Steve McGuire Profile picture
Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom @goACTA. Writings in @WSJ, @nypost, @Newsweek, @FoxNews, @RCPolitics, etc. Opinions are my own. RT ≠ endorsement.
CBStrike27 Profile picture Eric Attias Profile picture 2 subscribed
Jun 27 7 tweets 2 min read
In a new survey, 34% of prospective undergrads and 33% of their parents say the recent protests have decreased their interest in college: Image Among parents, roughly half of Republicans, a third of independents, and a fifth of Democrats say the protests have decreased their interest in sending their kids to college: Image
Jun 21 4 tweets 2 min read
LMAO, indeed.

@elianayjohnson and @aaronsibarium report that the Dean of Columbia College has put three deans on leave for text messages mocking concerns about antisemitism.

Then, as he tries to distance himself from the affair, they release more evidence of his involvement.
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The story about the deans being put on leave: freebeacon.com/campus/three-c…
Jun 20 19 tweets 8 min read
I wrote about the aims of the student intifada.

In short, it is full of radical revolutionaries who want to destroy Israel, eradicate Zionism, and fundamentally change America.

And they view our universities as targets they can use to advance their radical political goals.

🧵 Image You can read the article at @CityJournal here:
city-journal.org/article/what-d…
Jun 20 5 tweets 2 min read
The WSJ set up a bunch of new Instagram accounts, set the age at 13, and within 3 minutes they were watching content made by “adult sex-content creators.”

Meta’s response? “This was an artificial experiment that doesn’t match the reality of how teens use Instagram.” Image “Instagram served a mix of videos that, from the start, included moderately racy content such as women dancing seductively or posing in positions that emphasized their breasts. When the accounts skipped past other clips but watched those racy videos to completion, Reels recommended edgier content.”
Jun 18 4 tweets 2 min read
NEW: 100 law school deans, including the deans of Stanford, Columbia, and Yale, have signed a letter defending democracy and rule of law.

They say students should be taught to:

-“uphold the highest standards of professionalism.”

-“disagree respectfully and to engage across partisan and ideological divides.”

-“support and defend the Constitution and the rule of law.”Image Link to the letter with all the signatories: americanbar.org/content/dam/ab…
Jun 15 5 tweets 2 min read
Nicholas Kristof:

“The West Coast’s central problem is not so much that it’s unserious as that it’s infected with an ideological purity that is focused more on intentions than on oversight and outcomes.” Image “We are more likely to believe that ‘housing is a human right’ than conservatives in Florida or Texas, but less likely to actually get people housed. We accept a yawning gulf between our values and our outcomes.”
Jun 13 7 tweets 3 min read
The answers are…not good.

🧵 Image The director says he designed the program with the job market in mind but also recognizes it works against students when they apply for jobs:
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Jun 11 5 tweets 2 min read
🧵 Violence at UCLA again yesterday.

Protestors assaulted and harassed multiple people: a rabbi, a journalist, a security guard, and a vice chancellor.

First, the security guard was hit with what appears to be a smartphone: Second, UCLA Chabad Rabbi Dovid Gurevich, who was called a “pedophile rabbi,” was attacked and harassed:
Jun 3 4 tweets 2 min read
BREAKING: Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences has eliminated the use of DEI statements in hiring.

Applicants are now asked to submit a “service statement” detailing “efforts to strengthen academic communities, e.g. department, institution, and/or professional societies.”

“Such a statement could include a candidate’s efforts to promote diversity and inclusion, but is not required to focus on those topics.”Image Screenshots highlighting the change in policy. A candidate's dossier no longer includes a DEI statement:
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May 28 4 tweets 3 min read
BREAKING: Harvard’s leadership has accepted the recommendation of its working group on institutional voice to no longer issue official political statements.

“The university and its leaders should not…issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university's core function.”

Why?

1. “The integrity and credibility of the institution are compromised when the university speaks officially on matters outside its institutional area of expertise.”

2. “If the university and its leaders become accustomed to issuing official statements about matters beyond the core function of the university, they will inevitably come under intense pressure to do so from multiple, competing sides on nearly every imaginable issue of the day.”

3. “If the university adopts an official position on an issue beyond its core function, it will be understood to side with one perspective or another on that issue. Given the diversity of viewpoints within the university, choosing a side, or appearing to do so can undermine the inclusivity of the university community.”

“When pressure builds on the university to make an official statement, as will sometimes happen, the university should refer publicly to its policy. It should clarify that the reason for its silence is the belief that the purpose of the university is best served by speaking only on matters directly relevant to its function and not by issuing declarations on other matters, however important in themselves.”Image
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Notably, they reject the framing of this position as “neutrality”:

“The purpose of the university is to pursue truth. In that pursuit, the university as an institution can never be neutral, because we believe in the value of seeking truth through open inquiry, debate, and weighing the evidence, as opposed to mere assertion or unjustified belief.”

“Let us be clear: the university is not a neutral institution. It values open inquiry, expertise, and diverse points of view, for these are the means through which it pursues truth. The policy of speaking officially only on matters directly related to the university's core function, not beyond, serves those values. It should enable the university to endure and flourish, providing its unique public good even and especially - in times of intense public controversy.”
May 15 19 tweets 6 min read
The Princeton protestors have to be some of saddest/funniest of all.

🧵 Image First, they leaked documents (adapted from Columbia) outlining their plans and strategy before they even started:
nationalreview.com/news/princeton…
May 15 4 tweets 2 min read
BREAKING: CUNY Graduate Center President Joshua Brumberg negotiated with students occupying the lobby.

They want charges against those involved in the CCNY encampment dropped.

He’s agreed to no discipline for the current occupation if they leave peacefully.

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The protestors are leaving:
May 11 6 tweets 2 min read
“It has not gone unnoticed…that many of those who are now demanding the right to protest have previously sought to curtail the speech of those whom they declared hateful.”

Excellent editorial by the NYT:

“Establishing a culture of openness and free expression is crucial to the mission of educational institutions. That includes clear guardrails on conduct and enforcement of those guardrails, regardless of the speaker or the topic. Doing so would not only help restore order on college campuses today, but would also strengthen the cultural bedrock of higher education for generations to come.”Image “Student codes of conduct and other guidelines are meant to relieve some of the tension between free speech and academic freedom, as well as to ensure that schools are in compliance with government regulations and laws. Every campus has them. But rules matter only when guardrails are consistently upheld. It’s in that enforcement that the leadership of too many universities has fallen short.”
May 9 4 tweets 1 min read
Vibe check at MIT: Image Police are arresting protestors who are blocking a parking garage:
Apr 18 5 tweets 2 min read
BREAKING: Police have entered the encampment at Columbia and are preparing to arrest anyone who won’t leave:
They have buses lined up to take people away:
Apr 11 6 tweets 2 min read
BREAKING: Harvard has reversed course and will require applicants to submit standardized tests scores in the next application cycle.

“For the Class of 2029 admissions cycle, Harvard will require submission of scores for the SAT or ACT. In exceptional cases in which applicants are unable to access SAT or ACT testing, other eligible tests will be accepted.”Image Harvard had previously announced it would remain test optional through the next two admissions cycles: Image
Apr 11 6 tweets 2 min read
This longer video of the confrontation at Dean Chemerinsky and Professor Fisk’s home shows in more detail just how insufferable these students are.

And Chemerinsky has confirmed it’s a private residence (see below), which, as you can see, they were asked to leave repeatedly. Here’s his confirmation as well as statements of support for Chemerinsky and Fisk from other UC leaders:

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Apr 6 5 tweets 4 min read
BREAKING: Reports that multiple Pomona College students have been arrested after rushing into an administrative building to protest.

The president threatened them with suspension immediately upon entering the building.

Police arrived within minutes.





The students say 19+ students were arrested.
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Mar 28 4 tweets 2 min read
“In essence, they tried to break us. They tried to break our bodies, they tried to break our spirits.”

One of the Vanderbilt protestors speaks after their 21-hour sit-in:

h/t @lawyergonerogue "We were deprived of medical attention, we were deprived of sleep, we were deprived of food, water, resources."

"In jail I experienced better conditions than at Vanderbilt University."

A Vanderbilt protestor who was arrested talks about his experiences:

H/t @lawyergonerogue
Mar 27 17 tweets 5 min read
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
Mar 9 13 tweets 4 min read
When Dartmouth, Yale, and Brown reinstituted standardized testing in admissions, they said it would help them to admit more diverse classes.

The NYT explores a few basic models to illustrate how they can use class as a proxy for race to do so.

🧵 Image The basic idea is to correct for the facts that lower income students tend to do worse on the SAT and that black and Hispanic applicants tend to be poorer. Image