Philosophy’s No-Go Zone
An MIT professor describes the outraged reaction from fellow philosophers when he argued that a woman is an adult human female.
Alex Byrne
· 19 min read
Academia
A collection of 51 posts
The Real Reasons Why the English Department Died
Most professors would rather watch it die than reform.
Adam Ellwanger
· 9 min read
Is There Such a Thing as a Good Academic-Activist?
The problem isn’t that some academics are activists. It’s that some academics do activism badly.
Holly Lawford-Smith
· 10 min read
Gender Equity When It Suits
Organisations should apply the principle evenhandedly.
Anthony Jorm
· 6 min read
The Overregulation of Science
Overly burdensome rules dampen enthusiasm for research and delay scientific progress.
Evan D Morris
· 11 min read
Stuck in the Middle (of Academia)
Academia is a mess, but there is still hope.
Christopher J. Ferguson
· 12 min read
In the World of Astrophysics, One Failed Cancel Campaign Led to Another
When Hakeem Oluseyi exposed false claims about former NASA director James Webb, anti-Webb activists tried to take Oluseyi down as well.
Jonathan Kay
· 9 min read
Bloated College Administration Is Making Education Unaffordable
Our campuses are stuffed with non-academic office workers. If elected to Harvard’s Board of Overseers, I‘ll propose firing most of them.
Harvey Silverglate
· 4 min read
Child Welfare Is Becoming a Joke
The field is mired in risible theory and impenetrable jargon, and increasingly divorced from concern with the welfare of children.
Naomi Schaefer Riley
· 6 min read
Why I Left Academia (Since You're Wondering)
I didn’t have a choice. Thousands of people are driven out of the profession each year.
William Deresiewicz
· 16 min read
Critical Race Theory Wasn’t Always Like This
The version of CRT that I studied in the 1990s offered a useful critique of American institutions—rather than a moral condemnation of American souls.
Jonathan Kay
· 6 min read
When Disagreement Becomes Trauma
How does one deal with those who claim that debate itself represents an agony beyond human endurance?
Jonathan Kay
· 8 min read
I Signed Up to Study Journalism. What They Taught Me Was Activism
Even by the hyper-progressive standards of the Canadian education sector, Ryerson University in Toronto has distinguished itself as being unusually energetic in its social justice messaging. Last spring, Indigenous activists destroyed the statue of the university’s namesake, Egerton Ryerson, on the basis that he helped design Canada’s system
Jonathan Bradley
· 11 min read
Herbert Marcuse and the Left’s Endless Campaign Against Western ‘Repression’
The Frankfurt School of social theory began about a century ago, in the Weimar Republic. It consisted in the main of a group of rather anti-capitalist, Marxist-light gentlemen who embraced oikophobia (the hatred or dislike of one’s own cultural home), and who were understandably disillusioned by the carnage of
Benedict Beckeld
· 8 min read
The Problem of Sex Discrimination in Indigenous Archaeology
In January, as reporters were celebrating the first woman—and also the first transgender person—to win more than a million dollars on Jeopardy!, I was reading up on the discrimination still faced by biological women who toil away in my own fields of endeavor: anthropology and archaeology. This discrimination
Elizabeth Weiss
· 8 min read