Category Archive

Phi Beta Cons, the higher education blog of the conservative National Review, has a story up about mixed-gender dorms at Yale.

The piece begins with a headline reference to “Adam and Eve and Steve,” and the weirdness continues from there — it mocks the “modern” administrators who have abandoned “the stuffy old mores of the past.” It notes darkly that the policy was supported “Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Cooperative — a student group that holds fast to the idea that gender is a social construct.” And so on.

Two particularly weird things about this piece:

First, all the emphasis on LGBT boogeymen. “Adam and Steve” may be a new (and skeery!) approach to civil marriage, but it’s the standard configuration of a college dorm room, no? The idea that co-habitatation across gender lines is a cornerstone of The Gay Agenda is a new one on me.

Second, there’s the article the piece links to. It portrays Yale’s mixed-gender dorm as governed by remarkably conservative rules — it’s only for seniors, it’s opt-in, it’s intended for people who already know each other and have chosen to live as a group, and it only allows mixed-gender combinations on the suite level, not in individual rooms — and describes its implementation as completely uneventful. Every single person quoted in the article agrees that the policy has been a total success with no downside whatsoever.

The coordinating website for the October 7 National Day of Action to Defend Public Education now lists 31 states in which organizing is underway, with 28 specific actions listed.

I’ll be following up with more details on what’s happening later this week, but for now check out their site for more info.

Last week’s ten most-read posts…

1. Reports: Rutgers Student Killed Himself After Roommate Videotaped Him in Gay Encounter

My first post on Tyler Clementi. See also the followup here.

2. The Tyler Clementi Tragedy: Five Takeaway Lessons for Jackasses

Thoughts on “the inevitable creepy backlash” to the reporting on Clementi’s suicide.

3. Oak Is My King: School Yanks Transgender Student’s Homecoming Crown

A Michigan high school refused to allow Oak Reed to serve as homecoming king because he was born female.

4. What Malcolm Gladwell Doesn’t Understand About Activism and Social Networks

A response to Gladwell’s “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.”

5. Did Tyler Clementi Ask His RA for Help the Day Before He Died?

Evidence emerges that Clementi reached out to dorm staff for assistance dealing with his roommate’s spying.

6. Andrew Shirvell, Gay-Student-Obsessed Michigan Assistant AG, Takes a Breather

An assistant Attorney General in Michigan wages a bizarre campaign against a college student government leader.

7. It Gets Better

Dan Savage’s YouTube project to assist LGBT youth.

8. College Dean Forced Scholarship Students to Work as Her Servants

Allegations of forced student labor in the Asian Studies program at St. John’s University in New York.

9. Your Move, Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell’s weird response to my critique of his social media essay.

10. On-Campus Punishment for Off-Campus Activity

The growing trend of university judicial sanctions for off-campus student behavior.

Taking a bit of time this weekend for other work. I’ll be back with new content on the blog this evening.

Federal prosecutors are charging that an administrator at St. John’s University in New York forced scholarship students — most of them from overseas — to work as her personal servants without pay.

Feds say Cecilia Chang, dean of the university’s Institute of Asian Studies, made scholarship recipients do “menial tasks” unrelated to the university for twenty hours a week. They say Chang made students drive her and members of her family to personal appointments, as well as cooking meals, shoveling trash, and emptying the garbage at her home.

Chang, who worked at St. John’s for three decades, was fired in June after allegations surfaced that she had embezzled more than a million dollars from the university.