Higher Education

Lessons From Columbia '68

Jayati Vora

As Columbia University goes forward with controversial plans to expand into Harlem, alumni mark the fortieth anniversary of explosive student protests.
Motzira-Making on the Right

Eric Alterman : Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

The politics of tenure at Barnard and beyond.
Sweatin' to the Koran

Katha Pollitt : Islam & Muslims

What do burqas, Osama and fascism have to do with six hours of man-free exercise time at Harvard?
Where Credit Is Due

Patricia J. Williams

To view education as a profit-making business is to attack the lifelong love of learning.
The Ritual Sacrifice of Samantha Power

Eric Alterman : Media Analysis

A principled academic gets ground up in the media hypocrisy machine.
Professing Literature in 2008

William Deresiewicz : The Short of It

Why is the intellectual agenda of English departments being set by teenagers?
Repress U

Michael Gould-Wartofsky : Police & Law Enforcement

Surveillance 101: Big Brother goes to college.

2007

A Hoax Exposed at Princeton

Max Blumenthal : Conservatives & The American Right

When a strait-laced Princeton student claimed he was attacked by liberal thugs, the conservative establishment rallied around him--until it turned out to be a lie.
The Soldier and the Student

Aaron Glantz : US Military

Today's military members face red tape, false advertising and multiple deployments. What happened to the promises of the original GI Bill?
The Culture War Descends on Columbia

Esther Kaplan : Religion

David Horowitz's Islamofascism Awareness Week hits the already beleaguered campus.
The New McCarthyism

Larry Cohler-Esses : Middle East

A network of right-wing activists on college and high school campuses are targeting Muslims, Arabs and other Mideast experts, indifferent to the truth or decency of their charges.
John Templeton's Universe

Barbara Ehrenreich

The right-wing philanthropist is pushing the phony science of positive psychology to numb Americans into smiley-faced acquiescence to the status quo.
Bonehead U

Nicholas von Hoffman : Sports

Forget about raising money for actual teaching or research. Institutions of higher learning would rather troll for money for their sports teams.
Debating Ahmadinejad at Columbia

Jayati Vora : Public Figures & Intellectuals

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's combative remarks tarnish an otherwise illuminating event.
Welcome to Fleece U

Barbara Ehrenreich : Predatory Lending

Our mission is to take feckless teenagers like you and turn them into full-fledged debtors.
Funding Higher Ed

Anya Kamenetz

The Congressional overhaul of federal student aid is a good first step, but true reform of the system will require an effort on the scale of the GI Bill.
Harvard's Humanitarian Hawks

Tom Hayden : Human Rights

Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights doesn't officially favor the war in Iraq, so why is it helping Gen. David Petraeus devise a counter-insurgency doctrine?
Voices in Conflict

Emily Douglas : Peace Activism

When Wilton High School censored a student play about the Iraq war, the cast went to the Public.
Corrupt Colleges, Student Debt

Nicholas von Hoffman : White-Collar Crime

Corrupt college administrators have sold out students and buried them in a mountain of debt.
In Praise of Immigrant Students

Ellen Chesler : Labor & Immigration

The educational odysseys of Hunter College's foreign-born graduates disprove the lies spread by anti-immigrant politicians.
Our Future Is In Your Hands

Harold Prince : Spoken Word

A cultural icon advises Gettysburg College graduates that social disengagement puts at risk everything unique and idealistic about our way of life.
No-Sweat Sit-Ins Hit Academe

: Sweatshops

Will a donation from Nike deflect Stanford's efforts to curb sweatshop labor in the making of its sports regalia?
Graduates, Close Your Eyes

Tom Engelhardt : Environment

A passionate critic of the Iraq War has this advice for the Class of 2007: Be afraid. And look within for answers to all the problems you have inherited.
The Chutzpah Industry

Jon Wiener

Alan Dershowitz is at it again, campaigning to deny tenure to a DePaul University professor who criticized him.
The Higher Education Scam

Barbara Ehrenreich

Marilee Jones excelled as admissions dean at MIT, until she was fired for falsifying her resume. But what good is a college degree, anyway?
Antiwar Students Rising

Sam Graham-Felsen : Peace Activism

As the student peace movement grows stronger and more sophisticated, can it ignite the silent antiwar majority on campus?
Goodbye, Horatio Alger

Jeff Madrick : Gap Between Wealth & Poverty

Is education widening the class divide?
The High Cost of the Home Team

Nicholas von Hoffman : Sports

Big-money athletics cannot help but sabotage what our colleges and universities are for: instruction and research.

2006

College Presidents High on the Hog

Nicholas von Hoffman

College presidents are living in baronial splendor, some with salaries, benefits and perks of $1 million or more. And you wonder why the cost of tuition is so high?
Trump U.

Nicholas von Hoffman

Why go to a real college? Enroll in Donald Trump's virtual university and you'll learn all you need to know for $29 or your money back!
Burning Cole

Philip Weiss : Conservatives & The American Right

Politics trumped academic integrity when a neocon network torpedoed the appointment of Mideast scholar and blogger Juan Cole to a faculty position at Yale.
Campus Breakthrough on Sweatshop Labor

Peter Dreier & Richard Appelbaum : Sweatshops

The University of California has thrown its weight behind an antisweatshop initiative on campus logowear, proof that conscientious consumers can humanize the forces of global capitalism.
Leap into the Fray

Victor Navasky

The new generation of academics and scholars is challenged to join, elevate and improve the national conversation and persuade the public to come back to politics.
Drug War Flunks Out

Hasdai Westbrook : Drug Policy/Drug War

Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the ACLU are challenging a draconian Education Department rule that blocks student drug offenders from receiving federal aid.
'Why Can't We?'

Samantha Power : Genocide & Ethnic Cleansing

Confronting the forces of war, genocide and lawlessness begins with the belief that individual citizens have the power--and the responsibility--to focus our government's mind, change its priorities and save lives.
Divestment and Sudan

Sam Graham-Felsen : Student Movements

The growing campus campaign to force universities to divest from corporations doing business with the Sudanese government is having real impact.
'The Lobby'

: Israel

The recent furor over a scholarly article suggesting that the "Israel lobby" drives US Mideast policy presents an opportunity for vigorous open debate on a volatile subject.
The Dot-Degree Boom

Garrett Ordower : Internet & New Media

Thanks to aggressive recruiting tactics and a complaisant Congress, online enrollments at the University of Phoenix and its spinoff, Axia College, are soaring. So are student debt and disaffection.
Truth or Consequences

Patricia J. Williams : Censorship

OK, kids: With conservatives on the hunt for dangerous left-wing academics, take this SAT (Save America from Treachery) test. See if you can tell the difference between a terrorist and a truth-teller. First prize: A three-day getaway in Baghdad. Fail and go to jail.
Student Debts, Stunted Lives

Nicholas von Hoffman : Banks & Banking

As Congress jacks up the rates students and their parents are paying for college loans, the consequences are already being felt by young people whose ability to have a child or own a house is limited by debt.
He's Got a Little List

Richard Lingeman

The Nation is pleased that so many of its contributors are included on a right-wing list of the most dangerous academics in America.
Leadership 101

: Harvard

The lesson in Harvard president Lawrence Summers's sudden demise is that his brand of neoliberalism works better on blackboards than in the real world.
Girls Against Boys?

Katha Pollitt : Feminism & Women

Women now outnumber men at colleges and universities, but higher education has not become the fluffy pink playpen of feminism that some conservatives envision.