Free Republic

Walk into almost any undergraduate classroom in the UNC System today, and one thing becomes immediately apparent: Men are often a minority. This is not something announced in orientation materials or highlighted in strategic plans, but it is visible in lecture halls, student organizations, and group projects across campus. What once felt like a subtle shift has become harder to ignore, raising a basic but surprisingly under-asked question about public higher education in North Carolina: Where have all the male students gone? When I arrived at UNC-Chapel Hill freshman year, I wasn’t thinking much about gender ratios, nor did anyone...

I reveal here that I have finally read a likable DEI book, one that I found so because—beyond any doubt whatever—this book will infuriate the DEI faithful. Make no mistake, I don’t like this book in the same way I might enjoy a Douglas Murray takedown of leftist shibboleths or a Thomas Sowell skewering of the economic-egghead fringe. Rather, for DEI proponents, it’s a realistic adjustment of expectations in a post-Floyd era, in which the ashes of DEI doctrine are being scraped from the floor even as you read this. Authors Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow have at least one...

Placed prominently within President Trump’s controversial “compact” for higher education was a call to center merit in admissions. The president’s offer to universities, which followed more than a decade of battles over what factors to consider in admissions, has sparked new debates about the meaning and value of merit. In particular, some college-admissions officials have pushed back on the idea that merit exists or have said that they have more meritorious individuals than spots. The second claim is partially true, but the first is not. Many selective colleges offer even more selective merit-based scholarships, which shows that they have at...

Texas A&M University is ending its women’s and gender studies program, changing the syllabuses of hundreds of courses and canceling six classes as part of a new policy that limits how professors can discuss some race and gender topics, school officials announced Friday. The changes to and cancellation of courses comes months after a viral video of a student confronting an instructor over her lessons threw Texas A&M, one of the largest universities in the country, into upheaval. University officials tried to reassure the campus that the impacts of the new policy would be minimal, affecting only a small portion...

Officials at Tufts University urged the community to report sightings of immigration officials Tuesday after they were alerted about federal activity near the campus.Yolanda Smith, chief of the university’s police department, told students and staff in an email that the campus’ Department of Public Safety was “actively monitoring the situation in coordination with our municipal partners in Medford and Somerville.”Anyone who encountered immigration officials “on or near campus” was urged to call campus police. They also referred community members to their Office of University Counsel website, which included information about their protocols regarding federal agents.“Tufts has a well‑defined process for...

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into everyday life occurred in what seemed like a blink of an eye. At every turn, some form of an AI “assistant” now offers to correct grammar, help compose emails, take notes of video calls, or distill large amounts of information into easily digestible summaries. Yet, even though AI is only an arm’s length away, many of its uses remain unexplored by academics and non-academics alike. In academia, some simply haven’t taken the time to learn how to use AI, while others are skeptical and even suspicious about its influence on research and learning....

Over the past year, a number of common tactics have emerged from the opposition to what is widely referred to as the Trump administration’s “defunding” of education. One of these is to decry the ostensibly catastrophic harm that will result from Trump’s moves, particularly in the areas of public health and scientific research. “American science and innovation should not be subject to the political winds of the day,” the Center for American Progress (CAP) intoned in a piece published over the summer. According to the authors, a would-be despotic, right-wing administration is “targeting” higher education for “political retribution.” “Higher education,...

Do American colleges still teach students how to think? Or have whole programs been built on fashionable but unexamined assumptions? Increasingly, one wonders whether parts of the curriculum are outright harmful. For years, it has felt as though American higher education were approaching rock bottom. One of the newest degrees on offer suggests we may finally have arrived. As a religious practice within Buddhism—particularly in its Theravada and Zen traditions—so-called mindfulness meditation aims to cultivate an awareness of the present moment, calm the mind, and help one avoid being carried away by thoughts. The term often overlaps with self-help trends...

Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET, Jan. 22, 2026: Dallas Baptist University posted an update explaining that "the Dallas Police Department and the FBI worked alongside our DBU Police Department to investigate the matter, and we can now issue an all-clear." According to university authorities, classes will resume as normal on Friday, Jan. 23. Original report:Dallas Baptist University canceled classes Thursday amid concerns about an unspecified threat to campus ahead of a planned speech by President Donald Trump's Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner. The Texas-based Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated university announced Thursday morning that it was canceling classes due to...

Watch full game highlights from the College Football Playoff National Championship as the Indiana Hoosiers defeated the Miami Hurricanes, 27-21. Fernando Mendoza threw for 186 YDS on 16-of-27 pass attempts with 1 rushing TD while RB Kaelon Black led the Hoosiers in rushing with 79 YDS on 17 carries.

Provisions in a budget passed in the Badger State this previous summer require that faculty at Wisconsin’s two flagship universities—UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee—now teach at least one course per semester and 12 credit hours each school year. At smaller universities, the requirements are higher. Choleric and incredulous, professors turned to the local paper to vent their outrage. I come here not to critique that policy specifically. There’s a colorable case to be made on either side of it. Perhaps a biologist working at the edge of human knowledge would be better off researching than teaching. Conversely, I feel little sympathy for...

As America enters an era that will seemingly be dominated by artificial intelligence (AI), many question the value of a college education. John Adams College (JAC), a recently founded liberal-arts institution in Provo, Utah, answers the value question by specializing in teaching uniquely human qualities. JAC, formerly Mount Liberty College, was founded in 2019 by professors who were discontented with the college status quo. Tired of college being treated as mere career training, they built a new institution from scratch, dedicated to “preparing men and women to enter the world defending liberty, standing in humility, and upholding virtue.” JAC offers...

There are no flotillas on the way to save Iran. No Soros-funded “democracy” groups pressuring Western governments to intervene on behalf of civilians being arrested and murdered. No astroturfing movement demanding economic boycotts. When college students return from winter break this month, they’ll find not a single encampment supporting the Iranian uprising against one of the world’s most brutal regimes. Nor are there any emergency meetings or condemnations from the United Nations — member states have been busy denouncing the United States for removing Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and Israel for its recognition of Somaliland. The more people might be...

If ever a case made plain the clash of values between freedom of speech and the desire of college administrators to compel everyone to support their “progressive” beliefs, Reges v. Cauce is it. This is an important First Amendment case, one in which the Martin Center joined in an amicus brief in support of a professor who was targeted with official retaliation because he spoke out against his university’s “land acknowledgement” policy and substituted his own views for the school’s. What nerve! Before getting into the details of the case, let’s examine the background. Specifically, why do so many college...

A new report from Students for Life of America’s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement has found that 114 Christian colleges and universities in the United States — more than one in seven — are supporting abortion in some way. The report found these Christian universities either backing abortion or maintaining some type of relationship with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion company. The investigation, conducted for the fourth consecutive year during the 2024-2025 academic year, examined 725 institutions affiliated with Christ-centered denominations that publicly claim a historical Christian faith in their founding. Schools from denominations embracing a pro-abortion stance, such...

Late last year, the Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch penned a widely shared essay on campus “disability accommodations,” the practice whereby students with learning disorders such as ADHD receive extra time on tests or the use of “otherwise-prohibited technology.” The piece did not make for pleasant reading. Among Horowitch’s findings was that, because universities have made “the process of getting accommodations easier,” the share of students who qualify “has grown at a breathtaking pace.” At the University of Chicago, for instance, “the number has more than tripled over the past eight years.” At Amherst, a stunning 34 percent of undergraduates were formally...

The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE) has published its second “State of the Chief Diversity Officer” (CDO) report. Following up on the 2023 survey, the 2025 study shares some interesting findings. Have efforts to rid higher education of DEI’s influence been, from NADOHE’s members’ perspective, a decidedly undesirable success? The report received responses from 394 CDOs and academic diversity officers (ADOs) and asked how these roles had changed either positively or negatively since 2023. Although one might expect such a study to illustrate that DEI is in danger on higher-ed campuses, the findings don’t convincingly indicate...

In an undated post regarding admissions to graduate arts and sciences programs for the 2026–27 academic year, Boston University indicated that the history of art and architecture program was not admitting candidates, along with American studies, anthropology, religion, and romance studies programs. In November 2024, meanwhile, the school had already indicated that its department of the history of art and architecture would not accept Ph.D. students for the next academic year, according to a report from Inside Higher Education. In an email obtained by the publication, the heads of the College of Arts and Sciences, which includes the art history...

The recent closure of The Dwelling at Biola University — a support group for students identifying as LGBT or experiencing same-sex attraction — marks the end of a chapter in a difficult struggle to reconcile biblical orthodoxy with contemporary campus culture. As someone who walked away from a lesbian identity after encountering the full Gospel, I am sympathetic to the administration's challenges and deeply concerned about the implications of its approach. President Barry Corey deserves credit for seeking to provide a safe environment for struggling students. His vision of "grace and truth" resonated with many: upholding biblical sexual ethics while...

After nearly closing in 2019, a Western Massachusetts college continues to face challenges, missing its 2025 enrollment goal by half. Instead of recruiting 300 students, Hampshire College in Amherst enrolled about 150 new students. That makes for a total of 750 full-time students, Jennifer Chrisler, Hampshire’s newly named president, told MassLive in November. Chrisler attributes some of the admissions challenges to other institutions opening up their waitlists and taking more students than usual, forcing even more competition between institutions to vie for the same students. Many universities struggled with a decline in international students due to federal policies. “That had...