Top 5 stories of the week: September 8, 2023
Below are Campus Reform's top five stories of the week. Dive into our quick summaries to stay informed about the spread of liberal bias on college campuses.
Below are Campus Reform’s top five stories of the week. Dive into our quick summaries to stay informed about the spread of liberal bias on college campuses.
1. Harvard ranked worst school for free speech, receives worst rating ever recorded by legal group
Harvard University is at the bottom of the barrel in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s College Free Speech Rankings, scoring an “abysmal” 0 out of 100– the worst score ever recorded by the organization.
”Simply put, Harvard has never performed well in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings, finishing below 75% of the schools surveyed in each of the past four years,” the nonprofit states.
2. ANALYSIS: Students are entering college unable to write
K-12 public education has failed to prepare incoming college students how to write at the public level. In a desperate attempt to catch high school graduates up to speed, many universities are providing remedial writing classes to college students.
About 68% of those starting at two-year public institutions and 40% of students enrolled in public four-year universities took at least one remedial writing class between 2003 to 2009, according to an original report from the Department of Education.
Cornell University President Martha Pollack said Aug. 24 that while Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and free expression are at odds with each other, the university will uphold both values.
In an email sent to the university community Thursday, Aug. 24, Pollack wrote, “Do these two values, of diversity and free expression, sometimes come into tension with one another? Of course they do. It is the job of universities to manage that tension and to uphold both values: if not perfectly, then in a manner that does them both justice.”
4. Sherlock Holmes and Watson are lesbians in this ‘queer, feminist’ adaptation of the classic play
Students at the University of Wisconsin are partaking in a modern-day play adaptation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in which the iconic male characters are depicted as lesbians.
The school’s theatre and drama department is putting on a production called, Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson — APT. 2B, a play that “re-examines the world’s most famous detective with a bold new feminist lens.” The show premiered in July and will return again from Sept. 14-24 at UW’s Ronald E. Mitchell Theatre in Madison.
5. UMich agrees to support ‘unarmed, non-police emergency response program’ per union demands
The University of Michigan (UMich) agreed to support an unarmed non-police emergency response program based on demands from its graduate employee union.
The agreement is part of an agreement between UMich and the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) to end a strike. According to a press release from the organization, obtained by All About Ann Arbor, the program will likely be the first of its type at a higher education institution.