2015 THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOLARS
https://www.nas.org/
Pushed back on APUSH.
NAS sparked a national controversy in summer 2014 when we challenged the College Board’s new AP U.S. History (APUSH) standards as politically biased and intellectually hollow. This year, we worked with a panel of historians who published on the NAS website an open letter that convinced the College Board to remove from the APUSH standards many of the faults we had pointed out. The fight, however, continues.
Sparked debate on sustainability and fossil fuel divestment.
We published two major studies this year. In March we released our book-length study, Sustainability: Higher Education’s New Fundamentalism. Launched at an event at the Millennium Hotel, across the street from the UN with Arthur Brooks as the keynote speaker, Sustainability quickly grabbed attention from the Wall Street Journal and from columnist George Will, to become the first widely publicized critique of the way colleges inject the idea of “sustainability” into their curricula and student life. Our sequel, Inside Divestment: The Illiberal Movement to Turn a Generation Against Fossil Fuels, released in November, portrays the growing national campaign to get colleges and universities to sell off investments in coal, oil, and gas companies.
Dug deep into the Common Core.
NAS president Peter Wood edited and wrote the introduction for a new book, Drilling through the Core: Why Common Core Is Bad for America. The book provides essays from nationally-recognized scholars who critique the Common Core K-12 State Standards.
Resisted racial preferences.
The case of Fisher v. University of Texas, which challenges the use of racial preferences in college admissions, came before the Supreme Court for the second time. NAS signed an amicus brief on behalf of Fisher, and NAS board member Gail Heriot, a professor of law at the University of San Diego, authored a major study that finds racial preferences often hurt the students they were intended to help. NAS mailed copies of Professor Heriot’s study to all our members.
Defended due process.
NAS endorsed the Safe Campus Act, which ensures that campus sexual assault allegations be judged by law enforcement agencies. Peter Wood wrote a Weekly Standard cover story, “The Meaning of Sex,” on the how the hook-up culture harms stable relationships and leaves students—especially women—with regret that in hindsight they interpret as evidence of sexual assault. We devoted the spring edition of our journal Academic Questions to the so-called “rape culture on campus.”
Upheld scientific standards.
We called on members of the National Academy of Sciences to examine three cases where the journal Science attempted to bolster intellectually shaky but political popular views by suppressing substantial dissent within the scientific community.
NAS also published nearly 200 articles this year—including pieces in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Weekly Standard, and Claremont Review of Books. We continued to support our 2,500 members around the country, and to publish high-quality issues of Academic Questions.
NAS is already preparing to start off 2016 strong. Early in the year we will publish two new studies, one on civics education at the college level, and one on the books colleges assign to freshmen as summer reading. (NAS has for the last 5 years published the nation’s only comprehensive database on “common reading” programs.) In January we’ll also begin a new project examining the influence of foreign governments on American higher education.
We are also preparing to dive deeper into the campus “cry-bully” phenomenon. Simmering for the last two years, this wave of student protests boiled over at the University of Missouri in early November and then intensified at colleges and universities across the country. Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Claremont McKenna, and many others saw students making radical demands in uncivil ways—and finding college deans and presidents eager to comply. NAS is working quietly behind the scenes to organize a counter-movement to restore respect for academic and intellectual freedom on campus.
We are grateful for the donors and members of NAS who uphold the standards of a liberal arts education that fosters intellectual freedom, searches for the truth, and promotes virtuous citizenship. Thank you for all you have made possible this year.
As we prepare for the new year, will you stand with us by making a tax-deductible end-of-year gift to the National Association of Scholars? Thank you again for your role in the NAS.
Wishing you a happy holiday season and a scholarly 2016,
Peter Wood
President
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