CNews 24January12
Interesting essay over at Minding the Campus re: How Liberal Arts has shit the bed (although they use less, um, scatological—but no less apt thereby—metaphors). (via Monty over at Ace of Spades, who notes "The good news (if you can call it that) is that five decades of concerted mismanagement of their field has left the history department and the liberal arts wing in general bereft of influence and power: no one takes those clowns seriously any more, and they have no one to blame but themselves.")
Excerpt:
There are few areas in which the groupthink academy has had a more disastrous impact than the study of U.S. history. One-sidedness has its costs, however, in terms of influence outside the Ivory Tower. Courts or politicians who rely on the opinions of professors who now qualify as "mainstream" U.S. historians do so at their own peril.
CNews 19January12
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, four academic groups filed an amicus brief (pdf) with the Colorado Supreme Court yesterday arguing that Churchill should remain an ex-professer.
Excerpt:
Frankly, their first argument, entitled "A grant of quasi-judicial immunity to the board of regents and the university would preserve academic freedom and recognize the special role of the university in our constitutional jurisprudence" seems a bit far-fetched, at least on the "special role" the university plays in "constitutional jurisprudence." But hey, with fabulists like Churchill, et al, on the opposing side, might as well drag in some penumbras of your own. Maybe one of our legaloid jackbooted thugs could enlighten us as to the viability of such an argument.In a brief submitted Wednesday, the groups argue that the reversal of a lower-court ruling granting the board immunity “would not only infringe on the institutional autonomy that is the cornerstone of academic freedom, but would chill universities’ incentive to provide robust internal processes for faculty misconduct proceedings.”
