Questions of diversity, equity and inclusion are at the forefront of the nation’s cultural agenda—manifest in election politics and on college and university campuses which have seen engagement and activism on a myriad of issues. I believe that each forum and each discussion on these issues moves our institutions forward and leads to self-improvement and the hope of real progress. We must always strive to make sure that our nation’s campuses reflect the great diversity that is the hallmark of our nation, particularly in hiring at our most senior administrative and academic positions. Certainly, more can be and is being done.

Read the entire post here.  

Public higher education is at a tipping point in the United States. It is an essential public good that is suffering from an unprecedented erosion of public support, with potentially devastating consequences for our students and our economy.

Last week I spoke at the 2016 World Academic Summit, and I wish my message then and now was not so grim. The question is: Will we pass the tipping point, or can we still avoid it? Can we, after years of neglect, protect our public universities before they are irreversibly damaged?

There is a great deal at stake. The vast majority of the college students in our country attend public colleges and universities. Out of 17 million undergraduate students in American higher education today, eight in 10 are matriculating at a public institution.

Read the entire post here.  

This summer, advocates for diversity in American higher education won a major victory when the Supreme Courtupheld the right of colleges to consider race and ethnicity in admissions. This fall, American colleges have experiencednumerous racist incidents, leaving many minority students angry and feeling unwelcome.

In this environment, leading scholars on race and the economy have contributed essays to a new collection, Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity for Democracy and a Prosperous Society (Princeton University Press). Contributors include Marta Tienda of Princeton University, Kwame Anthony Appiah of New York University and Anthony P. Carnevale of Georgetown University.

Read the entire post here.  

Many studies point to professors being more liberal than the rest of society, but little research says there is discrimination against students based on their political views. At the same time, anecdotes abound of students who believe that their professors are showing political bias — even if other students in the same class disagree.

A new study (abstract available here) offers an explanation for the students’ perceptions that doesn’t necessarily suggest that the bias is real or entirely discount the perceptions, either.

Read the entire post here.  

As tensions over race in higher education continue to surface on campus after campus, two faculty members have been criticized over comments they made questioning — in ways many found offensive — movements to draw attention to injustice against black people. One lost her job and the other is planning a leave.

Read the entire post here.  

For decades now, mainstreaming special-needs students – that is, educating them as much as possible in general education classrooms rather than in separate special education settings – has been a mainstay of American education policy, and, for the most part, that policy has been an outstanding success.

Integrating special-needs students in settings with typically developing peers has enabled hundreds of thousands of students to not only attain a decent education but to function in the outside world.

Now, however, as an epidemic of autism sweeps the nation and indeed the world, the philosophical foundations of mainstreaming, or inclusion, are being tested. The fact is, children with ASD learn differently than other children do, and they learn differently than other special-needs populations do, and, many parents and researchers say, that presents unique challenges to learning that general education classrooms are not overcoming.

Read the entire post here. 

A new roundtable of multicultural students and staff recently met to explore how College of DuPage (COD) can better celebrate, learn, and teach about the great diversity in its halls and classrooms.

“I think an inclusive institution sees diversity as its asset,” said Jean Kartje, special assistant to the President. “The diversity of the students, faculty, and staff are resources.  We are bigger, better and stronger because of our diversity.”

Anatomy and physiology lecturer Ruby Rajwinder Kaur said it’s important to distinguish between diversity and being a minority.

Read the entire post here.  

Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, had his Twitter account temporarily suspended on Wednesday night, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. Mr. Reynolds, who has more than 66,000 followers at @instapundit, wrote a tweet suggesting that motorists in Charlotte, N.C., should run over protesters.

Furious protests have taken hold in Charlotte since Keith Lamont Scott was shot to death by the police on Tuesday.

Mr. Reynolds told the newspaper that he had written the tweet. The suspension was lifted on Thursday morning after he deleted it. The dean of the university’s law school, Melanie D. Wilson, said in a written statement that the university was investigating the matter.

Read the entire post here. 

Saint Louis University must pay $367,000 in damages to a former professor who alleged she was denied tenure because of her gender. That’s what a Missouri court decidedlate last week following a trial by jury. The university says it’s “disappointed” in the verdict and is reviewing its options.

The case is one of several high-profile tenure disputes across academe in recent years involving claims of gender discrimination. Historically, courts have been reluctant to question tenure decisions, given the traditional judicial deference given to higher education.

Read the entire post here.  

Less than a week after the University of California, Berkeley, suspended a student-run course on Palestine, the administration reversed its decision and brought it back.

The one-credit course, called Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis, was suspended last Tuesday after members of pro-Israel groups accused it of having “anti-Israel bias.” But the university administration claimed it suspended the course — a part of the DeCal program, which allows students to propose and lead their own for-credit courses — because the course leaders hadn’t followed the proper approval procedures and policies.

Read the entire post here.