Education

A Law Student Production of “Hamlet”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The Georgetown Gilbert and Sullivan Society is the now half-century old theater organization I inadvertently spawned as a first year law student (before they were called “1Ls”) at Georgetown University Law Center. Right now, the group, which calls itself “The only theater group with its own law school,” is nearing an all-time peak in student participation, interest and talent, making this old lawyer-theater guy proud and happy indeed.

Last night I attended closing night of the group’s ambitious, full production of “Hamlet,” which most community theater groups wouldn’t dare attempt. It was a modern dress version (period set “Hamlet’s” are the exception rather than the rule and have been for decades) with an “emo” concept that worked just fine. The student director staged with skill and intelligence, the casting was spot on, and it even gave me some new insights into the work despite having see the play too many times to list. Yes, a woman played the Danish prince, but the 1L actress was excellent, and female Hamlets first appeared in 1899, when the great Sarah Bernhardt played the role.

Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Charlie Kirk Statue

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

(See? I spelled “Charlie” right this time!)

Utah Valley University is where conservative activist Charley Kirk was murdered. Reasonably, the school has proposed erecting a statue in honor of Kirk, who was widely admired for his character and legacy, the student group Turning Point USA, a spearhead of the conservative and MAGA movements.

The proposal has sparked furious controversy on the campus, however. UVU Students for a Democratic Society, a progressive group, argues that Kirk is not worthy of such an honor, that students oppose a statue that will make them feel “unsafe” (as in “represents viewpoints that they disagree with.” I know, I know…) and that they don’t want “outsiders” coming on the campus to gawk at a statue.

“We’re out here because we want to protest any sort of Charlie Kirk memorial,” a student protester told reporters at a recent rally. “We don’t want his likeness on campus; we don’t want his likeness sort of immortalized.” Signs at the group’s rally had legends like “No Kirk on Campus” and “Memorial For Unity Not Hate.”

There are dueling petitions pushing for and against a statue to Kirk, with the opposition threatening to tear down a Kirk memorial if one appears. Considering how the Mad Left went on a statue-toppling rampage not long ago, this does not seem like an idle threat—or, if you like, an idol threat.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is it respectful and responsible for a school to erect a statue that inspires such strong divisions on campus?

I regard this as a tough ethics call. Even if the protesters represent a vocal minority, even if their hatred for Kirk is based on misunderstandings or extremism, even if not erecting a Kirk statue will constitute a successful heckler’s veto, I question whether insisting on a statue (that is certain to be defaced, vandalized or destroyed) of a political figure in the current polarized environment on campuses and elsewhere is simply fanning flames that need to be extinguished.

____________

Pointer: College Fix

Harvard’s Self-Indicting Grade Inflation Report

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Harvard College’s Office of Undergraduate Education issued a 25- page report sent to faculty and Harvard College students this week. Incredibly, it revealed that more 60% of the grades awarded to Harvard undergraduates are A’s, which, of course, means that the school’s standards of performance are elusive at best. The report concluded that Harvard’s current grading system is “damaging the academic culture of the College.” Ya think? It is more than that. Such low standards of excellence mean that a Harvard diploma, which the world accepts as powerful evidence of merit and superior intellectual skills, is a fraud.

The report drew on years of data on student grades and course evaluations, as well as surveys of faculty and student leaders. A faculty committee found earlier this year that undergraduates often prioritize other interests over classwork…you know, like protesting in favor of terrorists and against Jews. Still, the report found that the amount of time students say they spend on coursework outside of class each week has remained stable over the past two decades.

Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Observations on Another Progressive Academic Meltdown”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I have combined two related comments by prodigal son commenter jdkazoo123 to make one, big, bang-up Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Observations on Another Progressive Academic Meltdown.”

The “great column” jd references at the beginning was not mine (humph!) but his fellow D.C. area prof Jonathan Turley’s blog post which I referenced in mine. The result is an example of the very best EA commenters are capable of producing when they are civil, analytical, generous with their time and thoughts, and have direct experience with the subject matter, which fortunately is often.

And here it is…

***

It’s a great column. I agree that there is to my knowledge no comparable violence on the right on college campuses by faculty. I disagree that there is a systemic effort to exclude conservative voices from higher education. I coauthored a book in 2008, Closed Minds? about ideology and politics in higher education. We conducted a nationwide random sample survey of professors. We confirmed that profs are even more liberal than they were 20 years ago, and they’ve been on the left as an occupation since the first scientific polls of faculty in the 1930s. BUT–the causes of the initial and the intensifying tilt are not a conspiracy, or at least, Occam’s Razor would suggest several other better ones.

First, folks who are on the right are often believers in markets. Folks who believe in markets are often motivated by them. Academia has a very low ceiling for money. The big money on campus is in administration and in sports. Some superstar profs (usually in hard sciences, but sometimes business or econ or every now and then something else) gets north of 180K, but it’s rare. And there’s many tens of thousands scrapping by as adjuncts, who would risk that? It’s far more likely you end up teaching 8 adjunct courses a year for less than 50K with no benefits than that you get tenure at a high paid place and clear 170K at the end of your career. My friends who went into business, law, medicine…all make significantly more than me.

Second–most profs are at public universities. In 1950, both Ds and Rs were for spending on higher ed. Today…in most states…if an R wins the governorship, profs get no raises for a while. We are not shocked when oil and gas executives vote GOP because that makes them richer. Professors are not saints. We like money, too. Finally, and perhaps most importantly–campuses are places where the gay rights debate was over by about 1988. The rest of the nation was still having huge arguments about this in 2010. Similar thing happened in the 1950s with race–profs got their first on racial equality, on average. The GOP doubled down on anti-gay in elections like 2004, and also allowed figures who believe stuff like young earth creationism and the divine right of men to lead, to speak at their conventions. This was smart politically, because there are many more believers in creationism than there are college professors, but when you take those positions….you lose support on campuses.

Continue reading →

Ethics Observations on Another Progressive Academic Meltdown

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

On his usually excellent blog, Prof. Jonathan Turley tells readers about Derek Lopez, a teacher’s assistant and graduate student at Illinois State University. This jerk—-signature significance!—was caught on video attacking a Turning Point USA table on his campus and verbally abusing the conservative students manning it. The 27-year-old Lopez says to the students as he overturns their table, “Well, you know, Jesus did it, so you know I gotta do it, right? Thanks, guys, have a great day!”  Then he tears down a TPUSA flyer on a nearby bulletin board.

He was later arrested. Will he be fired? He should be, but don’t bet on it. He is a part of a dangerous ideological movement in this country that believes that violence and the abuse of political adversaries is justified as the “means necessary” to remake America. He is not an aberration.

Ethics Observations:

Continue reading →

The Latest Orwellian “Newspeak” From The Mad Left: “Loyalty Oath”

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I am ever watchful for Trump Administration ethical and legal overreach. We know this man by now (though he is still full of surprises, some good, some frightening) , and if any leader has ever been prone to get cocky when flushed with success, leading him to breach rules, laws, ethics and common sense, Donald Trump is. So when I read in some Axis news source that university professors are “up in arms” over Trump pressing colleges and universities into signing a “loyalty oath,” my ethics alarms imitated Big Ben. Oh-oh. Loyalty oaths are anathema to democracy and the United States of America, but it sounds like something Trump might find appealing.

But upon research that took me about 15 minutes but that the members of the public this lie is aimed at deceiving won’t do, there is no “loyalty oath.” The unethical academics and activists trying to ensure that American universities remain leftist indoctrination camps came up with that label because they knew it was inflammatory and would make the Trump Deranged, their tending-toward-Trump Derangement family, friends and co-workers, and the intellectually lazy and gullible certain that a fascist takeover is approaching.

Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes: The Academy of Classical Christian Studies High School Girls Basketball Team (Oklahoma City)

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

It’s time for an encouraging ethics tale, and this is one.

(That’s Pandora above, viewing the last, and only benign, occupant of her famous box. Hope!)

The Academy of Classical Christian Studies high school girls basketball team in Oklahoma City won last season’s division championship game. A last second buzzer-beating basket against Apache High School did the job. But something didn’t feel right to Academy head coach Brendan King …perhaps the faint ping of an ethics alarm. He went home that night and watched the game tape.

“As soon as I walked out of the locker room, my stomach kind of turned into knots. And I said, ‘I’m going to need to know if we really won this game or not,'” King told reporters. Sure enough, when he checked the tape and tallied up the baskets, he discovered his team had actually lost. The true score should have been 43-42, with Apache High the victors and the winners of the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association girls basketball championship. Somehow 2 points had been mistakenly given to King’s team, making it the 43-42 winners.

League rules state that once a game is completed, it is in the books and the records can’t be changed.  King decided to tell his team the bad news anyway. The girls unanimously agreed what the right course was, and it was to appeal their own victory. In an unprecedented reversal, the league agreed, and King surrendered the championship plaque to Apache High.

Apache girls basketball head coach Amy Merriweather said that more than the championship, she and her team were grateful for the ethics lesson. “It showed us, you know, there are still good people in this world,” Merriweather said. “It’s something we’ll always remember.”

Indeed.

There is hope.

_____________________

Pointer: Jon

Ethics Quiz: FREEDOM

/ Jack Marshall / 74 Comments

Libs of TikTok…you know, that account that progressives call racist and homophobic and transphobic even though it only re-posts damning evidence of woke lunacy from TikTok and other platforms?…posted an email exchange between Arbor Creek Elementary Principal Melissa Snell and an (unnamed) individual in which Snell indicated that “Freedom” T-shirts were banned in her school.  “I just want to make sure that you have told your staff to not wear those ‘Freedom’ shirts to school anymore. Thank you.” Jonathan Turley confirmed that there is such a ban, though it may be temporary. Superintendent Brent Yeager confirmed the emails that Libs of TikTok had postedbut suggested that it was temporary as Snell “reviewed district practices.”

Turley says there is nothing to review.”I fail to see why Snell had to suspend the wearing of such shirts pending review. “This is clearly a content-based limitation on speech,” he writes.

Continue reading →

How Long Can Harvard Maintain the Myth That It Is a Trustworthy and Resepctable Institution With Stories Like These?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

A brief introduction: Last night I attended a lavish Georgetown Law Center reunion gala. I boycotted the previous reunion of my class and would have boycotted this one, but two classmates I hadn’t seen in decades persuaded me to attend. Georgetown being a sort-of Catholic institution there was prayer before the meal, but the cleric involved felt it necessary to lead into the blessing with a long string of dog-whistles to angry progressives, “the resistance,” Democrats and the Trump-Deranged, droning on about “troubled times” and “losing hope” and the need to “navigate the waters of societal division” with kindness, mercy and respect for humanity. I started eating long before she got to amen: another ad for illegal immigration was a good bet to spoil my appetite. Later on, one of my left-wing classmates volunteered the opinion that she was glad that Harvard had stood up to the Evil One. I began listing all of the reasons I have my diploma to that school turned to the wall, and, of course, she was aware of none of them. Why? You know the reason: she only reads and watches the Axis news media, which carefully gives minimum attention to incidents that tend to discredit fellow propagandists and indoctrinaters of the Left…like Harvard. I stumbled across a useful new website last week that highlights embarrassing news and developments regarding Old Ivy, but lost the link. I searched for it using every possible search term, and couldn’t locate it on Google.

Gee, I wonder why…

Sorry for the digression. Back to the topic at hand: here are two bits of damning Harvard news:

Continue reading →

Zohran Mamdani Isn’t Necessarily Wrong About Everything: NYC’s Gifted and Talented Program

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Zohran Mamdani, the”Democratic-Socialist” (aka. Communist) who will be the next mayor of New York City, says he will end the gifted and talented program in elementary schools, and conservatives “pounced” on the news, arguing that this is a frontal attack on Asian-Americans who voted for him in the primary.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, not quite a Communist but married to one, announced his intentions in 2021 to phase out the gifted program for elementary schools, which has been accused of exacerbating segregation. The students qualifying for the program are substantially made up of Asians and whites, with Hispanics and black “under-represented” according to their percentage of the demographics. But unless you are a DEI nut case, it makes no sense to assign seats in an academically-gifted program by race, color or creed.

Under Mamdani’s plan, students who are in gifted classes now would remain in the program, but there would be no gifted program for kindergartners next fall, effectively terminating the program for the future.

Continue reading →