Class Action
Reviewing Charles Murray's "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010"
On the Newsstand:Yale
Act of Valor and the Limits of Elitism
Even in the military, there are glimmers of the hubris and self-confidence that elite institutions can breed—especially in deep secrecy.
Harvard Exceptionalism?
The case against holding ourselves to a higher standard when it comes to awards such as the Marshall and Rhodes Scholarships
63% Believe Climate Change is Happening? Not bad!
Last week, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies released a report called Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change. The document is the result of an extensive analysis of how well Americans grasp the practical and scientific nature of climate change, and by the fifth page, the authors have declared the quality of the knowledge for 52% of those surveyed ... Read More
Scandals: Three-for-One Sale!
It’s scandal day in the world of politics. First, Sue Lowden, the front-runner in the Nevada Republican primary, looking to replace Harry Reid, seems to have broken campaign finance laws by accepting a luxury campaign bus from a donor. This could be good news for Reid because Lowden has been performing better in polling match-ups against Reid than have either ... Read More
Kagan!
Sorry, Yale. No contest. I won’t go on about the nomination process, which has been covered to death. But, I just wanted to point out this particularly conspiratorial, but savvy, analysis at Above the Law about Deputy Principal Counsel (and Harvard law professor, again) Dan Meltzer: Also on Friday, Daniel Meltzer resigned as deputy principal counsel, to return to his post ... Read More
Three Weeks of HPRgument
We began The HPRgument with the goal of creating a new space on campus for lively discussion of the things that matter — political, cultural, or Harvardian Since we began three weeks ago, debate on this site has been spirited and engaged: we’ve taken on the racial politics of Avatar, praised Obama’s “shrewd” bank tax, discussed the “ Sociology of ... Read More
Weighing in: The Asian Ceiling
Check out Jon Yip’s post, “The Asian Ceiling” for a review of a Kara Miller’s Boston Globe editorial about Asian discrimination in the college admission process. Asians are the new Jews, Miller explains: In a country built on individual liberty and promise, that feels deeply unfair. If a teenager spends much time studying, excels at an instrument or sport, and ... Read More
The Asian Ceiling
Today's colleges welcome Asians with open arms—they just don't want too many of us
Yale and the Times
Perhaps I’m harping too much on this news-reading thing, but Yale is currently in a fervor over cost-cutting plans to scrap dining hall subscriptions of the New York Times. One Yalie said that he “had a slight heart attack”—and I thought having a heart attack was pretty binary—when he saw plans to terminate the $50,000-a-year subscriptions. One student wrote an ... Read More
Wall Street, Rhodes Scholars, and the Soul of the University
Last Saturday the 2010 Rhodes scholars were announced and a full five Harvard students were among them (along with two Yale students and one Princeton student…but, really, who’s counting?) On the same day, Elliot Gerson, the American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, published an op-ed in the Washington Post, pointing out that more and more Rhodes scholars are pursuing careers ... Read More
