The Future of College

COVID-19 has disrupted almost all aspects of life, including higher education.  Colleges moved classes online during the spring semester and some observers believe that this will permanently change higher education.  I think this will create new focus on how college creates value.

Online education has existed for years.  Arguably though, the willingness of the nation’s most prestigious universities to shift online affirms the quality of online instruction.  I would caution about reading too much into any response to this unprecedented pandemic.

Higher education’s predicament becomes much greater if the 2020-21 year ends up online.  I will not try to forecast the progression of COVID-19 here, but the California State University system recently announced online classes for fall.  An online year would produce an immediate financial crisis and a longer term viability challenge.

Universities take on considerable debt for classrooms, dorms, dining halls, and recreation centers.  Tuition may pay for classroom buildings, but room and board payments service the bonds for dorms and dining halls.  Similarly, many football schools have financed stadium improvements using revenue from long term television contracts.  Universities will almost certainly create a need for a government bailout.

The longer term issue would begin when campuses reopen.  Will students return in the new normal?  Focusing on college’s value proposition for students helps here.

Most traditional academics believe that online education is low quality, but this may simply reflect our biases.  I see student learning styles as more relevant; some students’ can learn readily online.  A parallel I think is the large state university versus a smaller college.  Some students can succeed with the anonymity of the giant lecture hall; others need a personal connection with professors and classmates.

Why employers value college degrees is also relevant and there are three competing sources here.  First and most prominent is human capital.  In this view, classes teach skills and knowledge used in jobs.  A second explanation is signaling, in which a college degree provides valuable information about a student’s talents even though course content is not used in jobs.  Finally we have legal restrictions; laws, primarily licensure, require a person hired for certain jobs to have a specified degree.

Online education can most readily supply legally required degrees.  When job seekers and employers view the degree as merely checking a legal box, both will want to meet the requirement with minimal cost.

The signaling function might be the most difficult to replicate online.  Education works as a signal when only students possessing certain traits (e.g., the ability to learn challenging material quickly) earn a degree or high grades.  Credible signaling requires a level of familiarity only face-to-face interactions have traditionally afforded.

The usefulness of online education for human capital depends on the skill or knowledge.  Consider learning to play a musical instrument (something I know only from reading about).  Such instruction is usually one-on-one or in very small groups; watching a how-to video by one of the world’s leading musicians does not work well.  Music teachers have offered lessons on Zoom during the pandemic; perhaps virtual instruction will prove effective.

Higher education involves valuable experiences outside of the classroom.  While this might sound like an apology for parties and football games, for many people, college is a valued part of growing up.  People make lifelong friends and often meet their spouses.  College is about more than just book learning.

A four year party might seem unnecessary, but life is about more than mere survival.  Fine food and elegant dining is not just about efficiently ingesting calories.  Clothes for many people are fashion statements.  This is normal in a prosperous society; the quality of the journey becomes paramount, not merely getting from A to B.

The economic slump, I think, threatens higher education’s long term viability more than COVID-19.  The pandemic may trigger a depression leaving the United States and the world substantially poorer than at the start of 2020.  If so, we will be able to afford fewer luxuries, including traditional college.

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ACLU Sues — to Undermine Constitutional Rights

It once championed individual rights — to an attorney, a fair trial, and to cross-examine one's accuser.

On May 6, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos released her Title IX reforms regarding how colleges and K-12 schools should handle complaints of sexual assault and misconduct. In a great indication it is no longer the organization it has purported itself to be, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a federal lawsuit on May 14, asserting the changes would “inflict significant harm” on victims and “dramatically undermine” their civil rights.

“Victims” is a loaded word. In 2011, then-Vice President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan released a “Dear Colleague” letter to the nation’s 4,600 institutions of higher education, laying out new directives explaining how campuses should approach allegations of sexual assault. “It was the beginning of a concerted effort that radically remade how students could interact sexually, with severe penalties for those who violated increasingly expansive codes of conduct,” reveals columnist Emily Yoffe. “The accused were to be judged under the lowest standards of evidence, the definitions of misconduct were widely broadened, third-party reports could trigger an investigation even if the alleged victim did not think there had been a violation, and more.”

Thus a reasonable question arises: As per these directives, if due process, free speech, and other rights of the accused are denied, who is the genuine victim?

It didn’t matter to the Obama administration. Using the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) as its enforcement mechanism, Team Obama made it clear that any school failing to adhere to the administration’s new guidelines might lose federal funding.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) highlighted some of the absurdities enshrined by the changes. For example the OCR tossed aside the “reasonable person standard,” whereby conduct or speech in question must be objectively offensive, and replaced it with biased subjectivity: “Any sexually related or gender-based expression may constitute sexual harassment if it is subjectively deemed by the complaining student to be ‘unwelcome.’”

In short, self-perceived victimhood was enshrined. Unsurprisingly, many of these incidents involved intoxicated male and female students. And while Title IX ostensibly required male and female students to be treated identically before campus rape tribunals, adjudicators consistently failed to do so. In several ensuing lawsuits, judges held universities to account when their disciplinary actions were triggered by holding male students solely accountable.

Moreover, in the ensuing years, a number of other innocent students who were victimized by what amounted to kangaroo courts — with the attendant destruction of reputations, often followed by expulsion — filed additional lawsuits, and schools such as the University of Southern California, Penn State, Ohio State, Hofstra University, Boston College, and Claremont McKenna College have been on the losing end of decisions. Others, like Northwestern University, Dartmouth College, and Yale, have settled lawsuits.

KC Johnson, a professor at Brooklyn College and the coauthor of The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities, illuminated a big reason why many of the plaintiffs prevailed. “One commonality is the lack of cross-examination,” he said. “Courts are saying each side should have the opportunity to question each other.”

That opportunity is an integral part of DeVos’s reforms. “We can continue to combat sexual misconduct without abandoning our core values of fairness, presumption of innocence and due process,” she stated when releasing the new guidelines.

Furthermore, those guidelines are far more sensible regarding the scope of a college’s responsibilities. While colleges are still required to adjudicate incidents that occur on campus, and at recognized off-campus affiliated locations like fraternities, off-campus incidents will be handled by the police.

Reforms also eliminate the single-investigator model, whereby the same person both investigates and adjudicates a case, and give colleges the opportunity to replace the mandated preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, in which the accused is found guilty based on 51% certainty, with the clear-and-convincing standard, requiring more certainty. Moreover, despite accusations that the rules allow “accused sexual abusers to cross-examine and re-traumatize their victims,” such cross-examinations will be done by an intermediary.

The ACLU remains unimpressed. “DeVos has discarded decades of [the Department of Education’s] experience addressing sexual harassment and assault by promulgating regulatory provisions that sharply limit educational institutions’ obligations to respond to reports of sexual harassment and assault,” the lawsuit states. “If allowed to be implemented at educational institutions nationwide, these provisions will make the promise of equal educational opportunities irrespective of sex even more elusive. This is true for all students, including students of color, LGBTQ students, and students with and without disabilities, in grade school, high school, and higher education.”

Nonsense, but quite indicative of a sea change by the same ACLU that once championed individual rights, the right to an attorney, a fair trial, and the right to cross-examine one’s accuser — as opposed to group grievances and identity politics.

Now? “Students shouldn’t have to jump through hoops just to report abuse, and schools should not be allowed to ignore claims of discrimination on the basis of sex when they would have to respond to claims of discrimination on other protected grounds,” the ACLU asserts.

Jump through hoops? The reforms require students to report any claim to a Title IX official on campus, not just any instructor or administrator. That’s hardly jumping through hoops. Moreover, if any claims were ignored under the Obama administration’s mandates, those made by the accused professing their innocence — and being officially ignored — go to the top of the list.

The suit was filed on behalf of four advocacy groups for sexual-assault victims, including Know Your IX and Girls for Gender Equity, two groups that ensure young women are well aware of their status — as victims. The suit seeks to block the Education Department’s new provisions before they go into effect on August 14.

“Betsy DeVos has created a double standard that is devastating for survivors of sexual harassment and assault, who are overwhelmingly women and girls,” insists Ria Tabacco Mar, director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. “We are suing to make sure this double standard never takes effect.”

Wrong. Led by Joe Biden, the Obama administration championed a presumption of guilt, rather than innocence. That double standard would totally torpedo the Democrat Party’s semi-comatose standard-bearer were it applied to him regarding accusations made by his former Senate staffer, Tara Reade.

Fortunately for Biden, constitutional standards of justice still apply in his case — even as he and the ACLU remain determined to undermine them for other potential defendants.

It doesn’t get more ironic than that.

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Australian student activist, 20, is suspended from the University of Queensland after criticising its ties to China and leading a pro-Hong Kong protest

A student who dared to criticise the Chinese government and lead a pro-Hong Kong protest has been suspended by the University of Queensland.

Drew Pavlou, 20, is a passionate student activist due to graduate in just six months, but has been suspended after criticising the university for its ties to Beijing.

He led a series of campus demonstrations last year, in support of Hong-Kong's pro-democracy movement.

The activist also posted messages to social media criticising China's authoritarian regime and denounced the university's close financial ties with the Communist Party. 

It has around 10,000 Chinese students, bringing in $150 million in student fees each year.

He accused the University of Queensland, where he is enrolled studying philosophy, of behaving like the country's communist government after it suspended him for two years.

Speaking after his suspension on Friday following a controversial disciplinary hearing, he said the university hadn't given any good reason for its decision.

'Refusing to provide exonerating evidence, calling no witnesses and providing no reasoning for my expulsion during a secret hearing no one was supposed to know about,' he said. 'What an amazing standard UQ has set in regards to transparency - at least by Beijing's standards.'

Mr Pavlou faced a disciplinary hearing on May 20 at the university over 11 allegations of misconduct, detailed in a confidential 186-page document.

It is reportedly linked to his on-campus activism supporting Hong Kong and criticising the Chinese Communist Party.

The University of Queensland has faced intense scrutiny for its relations with the Chinese government, which has co-funded four courses offered by the university.

It is also home to one of Australia's many Confucius Institutes - Beijing-funded education centres some critics warn promote propaganda.

The Chinese consul general in Brisbane, Xu Jie, even serves as an honorary professor at the university.

Mr Pavlou led a series of campus demonstrations last year, in support of Hong-Kong's pro-democracy movement.

He also posted messages to social media criticising China's authoritarian regime and denounced the university's close financial ties with the Communist Party.

 The university ordered Mr Pavlou's suspension on Friday after the 20-year-old student left the previous hearing after about one hour, citing procedural unfairness.

Mr Pavlou told reporters he views the suspension as 'an expulsion for all intents and purposes' as he was due to graduate in six months.

'I think they're using the term suspension to talk down just how harsh this punishment actually is,' Mr Pavlou said on Friday. 'They've been threatening me with suspensions ever since last year.'

Mr Pavlou says he found out about the suspension via email at 4pm on Friday. The email allegedly asked him to keep the outcome confidential.

'I absolutely p**s on their rule book when it comes to confidentiality,' the Brisbane student said. 'They're trying to do me over in the shadows. F**k that. No way.'

UQ Chancellor Peter Varghese said on Friday he was concerned with the outcome of the disciplinary action against Mr Pavlou.  'There are aspects of the findings and the severity of the penalty which personally concern me,' Mr Varghese said in a statement.

'In consultation with the vice chancellor, who has played no role in this disciplinary process, I have decided to convene an out-of-session meeting of UQ's Senate next week to discuss the matter.'

Mr Pavlou said he found it hard to believe the chancellor and vice chancellor had no part in his punishment and questioned the independence of the disciplinary board.

'They (the UQ chancellor and vice chancellor) directed this from the beginning. There is no way they wouldn't have known about it. It's a joke.'

A UQ spokeswoman said on Friday the institutions disciplinary matters are dealt with under the Student Integrity and Misconduct policy.

Mr Pavlou said he will now appeal the decision with the assistance of his lawyer, Tony Morris QC.  'We're going to immediately appeal this decision in an independent court of law outside UQ.'

Mr Pavlou recently took Mr Xu to court after being attacked at a rally by Chinese nationalists.

'In July 2019, I led a peaceful campus sit-in calling for UQ to completely cut ties with the Chinese state until Tibetans were freed, Uighur detention camps were closed, and Hong Kongers were afforded greater democracy,' he said.

'Masked pro-CCP heavies violently attacked our rally, assaulting me and choke-slamming other pro-Hong Kong students to the ground.'

Following the ugly incident, Mr Pavlou was named in a Chinese state media article by Mr Xu and accused of being 'anti-China'.

As a result, Mr Pavlou claims he then received death threats, unsettling phone calls and letters.

The University of Queensland said in a statement, it rejects the 'unsubstantiated' claims and is not attempting to prevent students from expressing their personal political views or trying to limit their right to freedom of speech.

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