RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/kansas-fourth-state-to-introduce-a-campus-intellectual-diversity-bill/

Kansas has just become the fourth state to file a Campus Intellectual Diversity bill based on model legislation I proposed and explained here on the Corner last year. In the Kansas House of Representatives, bills are sponsored by committees, rather than by individual members. The sponsor of Kansas HB 2697 is the Committee on Education. The individual member who requested that HB 2697 be introduced is Representative Randy Garber. Garber deserves considerable credit for taking that initiative. The Kansas bill follows on similar bills introduced in Arizona, Missouri, and Iowa.

Like the other three bills, the Kansas Campus Intellectual Diversity Act instructs the public university system to stage debates, panels, and individual lectures that explore our most widely discussed public-policy controversies from diverse and conflicting perspectives. These debates, panels, and lectures will be open to the public. Videos of the events will also be posted online. The goal is to broaden the scope of viewpoints considered on campus and to educate students and the public through the clash of ideas. Frequent thoughtful debate over our sharpest national controversies should normalize disagreement and lower the emotional temperature on campus. Greater freedom of speech will result. (I lay out some additional thoughts on these bills here.)

https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/the-thousand-traitors-program?utm_source=Natio

Charles Lieber was recently charged with “making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement” to the Department of Defense. Lieber, Chair of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, allegedly lied repeatedly to federal investigators about his participation in China’s “Thousand Talents Program,” and in particular about his collaboration with Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) as a “Strategic Scientist.” Lieber’s case is the latest in a slew of reports about proven and suspected Chinese infiltration of America’s universities.

Lieber is a titan in his field. In 2011, his “citation impact score” led Thomson Reuters to rank him the top chemist of the 2000s. Lieber is internationally recognized as a pioneer of nanotechnology, has been awarded a bevy of academic prizes, and has taught at Harvard since 2011, where he leads the Lieber Research Group. He and his collaborators possess more than 35 patents; he has also founded two nanotechnology companies.

Lieber’s great success made him a natural target of China’s “Thousand Talents Program” (TTP), a “talent recruitment program” launched by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2008. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ Threats to the U.S. Research Enterprise: China’s Talent Recruitment Plans warns that “the Chinese Communist Party is able to ‘exert exceptional’ levels of control” over the TTP, and reports that China may have signed more than 7,000 foreign scientists and engineers to lucrative employment contracts—exceeding its original recruitment goal of 2,000 more than threefold. TTP paid Lieber “$50,000 USD per month, living expenses of up to 1,000,000 Chinese Yuan (approximately $158,000 USD at the time) and … more than $1.5 million to establish a research lab at WUT.” That’s on top of his salary from Harvard.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/video-heather-mac-donald-defends-due-process-debunks-1-in-5-rape-stat-as-hostile-crowd-shrieks-in-protest/

Heather Mac Donald stood at a Colgate University podium last Thursday night in front of a hostile, emotional audience who barraged her during a Q&A with highly charged questions after she gave a speech there at the behest of the school’s Open Discussion Club.

Mac Donald, author of “The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture,” drew a protest of students who filled the auditorium making it so those open to the Manhattan Institute scholar’s views could not get in.

The plan among student activists was to listen to music with headphones or read a book by a “radical” during Mac Donald’s speech — then bombard her with hard-hitting questions during the Q&A, according to emails activist sent around before the event.

Perhaps the most tense moment of the evening took place when a woman took the mic to ask about campus rape culture, according to exclusive video obtained by The College Fix.

“In 2008 you wrote an article called ‘The Campus Rape Myth’ where you decided to claim that rape could be attributed to ‘sluttish behavior’ and that it’s women’s fault for getting drunk,” the question began amid applause, cheers and moans of shock from the surrounding audience, mostly students dressed head to toe in black to protest the scholar’s visit and views.

“You also said in a 2019 interview with the Hoover Institution that ‘all college-aged women can avoid 100 percent of so-called campus rape,’” Mac Donald’s questioner continued in an impassioned tone before dropping her bombshell:

“As someone who has been assaulted on this campus, do you believe that I am at fault?!”

The question drew a boisterous and prolonged round of cheers and applause that went on for roughly 30 seconds as Mac Donald stood at the podium and collected her thoughts.

Her reply showed that Mac Donald would not be cowered by the emotion and frenzy of the moment.

“Thank you for your question. And I do not know the facts of your incident and I am very sorry for what …,” but whatever she said next was once again met with loud gasps and groans from many in the crowd.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/attacked-conservative-activist-targeted-mob-ohio-jack-kerwick/

With each passing week, more proof mounts that the world of Higher Education is, as I note in the title to my book on this subject, Higher Miseducation.

It’s also an increasingly dangerous place for conservative students.

Unfortunately, it is not an exaggeration to say that violence against the person and property of conservative students has become something of a commonplace on college campuses.

This should (but, regrettably, most assuredly will not) shock the moral sensibilities of remotely decent people everywhere, irrespectively of their political partisanship.

The College Fix, a student-run publication dedicated to drawing the public’s attention to the systemic and systematic undermining of the University’s historic mission by political ideologues, informs us of the violence, the mob violence, to which conservative students and speakers are routinely subjected.

At Ohio University, Kaitlin Bennett, a conservative activist in her early 20’s who regularly records her exchanges with left-leaning students at college campuses around the country, was besieged by a mob—yes, a mob—of at least 100 students who attacked her and the rest of her crew—including her bodyguard (that one young, petite female even needs a bodyguard on a college campus for daring to express her conservative views speaks volumes).  

The Fix refers to the footage of the “huge crowd of students…yelling and screaming at Bennett” as she tries to film a video.  Also captured on the latter are the members of the mob who “eventually began throwing things at Bennett, her bodyguard, and her team from Liberty Hangout.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/terrorlinked_islamic_activists_renew_protests_against_free_speech_at_us_army_war_college.html

True to form, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) — also known as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the largest terrorist funding case in U.S. history, and a designated “terrorist organization” for nations allied to America — is again protesting my forthcoming appearance to the U.S. Army War College, urging the latter to “reconsider its decision and disinvite Ibrahim,” since my presentation will no doubt be “hypocritical, ahistorical and hateful.”
This, of course, is all déjà vu — a repeat of events from eight months ago. As CAIR itself notes in it new press release, which came out on Feb. 21, 2020:
.Last summer, CAIR and its allies launched an online campaign highlighting Ibrahim’s Islamophobic views and their negative impact.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/18/georgetown-library-bans-offensive-books/

Georgetown University officials removed and banned “all but a few books” from the McCarthy and Reynolds libraries that students have deemed “offensive,” Breitbart reports.

According to a report by the College Fix, Georgetown University officials have removed hundreds of books from campus libraries after students argued that they were riddled with bigotry and the extremely vulnerable students found them unacceptable and offensive.

Student Alexandra Bowman said she noticed a book “prominently featured a Native American on its cover” and therefore she complained to the administration. Shortly thereafter, Georgetown’s Reynolds and McCarthy libraries were almost cleared out.

“While some were simply raucous crime noir murder mysteries representative of the literary and cultural time in which they were written, other books included extremely problematic and damaging elements, including the glamorization of rape, including that of underage girls,” Bowman said in a short comment. “Completely naked women of all races were frequently featured on these books’ covers. Further, many books fetishized young nonwhite women.”

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/18/indiana-professor-suspended-for-calling-police-on-disruptive-black-student/

A professor at Indiana’s Ball State University was suspended for the remainder of the academic semester after he called the police to his classroom to remove a disruptive black student, ABC News reports.

Professor Shaheen Borna, who teaches marketing, reportedly asked the student, Sultan Benson, to move to another seat after displaying disruptive behavior. When Benson refused to move, Borna called the police, and Benson left the classroom after two officers arrived.

Benson claimed without evidence that he was singled out for his race, and added, again without proof, that he “feared for his safety” at the sight of the police officers. Following Borna’s suspension, Benson said that the punishment was “just the bare minimum,” and demanded “justice.”

However, many faculty members at the university expressed their support for Borna and his actions, with 30 of them writing a letter to the university’s student newspaper, The Daily News, explaining that Borna’s actions were justified by the “Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities, Appendix Q,” which deals with “Responding to Disruption in the Academic Setting.” According to this clause, a professor has the right to ask that a disruptive student leave the classroom, and if they refuse to leave, then the next required step is to call the university police.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/education-department-investigates-harvard-yale-foreign-funding/

The Department of Education cracks down on alleged foreign funding of Yale and Harvard.

L ast week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Education had opened investigations into Harvard and Yale for allegedly failing to disclose billions in donations from foreign governments. The department claims that American universities received as much as $6.5 billion in unreported gifts from countries including China and Saudi Arabia.

Foreign governments use donations to influence the work of professors and gain access to intellectual property. China’s Thousand Talents Plan, which figures into the investigation, has funneled money to 3,000 university faculty members. In return, Beijing requires them to turn over intellectual property to which they have access, as well as to sign agreements preventing them from disclosing the results of work conducted under Chinese patronage. Meanwhile, Beijing-funded Confucius Institutes, which ostensibly support Chinese studies in the U.S., have reportedly engaged in censorship and espionage of American students and professors.

Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires universities to disclose foreign contributions exceeding $250,000. If Harvard and Yale failed to comply, that indicates either a disregard for the law (which was enforced only loosely before Trump took office) or a tacit acknowledgment that the funding compromises the integrity of the institutions. In any event, it is clear that American universities do not see themselves as American.

That is not entirely surprising. Harvard and Yale were founded prior to the American Revolution. Primarily focused on ministerial training, they were colleges that educated American leaders but had no strong connection to the government. Universities were considered citadels of knowledge independent of their societies. Since they did not conduct scientific research for roughly the first two centuries of their existence, Harvard and Yale had only an indirect impact on the American military and economy.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/saving-higher-education-student-constitutional-rights-truth-in-lending-standards/

Start by guaranteeing students’ constitutional rights and holding schools to truth-in-lending standards.

D espite the denials of universities boards, administrators, and faculty, American higher education, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, is a hopeless mess. What basis is there for such a harsh diagnosis?

One, a college education is far too expensive. Nearly 45 million young Americans owe $1.5 trillion in student loans — a staggering sum unmatched in American history. Millions have either defaulted on their loans or are able to pay only the interest and are making no progress on the principle.

Universities have for decades upped their tuition and services higher than the rate of annual inflation. Yet they deny they have any responsibility for the staggering student debt, even though the encumbrances have altered the U.S. economy, culture, and demography. One of many reasons youth are marrying later, delaying child-rearing, and unable to buy a home is that so many of them are burdened well into their late twenties and early thirties with student-loan debt, on average over $30,000 per student. Again, the university more or less shrugs, insisting it has no responsibility for this collective national disaster that it helped create

The student-loan crisis could be alleviated if universities, not the federal government, were the co-signers of the loans, which would make them share with students the moral hazard of loan repayment. Instead of spending superfluously on “diversity and inclusion” czars and entire castes of non-teaching facilitators, universities would have incentives to lower non-teaching costs. It would be in their own financial interest to ensure that students could minimize debt by graduating within four years, and also to invest in job placement for their graduates, so they could move into the full-time workforce months after finishing school.

Two, universities have no methods to analyze whether students are, in fact, better educated after they graduate than when they enrolled. While most colleges still demand to see applicants’ standardized SAT or ACT scores, so they can judge the relative quality and significance of their high-school grade-point average, they allow no such audits on the efficacy of their own four-year course of study.