NAS Blog » Sexuality

The Diversity Mania Invades Medical School Admissions

George Leef — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:02:02 +0000

According to this piece in the Yale Daily News, Yale’s med school is jumping aboard the bandwagon for increasing diversity in its student body, aiming to include more LGBT students.

I can’t see how aiming at quotas (or “goals” or some other euphemism) for this or any other type of student will improve the overall competency of the medical profession. I can see the reverse of that.

Should Schools Become “Proactive” in Recruiting LGBT Students?

George Leef — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:21:35 +0000

The admissions director at Elmhurst College thinks so.

Will LGBT status or socio-economic status become the next mania among college admissions people intent on making their campuses “balanced” and “mirroring diversity”?

What We Pay Academics to Do

George Leef — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:55:09 +0000

A friend sent this announcement to me:

Call for Papers for THE ART OF GENDER IN EVERYDAY LIFE IX

A multidisciplinary conference, The Art of Gender in Everyday Life IX, will take place at Idaho State University on Wednesday, March 7 through Friday, March 9, 2012.

Gender is not a given. Its meaning and significance are constantly in flux.

This conference will explore the various ways in which gender is crafted, celebrated, endured, deciphered, expressed or, in short, the art of how it is lived on a daily basis.

The conference will include, in addition to other gender-related events and workshops: a keynote address on Friday evening by Stephanie Coontz, Professor of History and Family Studies at The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA; a Friday lunchtime talk by an ISU faculty member; and a screening of LUNAFEST.

A formal call for papers, an announcement of our student paper competition, and a registration form can be found on our website at http://www.isu.edu/andersoncenter. Abstracts must be postmarked by Tuesday, November 1, 2011.

For further information, please contact the Anderson Center via phone (208-282-2805) or email gndrctr@isu.edu.

Best regards,
Rebecca Morrow, Ph.D.
Director, Anderson Gender Resource Center
Idaho State University
Pocatello, ID

J’accuse! Feds “Discourage” Due Process

Jonathan Bean — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:40:31 +0000

Cross-examine witnesses and accuser? That is so 20th century. The Office of Civil Rights (Department of Education) “discourages” it. Colleges have already thrown out old-fashioned notions of civil liberties, so they are all too happy to presume guilt. The Wall Street Journal has a followup on this topic, which I blogged about Friday.

Higher Education’s Role in Coarsening Popular American Tastes

Ashley Thorne — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:24:37 +0000

Peter Wood has an interesting couple of articles on the Chronicle‘s Innovations blog this week. He compares Lily Bart, a fictional character in the 1905 novel The House of Mirth with Lady Gaga and talks about how higher education is responsible for giving “trash culture a veneer of respectability” and how it “encourages students to open themselves to many of their worst impulses” (Lily Bart vs. Lady Gaga) He writes:

Higher education once fostered the aspirations of young people to take possession of some share of their civilization. The university was never the only means to acquire that aspiration. Reading good books and joining in conversation with others who have read further may be the better path. But the liberal arts opened the minds of many to the riches of art, science, philosophy, and literature. Today? Not so much. A tiny fraction of students bother with the liberal arts at all—about 3 percent of students—and a good many of those are channeled into what might be rightly termed the pseudo-liberal arts. They study the fields that teach disdain for their civilization and the supposed advantages of a vaporous “global citizenship.

In his second article, Peter quotes a 98-year-old woman who says the single biggest change in America she has observed over her lifetime is that “It’s all just so terribly coarse now.” He points to the power of professors and universities to shape and inform sensibilities. He argues that they bear much of the blame for the devolution of American popular culture. And “For those who still have doubts about this, consider the story reported in the Chicago Sun-Times, ‘Northwestern University Defends After-Class Live Sex Demonstration.’

Duke’s President Versus the University’s Reputation

George Leef — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:37:51 +0000

In this week’s Pope Center Clarion Call, Jay Schalin considers the recent email from Duke University president Richard Brodhead, pleading with students to behave better. Schalin doesn’t think that is an adequate response if Brodhead wants to confront the reputation Duke is getting as being a sex-crazed campus. Perhaps it would do more if the university stopped bringing in a parade of salacious shows and speakers.

Hookup Culture Watch

Ashley Thorne — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:57:50 +0000

CNN has a story on the rise of the counter-hookup culture on college campuses. The article highlights the decision of one young woman to refrain from hooking up because she “felt so empty then.” CNN also notes the Princeton-based Love and Fidelity Network, of which Robert P. George is an advisory board member.

Last year NAS published an review of three new “hook-up culture” books by Wendy Shalit in Academic Questions. Two of the three books she reviews are mentioned in the CNN article. Shalit is the author of A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue (1999), Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It’s Not Bad to Be Good (2007), and The Good Girl Revolution: Young Rebels with Self-Esteem and High Standards (2008). Her website is www.girlsgonemild.com

Yale Sex Week Followup

Glenn Ricketts — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:29:44 +0000

Well, the festivities, seminars, workshops and other aspects of Yale’s recent “Sex Week” are over, but don’t fret: there’s lots of follow-up information available that may tide you over until next year and beyond. The Yale Daily News is now publishing minute statistics and details about the libidinal lives of seemingly everyone at the New Haven campus. The school’s 46K annual tuition sure buys you a lot, doesn’t it?

Vanderbilt Chaplain Affirms Shariah Death-to-’Gays’ Law

Candace de Russy — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:49:15 +0000

The university is scurrying to disassociate itself from Awadh A. Binhazim, who is listed on the campus’ website as “Adjunct Professor of Islam at the Divinity School” and an adviser to the Muslim Student Association (MSA). Binhazim also offers courses gratis at Vanderbilt.

The professor, as World Net Daily reports, responded to a question before a “diversity” meeting of students by acknowledging that homosexuality is punishable by death under Islam and that he accepts whatever Islam teaches.

Devin Saucier, who posed the question and serves as president of Vanderbilt’s chapter of Youth for Western Civilization, called Binhazim’s presentation before the group a “30-minute, roses and butterflies overview of Islam.”

Saucier explained in a blog that he attended (and videotaped) the MSA-sponsored event out of curiosity about the

‘unholy alliance between Muslims and leftists – how could the latter, who fervently support multiculturalism, gay marriage, and gender equality, ally with the former, who support religious and cultural supremacy, traditional marriage, and the oppression of women? … I knew [the gathering] would be ripe grounds for me to expose the gullibility of leftists who grovel at the altars of tolerance and acceptance.’

The rest of this enterprising student’s observations about the event are of interest, as are Vanderbilt’s predictable evocations of “free speech for all” and simultaneous touting of its “non-discrimination” policies regarding sexuality.