Steve McGuire Profile picture
Mar 27, 2024 17 tweets 5 min read Read on X
NEW: Yesterday Vanderbilt students pushed their way into a campus building to conduct a sit-in in the lobby of the chancellor’s office:
They’re protesting the administration’s decision to shut down a student referendum on BDS. Image
This was the scene inside yesterday:
The Vanderbilt Hustler reported that at least seven students were suspended on an interim basis: Image
Here’s more video showing the students taunting a police officer:
The number of students suspended is up to 16.

The university is reiterating its commitment to free expression but indicting that the protestors are violating time, manner, place restrictions and risking campus safety: Image
A reporter was arrested yesterday but later released. It sounds like charges will not be pursued. Image
Later in the evening, the students said the administration brought Panera Bread for security but was denying food and bathroom access to students.

They were peeing in bottles.


Image
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Some students started to realize they might get arrested while trying to report that one young woman was in danger of toxic shock:
Students outside chanted, “Let them pee! Let them eat!”
They report that one of the students outside was detained or arrested:
Nashville police (“at least 20 officers in 15 cars”) were called to the scene in addition to the Vanderbilt police who were already there.

The student was arrested for allegedly breaking a lane of glass.
vanderbilthustler.com/2024/03/26/bre…
The Vanderbilt Hustler has a ton of great coverage here:
vanderbilthustler.com/tag/kirkland-h…
Three students have now been arrested:
In the end, four students were arrested (three inside and one outside), and all the students inside were given interim suspensions, which means they can’t be on campus and had to leave by 5pm local yesterday.

Disciplinary hearings start today.

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More from @sfmcguire79

Apr 15
Yale has issued a new report on declining public trust in higher education.

The New York Times has a great headline summing it up:

This is so refreshing. The first step is admitting the problem. Image
The first recommendation in the report?

“Take Responsibility.”

“Universities champion critical thinking. However, those of us in higher education have too often resisted calls to critically examine our own institutions, professions, and modes of thought. As we move forward, we must be willing to admit where we have been wrong and where we might improve, even as we defend what is essential about higher education and its academic mission.

“This imperative applies to faculty, who must balance our rights as scholars with our obligations to our students, institutions, communities, nation, and world. But the need for self-scrutiny includes everyone from the first-year undergraduate to members of the Board of Trustees. The tendency to be self-regarding, insular, and unreceptive to legitimate criticism does not engender public trust. A shift in attitude is needed.”Image
President McInnis’s response to this recommendation:

“The committee calls on Yale to reflect on and take responsibility for our role in the erosion of public trust. I accept this judgment fully. This decline did not come out of nowhere, nor did it happen overnight. And we were certainly more than mere bystanders. We must acknowledge how we have fallen short. That means welcoming as comprehensive a panorama of perspectives as possible—even, and especially, those that may be critical—and facing such criticism with humility and curiosity.”
Read 6 tweets
Dec 8, 2025
The percentage of Harvard students receiving disability accommodations has risen from about 3% in 2014 to 21% in 2024.

The Harvard Crimson published this graphic showing the rise at Harvard and several other elite schools.

Watch Brown and Stanford too!
“Staff at Harvard’s University Disability Resources say the increase is, in part, the result of a concerted push to lower barriers to access student resources, as well as decreased stigma around disabilities.”
“According to Kate Upatham, senior director of the UDR — which serves as a central resource for Harvard affiliates seeking disability-related resources and information — the office has loosened its requirements for students seeking accommodations in recent years.”
Read 5 tweets
Nov 17, 2025
Harvard Professor Jill Lepore says she almost left the academy during the height of wokeness and that she’s ashamed she didn’t speak up.

She says it was “miserable,” and she’s not sure why she stayed. Image
She recalls declining to publish (at the time) an essay critical of #metoo because she was told it would ruin her life: Image
And she says a sign that things have changed would be whether people would say that what happened to Professor Ronald Sullivan was wrong: Image
Read 5 tweets
Nov 16, 2025
“Although it once seemed like a good idea to give every child his or her own device, it’s clear that those policies have been a failure.”

💯

School-issued laptops distract students at school and home, expose them to things they shouldn’t see, and hurt learning.

🧵 Image
Great column by @jean_twenge:

She observes that “the decline in test scores started well before the pandemic, around 2012. One obvious culprit is smartphones, which became popular just as test scores started to decline.”
But “phones are not the only electronic devices students use at school. These days, nearly every middle and high school student — and a good number in the elementary grades as well — brings a laptop or tablet to school and uses it at home for homework.”
Read 8 tweets
Nov 11, 2025
NEW: UC San Diego has released a new report documenting a “steep decline in the academic preparedness” of its freshmen.

The number of entering students needing remedial math has exploded from 1/100 to 1/8.

They’ve had to create a second remedial class covering elementary and middle school math skills in addition to the one covering gaps from high school.

🧵Image
The report also shows that nearly 1/5 students fail to meeting entry level writing requirements. Image
“This deterioration coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on education, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools.” Image
Read 15 tweets
Oct 30, 2025
These Harvard students…did not react well to the report on grade inflation:

“The whole entire day, I was crying. I skipped classes on Monday, and I was just sobbing in bed because I felt like I try so hard in my classes, and my grades aren’t even the best. It just felt soul-crushing.”

“What makes a Harvard student a Harvard student is their engagement in extracurriculars. Now we have to throw that all away and pursue just academics. I believe that attacks the very notion of what Harvard is.”

“I can’t reach my maximum level of enjoyment just learning the material because I’m so anxious about the midterm, so anxious about the papers, and because I know it’s so harshly graded. If that standard is raised even more, it’s unrealistic to assume that people will enjoy their classes.”Image
One more:

A student says harder grading “could take a serious toll on students’ mental health.”

“‘It makes me rethink my decision to come to the school,’ she said. ‘I killed myself all throughout high school to try and get into this school. I was looking forward to being fulfilled by my studies now, rather than being killed by them.’”
Read 5 tweets

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