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Category: Education

Colleges are preparing to self destruct by inserting AI into the educational process

Colleges are preparing to self destruct by inserting AI into the educational process

Michael Clune writes: After three years of doing essentially nothing to address the rise of generative AI, colleges are now scrambling to do too much. Over the summer, Ohio State University, where I teach, announced a new initiative promising to “embed AI education into the core of every undergraduate curriculum, equipping students with the ability to not only use AI tools, but to understand, question and innovate with them—no matter their major.” Similar initiatives are being rolled out at other…

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Students deserve to be told the truth about American history

Students deserve to be told the truth about American history

Clint Smith writes: “Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Thomas Jefferson,” I said to a group of about 70 middle schoolers in Memphis. Hands shot up across the auditorium. “What do we know about him?” I asked. “He was the president!” one said. “He had funny hair!” said another. “He wrote the Constitution?” one remarked, half-asking, half-asserting. I responded to each of their comments: “Yes, he was our country’s third president.” “That’s actually how many men wore their hair…

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America is sliding toward illiteracy

America is sliding toward illiteracy

Idrees Kahloon writes: The past decade may rank as one of the worst in the history of American education. It marks a stark reversal from what was once a hopeful story. At the start of the century, American students registered steady improvement in math and reading. Around 2013, this progress began to stall out, and then to backslide dramatically. What exactly went wrong? The decline began well before the pandemic, so COVID-era disruptions alone cannot explain it. Smartphones and social…

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MIT is first school to reject Trump’s extortion plan

MIT is first school to reject Trump’s extortion plan

NBC News reports: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday became the first school to reject an offer of federal funds in exchange for agreeing to the Trump administration’s education agenda. MIT disagreed with a number of aspects of the administration’s proposal, which was sent to nine major universities last week, arguing that it would restrict the university’s freedom of expression and independence, Sally Kornbluth, president of the Cambridge-based school, wrote in a letter Friday to the Department of Education….

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Marc Rowan: The billionaire behind Trump’s extortion plan targeting universities

Marc Rowan: The billionaire behind Trump’s extortion plan targeting universities

“Traditionally, we are taught to judge the success of a society by how it deals with the least able, most vulnerable members of that society. [But] shouldn’t we judge a society by how they treat the most successful?” Marc Rowan, 2012 The New York Times reports: The Trump administration shook higher education this week when it promised benefits to universities that signed a “compact” closely aligned with conservative priorities. But much of the compact’s construction happened outside of the West…

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How far are colleges willing to go to limit the harms caused by AI?

How far are colleges willing to go to limit the harms caused by AI?

Tyler Austin Harper writes: Since the release of ChatGPT, in 2022, colleges and universities have been engaged in an experiment to discover whether artificially intelligent chatbots and the liberal-arts tradition can coexist. Notwithstanding a few exceptions, by now the answer is clear: They cannot. AI-enabled cheating is pretty much everywhere. As a May New York magazine essay put it, “students at large state schools, the Ivies, liberal-arts schools in New England, universities abroad, professional schools, and community colleges are relying…

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Trump’s so-called ‘compact’ with universities is simply extortion

Trump’s so-called ‘compact’ with universities is simply extortion

Erwin Chemerinsky writes: On Wednesday, the Trump administration sent letters to nine major universities proposing a “compact.” As The Times reports, the agreement would, among other things, require these universities to freeze tuition rates for five years, limit the enrollment of foreign students and be bound to specific definitions of gender. It would also require them to prohibit anything that would “punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” In exchange, these universities would receive “multiple positive benefits,” including…

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Newsom threatens to cut state funding to universities that sign Trump’s coercive political ‘compact’

Newsom threatens to cut state funding to universities that sign Trump’s coercive political ‘compact’

The Los Angeles Times reports: Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to cut “billions” in state funding, including to USC, from any California campus that signs a Trump administration compact and agrees to sweeping and largely conservative campus policies in exchange for priority access to federal funding. “If any California University signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding — including Cal Grants — instantly,” Newsom said. “California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors,…

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Jane Goodall (1934–2025): primatologist, conservationist, and messenger of hope

Jane Goodall (1934–2025): primatologist, conservationist, and messenger of hope

Rhett Ayers Butler writes: Jane Goodall, who revealed the intimate lives of chimpanzees and gave the modern world a language of hope, has died at the age of 91. Over the course of six decades, she moved from an unlikely young researcher in the forests of East Africa to one of the most recognizable scientists and conservationists of her time. Her patient fieldwork at Gombe transformed primatology, overturning entrenched beliefs about the uniqueness of humans and forcing science to reckon…

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How AI is undermining education

How AI is undermining education

Clay Shirky writes: I remember the moment I knew my approach to student use of artificial intelligence was not working. Early in a meeting at N.Y.U.’s Abu Dhabi campus last fall, a philosophy professor, arms crossed over his chest, told me he’d tried one of the strategies my office had suggested — talking with his students about the ways A.I. could interfere with their learning — and it hadn’t worked. His students had listened politely, then several of them had…

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After crushing dissent, American universities are deepening their ties with Israeli academia

After crushing dissent, American universities are deepening their ties with Israeli academia

+972 reports: At the end of July, Harvard signaled its willingness to spend as much as half a billion dollars to settle accusations of antisemitism brought by the Trump administration. While the scandal — and the staggering sum — has drawn widespread attention, a previous concession slipped under the radar: in a failed bid to placate the administration earlier this year, Harvard agreed to establish a formal partnership with an Israeli university. On July 28, Harvard announced two new initiatives…

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Trump and Miller are compelling colleges not to enroll international students

Trump and Miller are compelling colleges not to enroll international students

Stuart Anderson writes: The Trump administration is using rules, policies and formal agreements to compel and discourage U.S. universities from enrolling international students. A controversial immigration clause in the administration’s agreement with Columbia University represents the latest move to decrease international student enrollment. Settlements with other schools could soon follow. Despite what economists and educators view as the benefits of international students, Trump officials, led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, appear determined to reduce the number…

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The Columbia deal with Trump is a blueprint. All of higher education should fear what comes next

The Columbia deal with Trump is a blueprint. All of higher education should fear what comes next

Vox reports: One by one, elite universities are signing away some of their autonomy to the Trump administration after it has accused them of civil rights violations and withheld federal funding. The University of Pennsylvania banned transgender women from participating in women’s college sports as part of an agreement with the Trump administration earlier this month. Columbia University agreed last week to pay $200 million in penalties and fulfill a laundry list of other demands, from slashing diversity, equity, and…

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The pro-Israel professors who support student deportations

The pro-Israel professors who support student deportations

Jacqueline Sweet reports: In March 2024, Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus (DJHC) emerged on Instagram and X as another node in a network of organizations decrying pro-Palestine faculty and students at Columbia University. The group slowly grew to focus on what it called other “participating schools”—such as CUNY, which it called a “hotbed of antisemitism.” Like its fellow Zionist doxxing outfits Betar and Canary Mission, its preferred solution was student deportation. On Election Day, DJHC posted a clip of Trump…

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Columbia shakedown sets precedent for Trump regime to extract massive payments from other universities

Columbia shakedown sets precedent for Trump regime to extract massive payments from other universities

The Wall Street Journal reports: The White House is seeking fines from several universities it says failed to stop antisemitism on campus, including hundreds of millions of dollars from Harvard University, in exchange for allowing the schools to access federal funding, according to a person familiar with the matter. The deal that the Trump administration struck with Columbia University on Wednesday is now a blueprint for negotiations with other universities, a White House official said. Columbia agreed to pay $200…

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Columbia ‘deal’ with Trump regime amounts to a legally formulated extortion scheme

Columbia ‘deal’ with Trump regime amounts to a legally formulated extortion scheme

David Pozen writes: Earlier this evening, Columbia University announced an agreement with the Trump administration in which Columbia makes a host of concessions in order to restore its eligibility for federal funding. The agreement is already being described as “unprecedented,” “the first of its kind.” These descriptions are true but ambiguous, because the agreement breaks new ground on any number of levels. For instance, the agreement marks the first time that antisemitism and DEI have been invoked as the basis…

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