I never thought I’d see the day. Grading standards in college have grown so lax (nearly 50% of all college grades nationwide are A’s) that now even the students—the students!—are demanding that professors grow a spine and grade them honestly. In August, a letter was sent to President Donald Trump by the student body presidents...
A recent letter from eight deans of Texas’ American Bar Association (ABA)-accredited law schools is urging the Texas Supreme Court to maintain the requirement that attorneys graduate from ABA-accredited institutions. However, viewed through the lens of our Founding principles—natural rights, individual liberty, and limited government—the deans’ defense of the American Bar Association’s monopoly on accreditation...
In a recent statement, Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, asserted that individual rights do not originate from God but are granted by the government. Adding insult to injury, he went on to dismiss those who believe otherwise as akin to “Iranian religious fanatics.” Here’s his full statement: The notion that...
I was two years into college when I picked up the book “Real Education” by the much-maligned conservative Charles Murray. Even after the roughly 17 years since its publication, I found that the book surprisingly offered an educational perspective more conducive to student success than the more recent “College for All” movement I was surrounded...
Thomas Jefferson—author of the Declaration of Independence, our third president, and the founder of the University of Virginia—believed deeply in the power of education to serve a free society. For him, a university was not merely a place to learn facts—it was a training ground for citizens and leaders, guided by reason, liberty, and the pursuit...
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered an infamous decision, Dred Scott v. Sandford. By declaring that Black Americans could never be citizens and stripping Congress of the power to restrict slavery in the territories, Chief Justice Taney both misinterpreted the Constitution and kindled a conflagration. Abraham Lincoln, still years away from the presidency, saw...
In 1790, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, to present his vision for America as a country where “bigotry finds no sanction” and “persecution no assistance.” He celebrated a nation where all citizens, including the “Children of the Stock of Abraham,” could dwell securely under their own “vine and fig tree,” free...
For years, would-be higher-education reformers have warned that America’s higher education crisis—soaring tuition, crippling student debt, and weak learning—was rooted in a dangerous myth: every high school graduate should go to college. In 2025, the proof is glaring. Public confidence in colleges has crashed to 36%, down from 57% in 2015. The college-for-all dream, though well-intentioned, has inflated...
The Texas Legislature is currently considering renewing its 2017 call to Congress to invoke Article V of the U.S. Constitution to propose amendments curbing federal overreach. The Article V effort seeks to restore federalism and individual liberty, requiring thirty-four states to call a convention and thirty-eight to ratify changes. To date, 19 states have passed resolutions calling for an...
OPINION: Texas clings to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges like a relic of the past. It’s time for flexibility and competition. Texas stands at a crossroads with two companion bills winding their way through the Lone Star Statehouse that aim to reform accreditation by allowing public institutions to choose from...
A recent op ed in the Austin American-Statesman voiced substantial objections to Texas Senate Bill 37. It contends that the bill imposes redundant bureaucracy via the Office of Excellence in Higher Education, diminishes faculty governance by restricting faculty senates to tenured members and requiring half to be elected, curtails student academic options by eliminating low-enrollment...
For years, I’ve warned that college grade inflation is real, rampant, and ravaging a university near you. It is a cancer eating away at American higher education, undermining academic standards, devaluing transcripts, and cheating students and employers alike. My research has tracked this crisis over the last decade, and the evidence is stark: what was...