries as influential professionals or thinkers who will shape their societies’ perceptions of America for years to come. Some remain in the U.S., where their intellectual gifts and entrepreneurial energy propel American progress and renew the American dream. Their tuition dollars subsidize university costs for American students, even as their perceptions and experiences enrich discussions in American classrooms.

Attracting foreign students is more important than ever. American higher ed faces a difficult environment as the number of native-born 18-year-olds declines nationally and rising tuition leads more Americans to rethink the importance of a four-year academic degree. While top-tier American universities have little to fear, ever-rising tuition combined with a continued drift from traditional measures of merit and achievement is likely to reduce the attraction of an American college education for many families abroad even as American colleges grow more dependent on international students who pay full tuition.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/yeshiva-university-fights-for-its-constitutional-rights-first-amendment-free-speech-students-higher-education-religious-schools-values-morals-11661798761?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

In recent years, a spate of lawsuits have asked whether, and to what degree, religious colleges and universities are free to craft policies consistent with their religious values, even when those policies are unpopular with those who don’t share those values. These decisions run the gamut from the mundane—whether to allow tobacco, alcohol, caffeine or meat on campus—to the headline-grabbing—how to structure on-campus housing arrangements or decide which student clubs get official school recognition.

In these lawsuits, student plaintiffs typically ask the court to force the school to abandon a longstanding religious principle in favor of a policy incompatible with the school’s faith. But as judges continue to evaluate the legal merits of these cases, it is important to consider the real danger to the First Amendment, and to the continued viability of religious schools, each time a suit like this succeeds.

For many religious traditions, religious schools help convey beliefs to new generations of faith and community leaders. But they also bring critical diversity to higher education and prepare students to weigh moral considerations of justice, mercy and kindness while in pursuit of stellar educations and professional careers. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this only months ago, noting that “educating young people in their faith, inculcating its teachings, and training them to live their faith are responsibilities that lie at the very core of the mission” of religious schools. Not only is this blend of religious and secular learning the primary goal of a religious school; it is also the reason why hundreds of thousands of students voluntarily attend such institutions each year.

https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2022/08/08/woke-trophy-hunting/

The woke mob’s attack on academic heretics can be likened to hunting. Most hunts attract scant attention, often no more than shooting squirrels with a .22. Blocking the reappointment of a visiting instructor at Smallville Community College who mis-gendered a student is an example of this low-level hunting. But of far greater consequence is what might be called “Big-Game Trophy Hunting.” Here the prey are the academic equivalent of elephants or elk, and these trophies will be prominently displayed as a warning to all others who refuse to obey.

As with big-game hunting in the wild, the academy has its own, though unwritten, rules for bagging big-time campus heretics.

First, the trophy must be associated with a top-tier institution—the more Ivy the better—and honored with notable prizes—such as an endowed chair—all the while being recognized by one’s professional colleagues as a star. Possums don’t count.

Second, the offense instigating the coup de grâce must appear inconsequential to non-academics. This is dog-whistle persecution. Firing a distinguished Yale professor for falsifying government-funded research is the equivalent of bagging an infant rhino. It’s barely noticeable and hardly worth paying the taxidermist. But not so where the hanging offense was asserting an obvious truth, albeit in language that mysteriously offended the ultra-thin-skinned Dean of Marginalized Communities. A big-game conviction is covered by the Wall Street Journal and countless internet sites. That’s the point—notoriety is the aim of these show trials. And nothing brings notoriety as much as violating some obscure, impenetrable element of today’s woke ideology. Punishing an obscure philosophy professor from a fly-over community college counts for zero. It’s a waste of time—nobody notices, so it never happened.

Finally, and most importantly for our purpose, the trophy must be secured with minimal personal risk. Cowardice is essential. Think of the luxury African safari that guarantees your safety no matter what. So, when you unload your large caliber AR-15 on a Cape buffalo and miss, and the beast charges you, don’t worry—nearby sharp-shooters will finish the job, and your trophy is secure.

In practice this means never attacking members of groups enjoying a justified reputation for violent retaliation. Similarly avoid those on the ideologically endangered species list, such as the transgendered or students explicitly protected by a government agency. Heed the commandment of the Church of the Woke—strike those who meekly shuffle off. What provost wants drumbeating, screaming feminists following his family into Costco?