The Nation
California, CUNY and MOOCs
In March, a bill was introduced in the California State Senate that, if passed, could radically redefine the role of online learning in American higher education. The proposed legislation, SB 520, would require state colleges and universities to grant credit to students who, unable to register for core classes at their home universities due to “bottleneck” conditions at the entry level, opt to register for massive open online courses (MOOCs) instead.
The bill is packaged by its champions as a necessary measure designed to defend the best interests of a student body under siege. “We want to be the first state in the nation to make this promise,” said Darrell Steinberg, the State Senate president. “No college student in California will be denied the right to move through their education because they couldn’t get a seat in the course they needed.” Detractors, however, attack it as a top-down effort to allow private companies to profit from public institutions of higher learning—what some have labeled the University of Phoenixization of the U Cal system.
Whatever the outcome, this bill has direct implications for the City University of New York (CUNY) as well as other public universities nationwide. The debate in California arrives during a period in which CUNY’s public system has come under great strain from rolling budget cuts, privatization measures and major battles between administrators and faculty over curricular decision-making and control. The potential embrace of MOOCs could well contribute to further contention.
Searching for the Praetorian Guard at the George W. Bush Museum
Dick Cheney and other senior administration officials at a meeting in George W. Bush's Oval Office. (Reuters/Larry Downing)
George W. Bush’s presidency began on a note destined to inspire skepticism.
Did Shaquille O'Neal Just Box Out Mumia?
Shaquille O’Neal. (Reuters/Brian Snyder)
Why did Newark’s only movie theater, co-owned by Shaquille O’Neal, just pull a scheduled showing of a documentary about Mumia Abu-Jamal? No one is talking, but this is a story that stinks worse than the Jersey swamps. For the unfamiliar, Mumia Abu-Jamal is perhaps the most famous of the 2.4 million people behind bars in the United States. He has spent the last three decades as not only a prisoner but a political lightning rod, with the Fraternal Order of Police demanding his execution after the killing of Philadelphia Officer Daniel Faulkner. Following thirty years on death row, Mumia’s sentence was commuted to life without the possibility of parole last year.
No, Chuck Grassley, the Tsarnaev Brothers Were Not in the Shadows
A protest in Maricopa County against racial profiling and immigrant crackdowns. (Reuters/Joshua Lott)
Three days of the Senate’s judiciary hearing on proposed immigration legislation were dominated by questions over the Boston bombing. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified on Tuesday, and Senator Chuck wasted no time in his opening remarks and subsequent questioning to tie the hearing to the bombing. The topic is an unfortunate distraction that doesn’t reflect the reality of the estimated 11 million that could attain some form of status through the bill.
Four Reasons to Worry About the Potential Koch Takeover of Tribune Co. Newspapers
Charles Koch in his office in Wichita, Kansas. (AP Photo/Topeka Capital-Journal, Mike Burley.)
If their bid is successful, the Koch brothers won’t just have a strong influence over the laws we all live under and the climate we pass on to the next generation, they’ll be publishing the news we read. The New York Times confirmed earlier reports that Charles and David Koch are pursuing a bid for the Tribune Company newspapers, which include the Los Angeles Times, the Orlando Sentinel, The Baltimore Sun and many others.
One Movement Against Keystone XL
On April 18, people converged in Nebraska to speak out about the Keystone XL Pipeline at the State Department’s only public comment session. Farmers, ranchers, climat activists, and people of all stripes and colors spoke out in opposition to the pipeline.
It’s still entirely unclear if the Keystone XL pipeline can be built and managed safely. Moreover, its construction would delay the critical conversion to a non-fossil fuel based economy on which our future depends. Secretary of State John Kerry, who once spoke out bravely against the Vietnam War and who has stressed the dangers of climate change, could stop it. Sometime soon, the State Department will issue a final environmental impact statement on the pipeline, followed by a determination on whether it is “in the national interest.”
Jeremy Scahill: Liberal Support Allowed Obama to Expand Bush's Interrogation Program
Far from ending Bush-era policies of extraordinary rendition and torture that outraged liberals, Democratic President Obama has developed them further, Nation correspondent Jeremy Scahill said during the second part of a Democracy Now! interview about his new book, Dirty Wars.
"There are ways in which Obama pushed the Cheney agenda far beyond what a President McCain or a President Romney would have been able to do, because he had his base of supporters," Scahill said.
How the Honor Roll Cheats Students and Divides Schools
My little sister texted me during school recently requesting a “serious polemic” against the honor roll. (She knows I like to write polemics.) Why? “Because the honor roll’s demeaning to little children!” she fired back. I put it in the back of my mind and went on with my day, which came to prove her point.
Midway through my Government class, I was pulled out to talk to my administrator. I chatted with a few kids in the waiting room, trying to find out why we were all there. As people shuffled in and out, we heard snippets of conversations about “getting that D up” and “graduating on time” and “getting one last chance.”
Uh-oh. I chastised myself for not knowing immediately, for letting schooling’s be-all and end-all temporarily slip under my radar. Of course, we were there to talk about grades. What else? We were all borderline cases thrown together for last-minute lectures and discipline.
An Interview With ESPN's New Ombudsman, Robert Lipsyte
Robert Lipsyte has a reputation, largely built from his years at The New York Times, as one of the most fearless sportswriters and columnists of the last century. He has been a critic of jock culture, racism, sexism and homophobia in sports, and the over-corporatizing of our games. In his famous book of the same title, he coined the phrase “SportsWorld” to describe this stew of style with little positive substance. Now that same Robert Lipsyte is going to be the Ombudsman at ESPN: the great magnetic force at the heart of our twenty-first-century SportsWorld. Here, The Nation speaks to Robert Lipsyte about this stunning turn of events.
Dave Zirin: So let’s start with the question many readers might be afraid to ask: What the hell is an ombudsman?
Robert Lipsyte: In this case, the ombudsman, like the New York Times public editor (of whom I am currently an avid fan) is the representative of ESPN’s reading, listening and viewing audience. I will be happily wading through the e-mail bag to find out what that audience is concerned about, complaining about, loving, questioning. Then I will try to explain the background of what happened, demystify the process (through reporting) and offer my take. Transparency. ESPN is the world’s great window on sports. I’m the window washer.
Oberlin Students Speak Out Against Hate
Students rally against hate speech at Oberlin. (Courtesy of Aaron Braun.)
On Monday, March 4 Oberlin College in Ohio suspended classes in response to predawn reports that an individual dressed in Ku Klux Klan regalia was seen walking near residential dorms on the south side of campus, including Afrikan Heritage House and the Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People. The alleged sighting followed a monthlong series of racist and sexist vandalism, which included swastika graffiti, the replacement of “black” with racial slurs on Black History Month Flyers, the defacement of LGBTQ posters, and a “Whites Only” sign above a school water fountain. (Full list via The Oberlin Review here.) Instead of attending classes that Monday, students gathered in Oberlin’s campus chapel for a teach-in led by the Africana Studies Department, and participated in a student-organized day of solidarity.
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