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1 month ago | 
city-journal.org | John Sailer
The challenge of higher education reform can be boiled down to one issue: the talent pipeline. If we can reconfigure the academic talent pipeline and ensure that those who believe in the classical mission of the university both choose academia and prosper in it, then the reform movement will succeed. If not, no list of policies, from securing campus free speech to dismantling DEI offices, will restore public trust in our universities. Academia’s pipeline problem has deep roots.
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1 month ago | 
outinjersey.net | John Sailer
It’s difficult enough to navigate your first year away at college, but add questioning your own sexuality to that, and you have the premise for Benito Skinner’s new Prime Video series, Overcompensating, premiering May 15. Overcompensating is a college-based ensemble comedy that follows the unpredictable, high-energy adventures of Benny (Benito Skinner), a closeted ex-football star and former homecoming king, as he quickly bonds with Carmen (Wally Baram), herself a high school misfit.
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1 month ago | 
city-journal.org | Charles Lehman |Rafael A. Mangual |John Sailer
Charles Fain Lehman, Judge Glock, Rafael Mangual, and John Sailer discuss the House tax bill, California governor Gavin Newsom’s model ordinance on homelessness, and summer vacation plans. Charles Fain Lehman: Welcome back to the City Journal Podcast. I’m your host, Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and senior editor of City Journal.
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1 month ago | 
city-journal.org | John Sailer
Nearly 100 Yale professors have signed a letter calling for the university to “freeze new administrative hires” and conduct a “faculty-led audit” of its sprawling bureaucracy. The missive, sent to Yale’s president and provost last month, proposes an audit aimed at “cutting or restructuring administrative roles” and aligning the university’s “resources . . .
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1 month ago | 
city-journal.org | John Sailer
Late last year, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) slammed the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression in an unusual social media exchange. “FIRE receives major funding from groups with clear and well-known political, ideological, and economic interests,” the 110-year-old professional organization’s X account said in a back-and-forth with FIRE vice president Alex Morey. “FIRE is complicit w/ the attacks on higher education being led by the Right.
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2 months ago | 
outinjersey.net | John Sailer
Although The Wedding Banquet starts with the premise of “let’s perform a pretend hetero nuptials to hide the real gay marriage from our parents / grandparents / _____ fill in the blank,” the film does conclude with an unexpected twist. While marriage equality may, for some, question traditional family structure, the family unit that results at the end of The Wedding Banquet adds a whole new dynamic to what might constitute a chosen queer household.
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2 months ago | 
outinjersey.net | John Sailer
“We’re proud it all started right here in New Jersey,” said the filmmakers of the short queer comedy Family Affair. The film was primarily filmed at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft and premiered last month at the Academy Award-qualifying Provincetown International Film Festival. Family Affair has since won Best Comedy and Best Director at the Jersey Shore Film Festival. It went on to win many awards at other festivals across the country.
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2 months ago | 
city-journal.org | John Sailer
At Columbia University, the Racial Justice and Abolition Democracy Project created a curriculum to help college students imagine a “society without jails and prisons.” At Morgan State University, the Black Queer Everything initiative developed “transformative pedagogies” about “racism, inequality, and injustice.” And at UCLA, the Race in the Global Past through Native Lenses program promoted using “tribal critical race theory” to interpret precolonial history.
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Mar 25, 2025 | 
city-journal.org | John Sailer
The University of California system has ended its use of mandatory diversity statements in faculty hiring, repudiating a controversial practice that it had pioneered and long championed. It’s hard to overstate the decision’s significance. Diversity statements—short essays describing faculty candidates’ commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion—are controversial even among the professoriate. One survey of professors found that half regarded them as ideological litmus tests.
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Mar 18, 2025 | 
city-journal.org | John Sailer
For the last two years, a program with the ungainly name “Re-Imagining STEM Equity Utilizing Postdoctoral Pathways” (RISE UPP)—a large-scale university-hiring initiative funded through a $10 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant—has faced a legal dilemma. The project aims to recruit and subsequently hire “minoritized postdoctoral scholars”—part of the “fellow-to-faculty” pipeline that, in practice, installs activists in tenure-track positions.
