We have yet another ridiculous example of school officials applying “zero tolerance” policies against a kid for an innocent page of doodling. A 13-year-old boy in the seventh grade drew a stick figure holding a gun and another holding two knives and was promptly suspended from Roseboro-Salemburg Middle School.
Category: Academia
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expanded his destruction of civil liberties and secular government with a new call for the arrest of students opposing war as “terrorists.” Erdogan was not content with arresting or firing thousands of intellectuals in Turkish schools. He now wants to arrest free-thinking students — leaving Turkish colleges occupied by government-approved faculty stooges and government-controlled students. He has also barred the teaching of various subjects including evolution. Erdogan’s ire was directed at students at Bogazici University. I had the pleasure of speaking at Bogazici University years ago and it was considered one of the finest academic institutions in the World. The university attracted the top students in the country and it is little surprise that Erdogan and his religious parties would view the students as a threat.
We recently discussed how University of Illinois math professor Rochelle Gutierrez triggered a national controversy over her work “Building Support for Scholarly Practices in Mathematics Methods” in which she criticized math classes as a “tool of whiteness.” Then we discussed CUNY Professor Laurie Rubel’s publishing of a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Mathematics Education arguing that the concepts of meritocracy and “color-blindness” are ideological precepts that work against minorities. Now four professors denouncing the “hegemony of meritocratic ideology” and the “masculine culture” in engineering courses as hostile to women. University of California (Irvine) Professor Carroll Serron’s March 1 study insists that merit-based advancement in engineering is harming women and fails to consider political factors in recognizing engineers. The professors criticize the focus on “empirical science, technical thinking, merit, and individualism” as the cause for the isolation of female engineers.
One of the least reported stories this year has been the building catastrophe unfolding in our oceans due to pollution and climate change. There is no better example of our failure to protect our environment than the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) now stretching 600,000 square miles, according to a study published last week in Scientific Reports. This disgusted mass of garbage is now the size of Texas — or for our foreign readers, three times the size of France.
Continue reading “Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Now The Size of Texas”
There is a major controversy unfolding at Penn Law School. Professor Amy Wax has been removed from first-year courses after making controversial comments about the performance of black students at the school. Regardless of the merits of Wax’s comments, the action raises serious questions over academic freedom and free speech. We have been discussing controversies over academics being punished for controversial views including two recent cases involving the use of the “n-word” in classes on offensive speech at DePaul and Princeton.
Continue reading “Penn Law Professor Removed From First-Year Classes After Controversial Statements”
In a story that is likely to resonate in the national debate over President Donald Trump’s push to get teacher’s armed in school, a teacher at Seaside High School in Sand City, Ca. injured a student when his gun discharged in a class. Even more embarrassing is that the class was on gun safety.
My alma mater University of Chicago was the scene of a curious event recently. Students held a “Rally for Reparations” to demand money for African Americans to pay the unpaid debt from the use of slave labor at the founding of the University of Chicago in 1856. Activists denounced the school as “drenched in the blood of enslaved African Americans.” The only problem is that University of Chicago is not related to the University of Chicago, which was founded in 1890. That did not seem to matter as part of the event.
Hong Kong movie star Jackie Chan has long been known to harbor authoritarian and anti-free speech views. Now, the action movie star is calling for other artists to be arrested for art that is deemed insulting to China, particularly in advancing favorable images of the Japanese. Chan and his 37 other members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference called on then government to punish fellow artists who insult “national integrity and dignity.” The call follows Chinese artists who wee criticized for showing the Japanese in World War II in a positive light. This by the way was part of the propaganda issued by the U.S. government against the Japanese. The racist elements are quite evident and shocking. Hollywood was a critical part in our propaganda efforts during the war. Now, over 50 years later, Chan and other artists and authors however are seeking to criminalize speech that is viewed as sympathetic or favorable to the Japanese.
Chris Bourg, director of libraries at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has issued a prime directive that “Star Trek” posters and nerdy cultural images should be removed to create a more welcoming workplace for women: “Replace the Star Trek posters with travel posters, don’t name your projects or your printers or your domains after only male figures from Greek mythology, and just generally avoid geek references and inside nerd jokes. Those kinds of things reinforce the stereotypes about who does tech; and that stereotype is the male nerd stereotype.” It is not clear if the MIT seal is also problematic as a male dominated (and fairly geeky) cultural icon.
Continue reading “Prime Directive: MIT Librarian Declares Star Trek Posters To Be Male”
The head of Harvard’s massive endowment, Jane Mendillo, has reported a staggering loss of roughly $1.1 billion in its holdings — an amount larger than the total value of most academic endowments. It is an astonishing loss coming only six years since Mendillo took over the endowment and is being attributed to her heavy bet on natural resource investments.
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We recently discussed the cancellation of a Princeton class on oppressive language when the professor used the n-word. I was strongly critical of actions in the controversy and the ultimate cancellation as an attack on both academic freedom and a reflection of the loss of objectivity on our campuses. Now, law students have made a similar complaint to DePaul University. Professor Donald Hermann is under fire for using the word in a hypothetical. It is particularly distressing to see law students objecting to the use of this word, which arises often in legal cases and was used for a legitimate purpose by Professor Hermann.
We previously We discussed recent publications by academics arguing that math is a form of white privilege and male domination. Now, Marci Bianco, the communications manager of Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, has found a new manifestation of patriarchy: space exploration. In the article on NBC.com, Bianco declares that “the patriarchal race to colonize Mars is just another example of male entitlement.” The efforts reveals a “Columbusing attitude.” The movie The Martian will now be renamed “The Patriarch.”
A study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin would seem to confirm what many take for granted: despite the common adage, money can indeed buy happiness . . . at least if you have a million dollars. Grant E. Donnelly, a doctoral candidate in the Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School, found that the more wealth that people have corollated with greater happiness. There is however a difference in happiness between those near the bottom and near the top of wealthiest individuals. Can you guess who was happier among the millionaires?
Continue reading “Study: Money Can Buy Happiness . . . But The More Money The Better”
We have been following the overwhelming evidence of drastic climate change, but few studies are as striking as the most report from NOAA’s Arctic research program. The annual Arctic Report Card that we have reached the highest loss of Arctic ice in 1500 years. Recently discussed the controversial statements of Administration officials like Energy Secretary Rick Perry on the U.S. offering a better future through fossil fuels. These studies show a potentially catastrophic future as our climate continues to change exponentially.
Continue reading “NOAA Data Shows Arctic Ice At Its Lowest In 1500 Years”
Many of us were critical of the decisions of Evergreen State College in not just its holding of it “Day of Absence” event were whites were expected to leave campus but its treatment of Biology professor Bret Weinstein who was hounded out of the college (and later received a $500,000 settlement for his mistreatment). The school has also been criticized for racial exclusions of authors in the school newspaper. Now there is a report that Evergreen could be heading in the same direction of the University of Missouri, which has seen a massive drop in applications in the wake of controversial decisions in race-related controversies. Evergreen reportedly expects a 20 percent decrease in admissions even as it replaces its “Day of Absence” event. There is now a proposed “inclusion” course. The Administration and faculty were remarkably slow in adjusting its course, which seemed to abandon Weinstein and embrace racial exclusionary principles. It is still early to determine if Evergreen will experience the disastrous “Mizzou Effect.”