The moral confusion on too many campuses after the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis fits a familiar pattern. The acceptability of the speech depends on the speaker. Individuals from oppressed groups are given leeway to target oppressor groups through disruptions and threats. This victimology allows Palestinians and their supporters (the oppressed) to target, intimidate, and harass Jews (the oppressors).
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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Much of the monotony in higher education is a result of the accreditation process. Accreditation should protect students from snake-oil salesmen, but unfortunately it has become its own racket. Existing schools try to lock out potential competitors. Timidity, ideological homogeneity, and red tape are all structurally encouraged by the accreditation processes.
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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The institution I now lead, the University of Florida, faces all sorts of challenges, and Florida is the site of important battles about the responsibilities of academia to our society. As a public university, our incredibly talented and dedicated faculty aim to provide an elite education that promotes resilience and strength in our students so that they are tough enough, smart enough, and compassionate enough to engage big ideas in a world where people will always disagree.
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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Most colleges today underinvest in student advising and mentoring, and in intensive internships and career development. Our standard testing practices encourage mindless cramming and dumping, rather than critical engagement. All students would benefit from more frequent, low-stakes, real-time, individualized assessments.
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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At root, intersectionality teaches that the relative victim status of various groups is the deepest truth, and this framework must drive our interpretation of both natural and built reality. Truth, moral claims, beauty, dignity, the explanatory value of a research insight—all of these must be subjugated to a prior determination of the historical power or powerlessness of certain sociological categories.
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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Intersectionality is a religious cult that’s dominated higher education for nearly a decade with the shallow but certain idea that power structures are everything, the Neanderthal view that blunt force trumps human dignity.
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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Higher education is facing a crisis of public trust. The simple fact of the matter is, fewer and fewer Americans believe that universities are committed to the pursuit of truth. Understanding why isn’t hard at a time when elite institutions make excuses for illiberal mobs. The perception that ideologues and fanatics are running the show on campus is, sadly, based in reality. The public sees it. Donors see it. Boards see it. Alumni see it.
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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As the cult of intersectionality implodes before our eyes, it is time for higher education to commit itself to earnestly engaging new ideas and respectfully participating in big debates on a whole host of issues. Universities must reject victimology, celebrate individual agency, and engage the truth with epistemological modesty. Institutions ought to embrace open inquiry. Education done rightly should be defined by big-hearted debates about important issues.
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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Programs offering bachelor’s degrees are stuck in a predictable mold: Most classes are between three and four credit hours; each semester’s load is between 12 and 18 credit hours; each semester’s length is 15 weeks; each year is two semesters; four years makes a degree. In an economy and culture as dynamic as ours, this much standardization makes little sense.
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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A conspiracy theory offers its devotees a way of inserting themselves into a cosmic battle pitting good against evil. This sense of vocation that makes it dangerous is also precisely what makes it attractive in our era of isolated, alienated consumerism.
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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