The Academy
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Universities get a (partial) reprieve on the 100k H-1B visas, but international students will still face potential obsctacles
IHE reports: After a federal court struck down the Trump administration’s effort to levy a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications, the Department of Homeland Security is trying a different approach to impose a similar fee. Under a proposal released Monday, new H-1B visa petitions will have to pay $103,265 in addition to the…
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Against viewpoint diversity
A scholar at Johns Hopkins, Lisa Siraganian, makes seven useful points!
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Johns Hopkins President Ron Daniels’ continuing war on academic freedom
First he was involved in the Trump Administration’s document calling for a massive violation of academic freedom, and now he intends to take the war on academic freedom to every department at Hopkins by pushing for “a shift in the recruitment of faculty,” partnering with the conservative American Enterprise Institute in order “to move with…
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Philosopher Nathan Cofnas, who launched the media frenzy about Jason Arday, has been suspended by Ghent University in Belgium…
…pending an investigation into possible “discrimination” against the late Professor Arday. It was Dr. Cofnas’s July 21 substack post that opened the flood gates of media coverage of allegations against Professor Arday, that ultimately led to (what everyone is assuming was) his suicide. While many of the allegations were clearly warranted, the tone and style…
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Tyler Harper on the Arday affair…
…at The Atlantic, and worth reading.
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Jason Arday dead
Readers will no doubt have heard this news already, but here is one account. No cause of death is given, although one suspects suicide of course given the public humiliation and vilification he suffered. A tragic story. (Earlier coverage here.) (Thanks to David Zimmerman for calling this to my attention.)
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Do “liberal” faculty “indoctrinate” their students to be liberal?
This study says the answer is “no.” I cannot comment on the methodology, but let’s remember that many of the most important right-wing figures in American life are graduates of Harvard and Yale (e.g., Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, J.D. Vance, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Vivek Ramaswamy, and on and on). Perhaps they are anomalies, or…
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Fascinating piece by Tyler Harper on the “diversity” madness at Bates College…
…where he used to teach, before joining The Atlantic. Harper is Black and also a socialist. I first encountered him on Twitter, where he was a sharp critic from the left of the excesses of the Wokerati. This new piece is beautifully written and both horrifying and laugh-out-loud funny at points. Some excerpts (but there…
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University of Minnesota pays $250,000 settlement after wrongfully rescinding job offer to Holocaust scholar who called Israeli retaliation in Gaza “genocide”
They would have had to pay more except the scholar does have a tenured job elsewhere. (Thanks to Phil Bold for the pointer.)
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On appeal, employment tribunal affirms that “anti-Zionism” is a protected “philosophical belief” under UK law
We noted the case of Professor Miller at the University of Bristol a couple of years ago. The appeals tribunal has now concurred with the lower tribunal’s ruling that “anti-Zionism” is protected under the UK Equality Law (see paragraphs 132 ff. in the opinion). (Thanks to Joe Cairns for the pointer.)
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Is this Black Cambridge professor a plagiarist and fabulist? (MOVING TO FRONT FROM AUGUST 5–UPDATED)
A balanced account of the controversy that started on social media. UPDATE: Several hours after Cambridge University announced it was investigating Professor Arday’s qualifications and record, Professor Arday resigned his position. (More details here.) Cambridge did not conduct itself very honorably in this sad case, but Professor Arday was probably wise to resign rather than…
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The Trump collaborators: Michael Crow (Arizona State), Ron Daniels (Johns Hopkins), Douglas Girod (Kansas), Andrew Martin (Wash U/St. Louis)
These four university President have participated in drafting a new “call to action” from Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive turned Secretary of Education, to the nation’s universities. Crow and Martin are no surprise, but Daniels is, and he and Martin have now disgraced their universities, since the “call to action” is both internally inconsistent…
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Another UK academic staff “bloodbath” in the works: U of Lincoln proposes making 140 faculty “redundant”
Oy veh. This comes on the heels of cuts in prior years at Lincoln. This round of cuts will affect philosophy, among many other units. The British university system is in serious crisis (although not because of “market ideology” [as the preceding piece says], but because of an unstable halfway house between “market ideology” and…
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Statement by British Academy President on the UK “higher education crisis”…
…and its disproportionate effect on the humanities and social sciences. I was sad to see that she felt the need to say this early on: “Important skills and capabilities – qualities we know employers value and the economy needs – are being lost.” So much for the Humboldt ideal that universities teach knowledge and skills…
People should understand what precipitated my remarks here at Leiter Reports. Also, a few replies and comments on the conversation:…