On the Campus

Roger Williams: Non-Woke Need Not Apply

Roger Williams University’s Woke-Allegiance Pledge for Employment

By Justin Katz | October 4, 2021 |

Interested in a job with Roger Williams University as a prep cook, payroll specialist, baker, shuttle driver, retailer, plumber, or even sometimes-nude model for art students?  You might want to find yourself a woke consultant, because applications for all of these positions must include a cover letter with “information about how you would be able…

The Twin Towers

Teen Vogue is taking advantage of its audience’s lack of 9/11 memory.

By Justin Katz | September 9, 2021 |

As I write in my latest article for Accuracy in Media, the oldest teenagers alive today were born in 2001, so no teens have memories of 9/11/2001 and probably very few memories of that entire decade.  UMass Amherst history professor Asheesh Kapur Siddique attempts to take full advantage of that fact by framing September 11 as…

A water drop and ripples

Let the students have their vaccine exemptions.

By Justin Katz | September 7, 2021 |

To watch RI political Twitter last week was to see a desire for outrage that around 1,080 students at URI (about one out of every 14 people in a classroom) has filed a religious exemption form from COVID vaccinations.  How could this have been permitted, the incredulous voices asked?  (Never mind that students who did…

A water drop and ripples

The echoes of Communist China in Western universities are a common sound.

By Justin Katz | September 4, 2021 |

This sure does sound familiar: The University of Nottingham, in central England, confirmed on Aug. 25 that it had declined to give official recognition to Fr. David Palmer, a priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. “Our concern was not in relation to Fr. David’s views themselves, but the manner in which…

This UVA saga shows that woke incentives and systems are terrifying.

By Justin Katz | August 17, 2021 |

The story of Morgan Bettinger at the University of Virginia, as Mairead McArdle describes it for the Daily Wire, is terrifying. Driving home on a Friday last summer, before her senior year, McArdle came upon a BLM-related roadblock.  She got out of her car and chatted with “a city dump truck driver who was blocking the…

Goya Attended by Doctor

Are colleges beginning to train a generation of anti-science doctors?

By Justin Katz | July 28, 2021 |

Local news media has taken an obvious turn in the past few years, and at least part of the explanation appears to be a new generation of journalists who simply don’t believe in objective reporting — or at least they do believe that some social “truths” around identity are just so clear that it isn’t…

Glenn Loury and John McWhorter

Brown University Professor Glenn Loury is a Rhode Island treasure who ought to be much more prominent in these parts.

By Justin Katz | June 29, 2021 |

Here he is plainly stating a purpose for higher education that used to enjoy broad (near-universal) agreement, as quoted by Katie Pavlich on Townhall: “To teach people they are [their skin color], is criminal in my opinion, okay? We are to challenge them. They come in telling me that they are this or they are…

A college class

Mike Rowe is right that making people pay for others’ college degrees is unfair.

By Justin Katz | June 28, 2021 |

He made the comment to The Daily Wire’s Amanda Prestigiacomo when she asked him about Bill Maher’s recent rant against free college.  Here’s Rowe: The “Dirty Jobs” host said that he believes that “making taxpayers pay the tuition of those who wish to attend a university” is “profound unfairness,” adding that such a point has been…

Never let a tragedy go to waste: URI Professor Calls NRA Terrorists, then Wages Insular Self-promotion Campaign

By Marc Comtois | December 18, 2012 |

in the wake of the Newtown, CT massacre, URI History Professor Erik Loomis is getting national attention (h/t) for his tweets calling the National Rifle Association terrorists and other rational, academic thoughts (your tax dollars at work, Rhode Island!). As reported at Campus Reform: “[I] want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick,” Erik Loomis, a…

Things We Read Today (28), Thursday

By Justin Katz | November 1, 2012 |

Mainstream reporters chat; the unknown cost of economic development; improving higher education by dumbing it down; a lawless society. Continue reading on the Ocean State Current…