Who Came Along and Ruined the Humanities?
By Lee Siegel | Fewer and fewer undergraduates are majoring in the humanities, and critic Lee Siegel couldn’t be happier. As he tells WSJ’s Gary Rosen, great poetry and novels are meant to be experienced in private and alone, away from the competitive pressures of the classroom. You’ve probably heard…
New FTU Course: How Do I Do the Right Thing?
Listen in to a panel discussion at Princeton University moderated by Brit Hume on the issue of ethics and ethical decision-making. Can you know right from wrong? 2 HOURS, 1,000 POINTS.
High School Reading Becoming Simpler: Surprised?
By Samuel Klee | We’ve all heard it—life is far easier now than “back in the day” when our grandparents were young. I admit, those words may contain some degree of truth; at school, research no longer requires laborious pilgrimages to musty library crypts, and I shall never relinquish my laptop for a Remington typewriter. Rejoice! Life is improving with time, and we are the fortunate beneficiaries. However, this trend toward ease is apparently not confined to the technological realm. A recent study by Renaissance Learning has compared high school required readings from 1907 to 2012, claiming that…
DeMint Writes Letter to Putin on Exceptionalism
By Amy Payne | This past week in The New York Times—on September 11, no less—Russian President Vladimir Putin took issue with the idea of American exceptionalism. He wrote: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries…”
Is the Job Outlook and Employment Improving?
By Neil Irwin | If you only looked at the headlines on Friday’s August jobs numbers, you’d think “Not bad!” You would also be completely wrong. Yes, the unemployment rate fell a notch to 7.3 percent, from 7.4 percent in July. Yes, the nation added 169,000 jobs, broadly consistent with the pattern of of recent months.
As Students Return to Campus, Rights Remain Threatened
By Nico Perrino | As college students head back to campus this fall, they face a multitude of threats to their fundamental freedoms. Unconstitutional “free speech zones” and demonstration policies restrict when and where students can speak. New federal rules compromise due process and free speech…
California Bill Illustrates Threats to Religious Freedom
By Thomas Messner | Legislation “cruising” through the California legislature would strip certain state-level tax exemptions from nonprofit youth groups that differentiate on “gender identity,” “sexual orientation,” and other bases. The bill names familiar youth organizations such as the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and…
Republicans are “Dying White People Who Raped America”
By College Fix Staff | A recording released Tuesday of a Michigan State University professor captures the educator bashing Republicans in a variety of ways on the first day of school, Campus Reform reports. On the recording, taken unbeknownst to the educator, creative writing Prof. William S. Penn says…
Florida State’s Scholarship Winner
By Prof Jack Lewis | Free Think U Foundation is proud to announce another of its recent scholarship winners, Brittney Deoliveira, who is enrolled at Florida State University. Brittney was awarded a grant toward her college tuition costs in part because of her course editing work for Free Think University.