A former student at Oakland University in the suburbs of Detroit is suing the school for over $2.2 million after he was kicked out in September 2011 for penning a salacious essay entitled “Hot for Teacher,” the Daily Caller reports. Joseph Corlett, 57, a builder who now resides in Florida, filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, reports the Detroit Free Press. He claims the public university violated his First Amendment right to freedom of expression. He says he also suffered mental anguish and humiliation when he was forced to leave the school. The suit names the school’s board of trustees and two high-ranking officials as defendants. When Corlett wrote the essay, he was majoring in writing and rhetoric and working toward a bachelor’s degree. The class at issue was English 380: Advanced Critical Writing. The comely blond instructor was Pamela Mitzelfeld…
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Pro-life student group sues Oklahoma State University over First Amendment rights
In a federal lawsuit filed late last week, a pro-life student organization at Oklahoma State University claims the school violated its First Amendment rights, the Daily Caller reports. The student organization, Cowboys for Life, alleges that school officials prohibited the group’s display of pictures of aborted fetuses in highly-visible areas of campus, reports The Daily O’Collegian, Oklahoma State’s student newspaper. That’s a problem, the suit claims, because the taxpayer-funded university is a state actor. Cowboys for Life members had also planned to distribute literature and discuss their anti-abortion views with passing students…
…Read MoreHarvard Law to offer first free online course
The higher education system in the United States may be about to transform radically, but don’t expect Harvard Law School to be caught flat-footed, the Daily Caller reports. The prestigious law school is about to launch its first online course, reports National Law Journal. It will be taught as part of edX, a venture led by Harvard, MIT and a handful of other prestigious schools that offers free courses online. William Fisher III, director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, will teach the 12-week copyright course. Enrollment is limited to 500 students and prospective students have until January 3 to submit applications. The course is slated to begin January 28. Fisher’s course is not a MOOC, or massive open online course, which offers large-scale instruction but otherwise leaves hundreds or thousands of students essentially on their own. Instead, the course will be as much like a real (free) Harvard class as the internet will allow circa 2013. There will be pre-recorded lectures by Fisher. Also, students will be grouped into discussion sections of no more than 25…
…Read MoreHumboldt State University launches marijuana institute
Humboldt County, California, “the heartland of high-grade marijuana farming” in the Golden State according to The New Yorker, now boasts the first and — for now — only academic institute dedicated solely to cannabis, reports the Daily Caller. The Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research on the campus of Humboldt State University sponsors scholarly lectures and will be a hub for research among 11 faculty members from a wide range of fields including economics, geography, politics and psychology, The Associated Press reports. One of the professors is analyzing the politics of pot legalization, reports the Times-Standard of Eureka, CA. Another professor is researching the effects of marijuana cultivation on the environment. Politics professor Jason Plume will present a lecture this week on the marijuana reform movement — one of seven lectures the institute is scheduled to host this year…
…Read MoreAt elite colleges, the rich stay rich
Shopping for the right college is a bit like shopping for carpets in the depths of a souk in Marrakesh. Only a sucker would dream of paying the full sticker price, says the Daily Caller. However, getting to the actual price you’ll pay involves an elaborate, unavoidable, grossly inefficient dance. In Marrakesh, the dance is bargaining; at American colleges, it’s mostly filling out a bunch of forms. There is some good news, though. If you or your kids happen to have exceptional academic credentials, a handful of the most illustrious colleges and universities in the country have eliminated loans (at least to some extent). These schools have replaced loans with grants that never need to be repaid, thus reducing student debt considerably — often down to zero. On-campus jobs, summer savings and, especially, endowments bigger than the GDPs of some countries, make up the difference…
…Read MoreSome universities buck trend, cut tuition for students
A slew of swanky private schools and public universities merrily, myopically raised tuition once again this fall. At the University of Washington, for example, tuition and fees are up some 15 percent from last year, the Daily Caller reports. Basic tuition at Cornell University costs close to $2,000 more this year. The gravy train of perpetually rising college costs may be coming to an end, though. Many schools — particularly public schools — have decreased their rates of increase in response to the comatose economy. For example, tuition at state-funded colleges and universities in Virginia increased by a relatively meager 4.1 percent in 2012. That’s down from an increase of nearly eight percent in 2011 and it’s the lowest rate of increase in the past decade. In-state tuition at Rutgers University will increase 2.5 percent this year. Rutgers students (and their parents) aren’t happy about the higher price but it sure beats the tuition increases of eight percent or more students previously routinely suffered during the last decade…
…Read MoreThe definitive list of the 12 most expensive colleges in the United States
While people have complained about the costs of undergraduate education for generations, things have really gotten out of control in the last decade or so, the Daily Caller reports. Loans, scholarships and grants allow most students to attend at some kind of discount. But the retail cost of a year of education is close to unconscionable at a slew of colleges and universities. It’s hard to get a handle on the exact price tag for attendance at most colleges. When it comes to surreptitiously adding costs, college administrators are as subtle as the best three-card monte dealers and twice as creative. Matriculation fees, technology fees and the like are common. The calculation of annual cost on this list assumes that students are living in a dorm and eating campus grub. Otherwise, the cost only includes unavoidable charges: tuition, various required fees, books, and supplies…
…Read MorePlanned Parenthood targeting college students, says pro-life group
A pro-life student group is alleging that Planned Parenthood for America targets college students for their abortion services, the Daily Caller reports. Students for Life is basing the claim on a study the group conducted over the winter. It found that of the estimated 780 Planned Parenthood facilities in the United States (at the initiation of the study in January), there are 615 Planned Parenthoods, or 79 percent, within 5 miles of a university. Kristan Hawkins, the executive director of Students for Life of America, explained to The Daily Caller that their analysis confirms what the group has long believed.
“The study shows that Planned Parenthood unequivocally targets women attending college,” Hawkins said, adding that often young women chose to have abortions because they do not feel as though there are other options…
New research: School choice has positive impact on college achievement gap
As U.S. politicians continue to debate the merits of allowing parents to choose their children’s schools, research financed by the Department of Education has found that school choice programs significantly improve the future educational prospects of children who might otherwise attend lower quality schools, reports the Daily Caller. On Monday the National Bureau of Economic Research released a working paper written by Harvard, Dartmouth and Brown University researchers, providing “the first evidence of the impact of school choice on the college achievement gap.”
…Read MoreOpposition mounts to federal govt’s new university sexual harassment rules
A large organization of university professors voiced its opposition yesterday to a new Department of Education policy lowering the standard of guilt for sexual misconduct cases on university campuses, reports the Daily Caller. The American Association of University Professors sent a letter to Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights objecting to the office’s new standards, which the office rolled out in April…
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