Conformity, Irrational Thought Pervasive on College Campuses

[From article]
Is it out of order to suggest that students excel in coursework and complete their required reading before reaching inflexible conclusions and demanding others adhere to them? Anything else would be utterly premature and superficial. Their thoughts haven’t had sufficient time to marinate and be subjected to vigorous cross-examination, which is one of the reasons the most vocal protesters are prone to trying to silence anyone who dares to challenge them. That’s what the insecure do. A person who is confident in his or her conclusions welcomes debate. The juvenile simply call out all their immature ego defense mechanisms.
[. . .]
Pressure to conform is nothing new, but shockingly it all-too-often comes from the professors these days, which is indefensible given the vastly unequal power differential. (Why are these inequality-obsessed professors not concerned with that?) This is a form of educational malpractice and abuse: teaching students what to think instead of how to think. This undue pressure is a problem that should be addressed at the administrative level to maintain the integrity of the institution and its mode of academic inquiry, but we are seeing reluctance, impotence, and complicity on far too many campuses.
[. . .]



Colleges are supposed to inculcate the ability to engage in reasoned free thought, not to harass the immature into submission to a preprogrammed ideological agenda.
[. . .]
The highest level of thought is the Socratic dialectic, in which intelligent people of varying opinions engage in a civil sharing of ideas that leads everyone to a greater understanding of the full complexity of the issues involved.
[. . .]
Today, we have actually reached the point where fed-up students at Brown University have resorted to forming a closed, secret group where they are able to speak freely and openly with one another. This is how far the Academy has devolved; students now must be protected from it in order to learn despite it.
[. . .]
College itself must remain a protected space where students and faculty are free to explore and ask questions and express ideas without threats or harassment. This ideological battle has already been fought and decisively won and the First Amendment is the result. Use it.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/intellectual_foreclosure_on_american_campuses.html

December 12, 2015
Intellectual Foreclosure on American Campuses
By Bonnie K. Snyder

Women Faculty Have No Staying Power at Harvard University

Time for a "Harvard Women Academic Lives Matter" lobby?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/10/7/faculty-meeting-female-attrition/

Faculty Decry Attrition of Tenure-Track Women
A “troubling” percentage of women leave the Faculty of Arts and Sciences before final tenure review, administrators say
By KARL M. ASPELUND and MEG P. BERNHARD, CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
October 7, 2015

Harvard University Study Shows Faculty Extremely Liberal, Up to 98 Percent At Some Schools

[From article]
During the three years, the Harvard affiliates represented in analyzed public filings gave nearly $3 million to federal campaigns and candidates. Each of Harvard’s schools leaned to the left in the contributions made by their affiliates, many by wide margins. Ninety-six percent of donations in the data set from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which includes Harvard College, supported Democratic efforts. That figure was even higher—nearly 98 percent—at Harvard Law School. Harvard Business School was the most Republican, with 37 percent of its contributions supporting Republicans and 62 percent going to Democrats.
[. . .]
The Crimson analyzed the federal donations of contributors who reported Harvard University as their employer and were listed in Harvard directories and websites as professors, lecturers, fellows, associates, researchers, and scientists, as well as visiting fellows and professors. The data set does not include people who only work as administrators.
[. . .]



The data does not include contributions made to independent expenditure, or super PACs, and nonprofits groups organized under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code that engage in electioneering communications. It does include contributions to candidate-linked PACs.
The data supports the commonly held belief that Harvard’s professoriate is largely liberal, raising questions about the ideological diversity of the faculty and what impact that may have on teaching and research.
[. . .]
The largest FAS donors in the data set include Chemistry professor emeritus and Nobel laureate Martin Karplus ’51, University professor and former University President Lawrence H. Summers, and Psychology professor Steven Pinker.
[. . .]
The third-largest donor in the data set was Martha L. Minow, who has been the Law School’s dean since 2009. Minow contributed $105,250, all to Democratic campaigns and organizations, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and campaigns for U.S. Senators Al Franken ’73 and Timothy Kaine, U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, and the Obama Victory Fund.
[. . .]



“The only debate we get here is between the far-left...and the liberals,” Mansfield said. “It gives students a view that a very narrow spectrum of opinion is the only way to think.”
[. . .]
“I think that this is an institution that really chafes against simplistic adherence to one point of view or approach,” said Lawrence D. Bobo, chair of the African and African American Studies Department. “It is one of the great virtues of the University.”


http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/1/faculty-political-contributions-data-analysis/

Harvard Faculty Donate to Democrats by Wide Margin

Eighty-four percent of campaign contributions made by a group of 614 Harvard faculty, instructors, and researchers between 2011 and the third quarter of 2014 went to federal Democratic campaigns and political action committees.

STORY BY KARL M. ASPELUND AND MEG P. BERNHARD

DATA ANALYSIS BY DAVID FREED, IDREES M. KAHLOON, AND ALEXANDER H. PATEL

APRIL 30, 2015

Universities Focus On Learning About Sex. What Took Them So Long?

Sex survey conducted in the name of good. George Bernard Shaw: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." and Pre-Homeric Greek Philosopher, Cleobulous, "The chief source of evil among men is excessive good." Why not just ban sex on campus and by students, faculty and university staff?  

[From article]
A survey being conducted at nearly 30 major universities to gauge the true scope of sexual abuse in college is so rife with "explicit" language that it is “opening wounds” and “triggering” flashbacks in the students who take it, critics say.
Some students were so shocked by the language and descriptions — which include the words “penetration,” “oral sex,” and “sexual touching,” — they had to immediately stop answering questions and told their friends not to participate.
[. . .]
Questions on the survey ask students directly if someone touched their “breast, chest, crotch, groin or buttocks” while they were “passed out, asleep or incapacitated due to drugs or alcohol.” Language goes as far as descriptions like “when one person puts a penis, finger, or object inside someone else’s vagina or anus ...”
The language is necessary to carry out the survey's purpose, said University of Michigan spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald.
“It is only by directly collecting this information from students will we be able to prevent negative experiences and effectively respond when they do happen,” Fitzgerald told FoxNews.com
[. . .]
“Our primary purpose in conducting this survey is to help our institutions gain a better understanding of this complex problem on their own campuses as well as nationally," said AAU President Hunter Rawlings. "Our first priority, and theirs, is to ensure that students not only are safe but feel safe.”

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/04/23/explicit-survey-on-sex-assault-leaves-college-students-feeling-victimized/

'Explicit' survey on sex assault leaves college students feeling victimized

By Kyle Rothenberg

Published April 23, 2015
FoxNews.com

Harvard University Faculty, Which Supported New Health Care Law, Upset Over Higher Costs

Dr. Alan M. Garber, a physician and health economist who is the provost at Harvard, defended the change in benefits, acknowledging that Harvard employees would face greater cost-sharing but saying that such a policy "can slow the growth of health spending.” Credit Stephanie Mitchell, via Harvard University 

[From article]
Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the heart of the 378-year-old university, voted overwhelmingly in November to oppose changes that would require them and thousands of other Harvard employees to pay more for health care. The university says the increases are in part a result of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, which many Harvard professors championed.
The faculty vote came too late to stop the cost increases from taking effect this month, and the anger on campus remains focused on questions that are agitating many workplaces: How should the burden of health costs be shared by employers and employees? If employees have to bear more of the cost, will they skimp on medically necessary care, curtail the use of less valuable services, or both?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/us/health-care-fixes-backed-by-harvards-experts-now-roil-its-faculty.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1


Harvard Ideas on Health Care Hit Home, Hard
By ROBERT PEARJAN
January 5, 2015


* * *

[From article]
Some of the same Harvard faculty who supported the passage of Obamacare are now flipping out because the effects of that awesome law are starting to hit them. Sniff — pass the Kleenex!

http://michellemalkin.com/2015/01/05/oh-how-sad-harvard-profs-upset-because-obamacare-was-only-supposed-to-affect-the-rubes/


Oh how sad: Harvard profs upset because Obamacare was only supposed to affect the rubes
By Doug Powers
January 5, 2015 02:29 PM

* * *

[Twitter comments]

http://twitchy.com/2015/01/05/schadenfreude-tastic-pity-party-thrown-for-harvard-faculty-who-loved-obamacare-until-it-hit-them/

Harvard University Law School Students, Faculty Want Better Justice System

This report suggests that the criminal justice system fails only when black men are victims of police criminal behavior. The criminal court systems deny many people relief, including, Gasp! white men. Few disabled persons are treated with respect by the courts, when they are abused by police and caregivers. Why the silence from practicing attorneys? Harvard University law school activists, may consider the effect of US Dept. of Education requirements that colleges adjudicate sexual offenses. Creating a separate justice system for college students ignores the dysfunctional state courts. But also a large number of attorneys openly state, "We don't do criminal law." Did lack of attention enable the broken criminal court system? Misguided activists do little to resolve problems. Winston Churchill said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." How long will it take? If only all of the energy demonstrating in the streets was directed toward improving the courts.



http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/12/8/letter-protests-ferguson-garner/

Open Letter to Obama Calls for Better Justice System
Nearly Half of Law School Co-Signs
By TYLER S. OLKOWSKI, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
December 8, 2014

Academic Lobby Wants To Prosecute Rape on College Campuses

Mollie B. Flounlacker adds some sanity to the discussion recognizing the inappropriateness of the US government making rules on sex, especially the Dept. of Education. But alas she wants to have the AAU make the rules instead by survey. Do the 62 research institutions of AAU have jurisdiction over crime at all universities in the nation, world? Are they expert on rape like the university administrators and the bureaucrats at the DOE? AAU web site says Flounlacker is "Responsible for issues related to the humanities." Can taxpayers stop funding special training for police, prosecutors and hospitals who gather evidence and prosecute rape? Are police now superfluous? Will the AAU take over the entire criminal justice system or just rape? MIT's Jonathan Gruber, Obama's health care law architect, says Americans are stupid, and it was necessary to fool elected officials and voters in order to pass the law. Is the same thing happening with campus rape?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/11/12/climate-survey-sexual-national/

Sexual Climate Survey Used by Harvard May Become Nat'l Model
By QUYNH-NHU LE and GABRIELLE M. WILLIAMS,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
November 12, 2014

Victor Davis Hanson Questions University Abuses

[From article]
Colleges have gone rogue and become virtual outlaw institutions. Graduates owe an aggregate of $1 trillion in student debt, borrowed at interest rates far above home-mortgage rates — all on the principle that universities could charge as much as they liked, given that students could borrow as much as they needed in federally guaranteed loans.
[. . .]
If the best sinecure in America is a tenured full professorship, the worst fate may be that of a recent graduate in anthropology with a $100,000 loan. That the two are co-dependent is a national scandal.
In short, the university has abjectly defaulted on its side of the social contract by no longer providing an affordable and valuable degree. Accordingly, society can no longer grant it an exemption from scrutiny.
[. . .]
Whatever may once have been the case, in our time tenure does not ensure free expression, but instead a banal orthodoxy, in which 90 percent of the faculty in the humanities share the same progressive outlook.
[. . .]
The abuse of lecturers, part-timers, and graduate students is institutionalized. In a word, the university is the most exploitative institution operating at present in the United States, protected by the notion that it is progressive and that its protocols cannot possibly be understood by the ordinary public.
[. . .]
the unfortunate emergence of the arrogant and ignorant graduate, who left the campus zealous for social change but sadly without the skills to even articulate his goals.
[. . .]
there is no transparency: What size of gift leverages a B+ student into Harvard?
[. . .]
Only the university could have allowed an Elizabeth Warren to invent an entirely fictitious minority pedigree and parlay it without audit all the way to Harvard.
[. . .]
That no one will ever know exactly on what criteria the president of the United States was admitted to Columbia College or Harvard Law School is a testament to the secrecy and mystery of the university guild that has such intrusive interest in the less-than-transparent workings of other institutions.
[. . .]
If the schools of education did not have a monopoly over credentialing, they would quickly dissolve, given that their product has made the public schools far less credible.
[. . .]
How strange that universities will publish statistical data on almost every facet of American life — from racial matters to the environment — but not provide the public with a detailed breakdown of their own expenditures to allow students and their parents to understand why their tuition is priced as it is.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367689/outlaw-campus-victor-davis-hanson

JANUARY 7, 2014 12:00 AM
The Outlaw Campus
The university has become a rogue institution in need of root-and-branch reform.
By Victor Davis Hanson

Frisky Columbia University Professors, One Convicted of Incest, Another Had Oral Sex With Impaired Patients

Columbia University Professor Convicted of Incest, Supports Lesbian For Mayor


David Epstein admitted to carrying on a consensual sexual relationship with his adult daughter

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336331/New-York-mayoral-candidate-Christine-Quinn-raised-thousands-professor-year-sexual-relationship-daughter.html

New York mayoral candidate Christine Quinn raised thousands from professor who 'had three-year sexual relationship with his own daughter'
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 10:29 EST, 5 June 2013 | UPDATED: 15:31 EST, 5 June 2013

* * *
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/christine_shady_iZNjHHL0iGJBsWhPQ84tdO

This Columbia prof convicted of attempted incest is just one of the shady bundlers raising big money for Christine Quinn
New York Post
By SALLY GOLDENBERG
Last Updated: 2:19 PM, June 5, 2013
Posted: 2:47 AM, June 5, 2013
* * *
Columbia Doctor Accused of having Oral sex with impaired patients


Accused: Gynecologist Dr Robert Hadden has been accused of sexually assaulting two of his former patients

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336375/Gynecologist-Dr-Robert-Hadden-sued-sexual-assault-performed-oral-sex-patients.html#ixzz2aUpG1ysT

Former New York-Presbyterian doctor sued for sexual assault after he 'performed oral sex on two patients'
By Rachel Quigley
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 11:00 EST, 5 June 2013 | UPDATED: 15:10 EST, 5 June 2013

Harvard University's Administrator Class Fumbles

Massachusetts Hall, Harvard University

[From article]
“It seems to me that trust has to be based on something,” said classics professor Richard F. Thomas, a member of the Faculty Council. “The request that you make that we have trust suggests there aren’t consequences from this past case that go beyond saying simply, ‘Let’s all talk and get along together.’”
Pointing to faculty’s hesitance in the meeting to address the issue, a number of professors said the case illustrates a larger communication problem between faculty and increasingly distant administrators.
“As the size of the administration has grown over the past 10 to 15
years... it has inevitably produced a sense of unhelpful distance
between the administrative decision-making process and the faculty who
are affected by it,” said History of Art and Architecture professor
Jeffrey F. Hamburger, a member of the Faculty Council. He likened the
experience of trying to speak with administrators about certain issues
to “waiting to get an audience with Louis XIV in Versailles.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/2/email-searches-second-round/

Revelation of Second Round of Email Searches Contradicts
Administrators' Previous Statement
Smith and Hammonds Apologize for Handling of Searches at Faculty Meeting
By NICHOLAS P. FANDOS,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
April 2, 2013

Harvard University Historians Protest Email Searches

Some persons suspect that email "scanning" ('text word searching,' Ahem!) is more widespread than this one incident. Have University lawyers and deans lost sight of the idea of expression free from intimidation? Massachusetts state law Ch. 265, Sec. 37 makes it a felony to intimidate a person in the free exercise of a constitutionally protected right.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/3/20/history-letter-email-search/

Letter Cosigned by 32 History Faculty Says Secret Searches Threaten 'Climate of Trust'
By NICHOLAS P. FANDOS,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
March 20, 2013

Are You Sure?

In a related story a majority of Harvard University faculty declared that ice is usually cold. "You can bet on it," asserted Divinity School Professor Diane Eck.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/12/romney-south-carolina-new-hampshire/

Professors See Romney As Most Likely Nominee
By Jose A. DelReal,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Published: Thursday, January 12, 2012

Harvard Crimson, Harvard Faculty Threats to Free Speech, Thought

Glad you noted the Harvard faculty vote on Swarmy that the Crimson supported. Their opposition to hate speech is inconsistent as well. In discussions they prohibit hate speech (a loosely defined term) on the comments section, except for some hate speech. When I objected to personal attacks the commenter added accusations of mental illness, a legal disability, to "stupid" and being "a troll," whatever that is. According to Crimson standards it is only hate speech toward the priests of the victim hood class, black people, women, homosexuals, Muslims and illegal aliens. But it is still OK to stereotype and to demonize persons with disabilities, and to use disability to discredit opponents. Few journalists disagree with the Crimson editors.

http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2012/01/will_harvard_stop_trying_to_im.html

January 4, 2012
Minding The Campus
Will Harvard Stop Trying to Impose Orthodoxies?
By Harvey A. Silverglate