Timothy Keiderling’s decision to enroll in the Princeton Theological Seminary reflected his commitment “to give my life to work for justice and to live out the values of the Kingdom of God.” In a letter to the seminary’s president, Craig Barnes, he wrote that he “would sacrifice anything to make sure that my brothers and sisters see relief from their oppression.” But the seminary’s concept of justice clashed with Keiderling’s conscience when PTS required him to attend “anti-racism” training sessions that he considered a form of indoctrination. He refused to participate in the sessions even after being reminded that they […]

Free speech is very much in today’s headlines, especially with the outraged demands for technology companies to banish — or not — from their platforms speech they consider incitements to violence or hateful. But the greater danger may be the hostility within our colleges and universities to the free speech and academic freedom of faculty and students, and even alumni, who dissent from the views dominant on campuses today.

President-elect Biden and his team are preparing to bring what he has called a “quick end” to the new rules requiring fair, nondiscriminatory campus procedures for students accused of sexual assault that the Betsy DeVos Education Department issued in May. But the results of a little-noticed but stunning poll suggest that on this issue, Biden is far out of step with the electorate, not to mention the courts and fundamental fairness. In one major survey, 68% of the 2,532 Americans polled in mid-November by YouGov agreed that “students accused of crimes on college campuses should receive the same civil liberties […]

The American Civil Liberties Union has been deservedly criticized for its May 14 lawsuit indirectly attacking the civil liberties of students accused of sexual assault, who have since 2011 been subjected to grotesquely unfair campus proceedings that effectively presume their guilt. It’s true, as the ACLU claims — after years of shameful silence during the Obama administration campaign to force (all too willing) universities to rig their processes against accused males – that its lawsuit against the Betsy DeVos Education Department does not directly attack all of the procedural-fairness reforms in its recently adopted Title IX rules.

Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have suddenly come to realize that their previously professed, reflexive belief in sexual misconduct accusations was the wrong standard. Instead, with the sexual assault allegation against Biden by former staffer Tara Reade now roiling his campaign, the Democrats are saying that the accused as well as the accuser deserve to have their accounts heard and weighed impartially and with “due process,” to borrow from recent statements by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others. If this long overdue change is sincere, the Democrats can show it by supporting the pending new Title IX regulations. The […]

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ proposed Title IX regulations, which are due to be issued in final form early next year, seek to require colleges that adjudicate claims of sexual assault against their students using some of the same procedures to ensure fairness that have long been treated as fundamental by courts. The most important provisions would require colleges to hold hearings at which a representative of each party has a right to cross-examine witnesses, including the other party, and to provide both students with all evidence gathered in the investigation. But these proposals have generated furious opposition from pro-complainant activists […]

Life was good for Matthew Dababneh until the fall  2017. A former congressional aide, the moderate Democrat had won an open seat in the California State Assembly in 2013 and easily won reelection twice. At age 36, he was rising in  Democratic Party politics. Then, with breathtaking suddenness, his reputation and career were devastated. It started when a lobbyist named Pamela Lopez was quoted accusing an unnamed California lawmaker of pushing into a bathroom behind her, “expos[ing] himself and . . . masturbating.” She later claimed it was Dababneh. But he hopes his libel suit against her will provide the public hearing […]

Of all the collateral damage inflicted on ancillary players in the special counsel’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, none is as strange – or capricious – as the Justice Department’s crusade against well-connected Democratic lawyer Gregory B. Craig. It seems on the verge of prosecuting Craig, one of Washington’s most celebrated lawyers, on charges of lying to department officials in 2013 to evade a legal duty to register as an agent for the Ukrainian government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). But the Justice Department’s leadership should take a hard look at the case before […]

In a December 14, 2018 piece, the New York Times set the stage by noting that Roland G. Fryer Jr. had attained tenure at Harvard, received a MacArthur “genius” grant, and won the most prestigious award for a young American economist. Then came the takedown: “But his rapid ascent has taken a troubling turn as Harvard officials review a university investigator’s conclusion that Dr. Fryer fostered a work environment hostile to women, one filled with sexual talk and bullying.” This article, and Harvard’s sex bureaucracy, have made a near-pariah of the youngest black professor ever tenured at Harvard University, a man born […]