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Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. In 2019-2021, he served as the Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, executive secretary of the department's Commission on Unalienable Rights, and senior adviser to the...
Colleges' Big Fail: Protecting Feelings, But Not Speech
The annual ritual of freshman orientation, which begins in mid-summer and extends through mid-September, is in full swing. Colleges are welcoming students and showing them around, acquainting them with classmates and college facilities, and making them aware of the full range of campus activities, clubs, and programs.
Peggy Noonan's Words To Live By
In a June 4, 2010, Wall Street Journal column, republished in her new collection, “The Time of Our Lives,” Peggy Noonan tells the heartbreaking story of 28-year-old Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Armando Galarraga.
An Assault On Due Process At UC Berkeley
On April 22, University of California Berkeley law professor Sujit Choudhry filed an 11-page single-spaced grievance with the 10-member UC Berkeley Privilege and Tenure Committee.
Lawmakers Haven't Protected Free Speech On Campus-- Here's How They Can
Much as administrators and faculty may dislike it, the fact is that public colleges are subject to both the First Amendment and the state legislatures that fund them. Legislators shouldn’t micromanage the campuses, but they must set some basic rules.
States Consider Legislation To Protect Free Speech On Campus
On college campuses, outrage over provocative speakers sometimes turns violent. It's becoming a pattern on campuses around the country. A speaker is invited, often by a conservative student group. Other students oppose the speaker, and maybe they protest. If the speech happens, the speaker is heckled. Sometimes there's violence.
Campus Declarations Of War On Free Speech
The threat to free speech in the United States is by no means restricted to colleges and universities, but they have become breeding grounds, training camps, and launching pads in the campaign to curtail liberty of thought and discussion. It is on our campuses where the battle for free speech will be won or lost.
Violence Is Becoming More Acceptable
When one-fifth of college students believe it's fine to use violence to silence speech, we have a huge problem.
Colleges' Central Mission Erodes-- And Free Speech With It
Only apologists determined to avert their eyes and cover their ears could deny with a straight face that higher education in America today nurses hostility to free speech.
Can The Federal Government Rescue Campus Free Speech?
The well-documented inability of American colleges and universities to reverse the several-decades-long curtailment of free speech on campus is a matter of considerable public interest. Whether the federal government is capable of producing effective reform is another question. President Trump seems to believe Washington is up to the task.
The Peyton Manning Case Is Distracting Us From Today’s Campus Sex Assault Problem
The never-ending controversy over Peyton Manning’s backside has several uncomfortable tensions at work: factual uncertainty, failed accountability and the urge to seek a correction now for something 20 years ago. But all of it amounts to a supercharged distraction from the real question: Why aren’t we talking about current events at Tennessee instead of a murky one 20 years ago?
OFF TO THE RACES: The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action
The Supreme Court will soon announce its decisions on two cases that are being called the most important for affirmative action in a quarter century. These cases both challenge the use of racial preferences in the admissions policies at the University of Michigan. On one side of the legal dispute over the Michigan policies are those who argue that creating racial diversity on college campuses is a "compelling interest" that justifies the use of certain types of racial preferences in the admissions process. On the other side are those who argue that any system that rewards people solely on the basis of race is unconstitutional. Who's right? And how will the Supreme Court's decision affect the future of affirmation action?
Teaching The Federalist
What happens when South Korean students take a close look at American democracy. By Peter Berkowitz.
A Boot Camp for Citizenship
Civics education must not be indoctrination, but it also must not be overlooked. By Peter Berkowitz.
No More “Party of No”
Educating the University
Peter Berkowitz on Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus by Donald Alexander Downs
Better Angels
Why Abraham Lincoln matters—even now. By Shelby Steele.
Mitch Daniels: Plain Talk from the President of Purdue
AUDIO ONLY
In this wide-ranging conversation with Peter Robinson, Daniels discusses his insistence on keeping Purdue’s tuition below $10,000 and how he does it, his vision for Purdue that includes mix of online and onsite education, and his efforts to hire an ideologically diverse faculty and recruit students from various backgrounds and ethnicities.
After Michigan
In June the Supreme Court issued a definitive—if narrow—ruling that permits the consideration of race in university admissions. This may have been bad law—but was it a bad decision? By Robert Zelnick.
America at the Bat
The Gender Refs
Federal regulators lock arms with college athletic departments to gut men’s sports in the name of equality