https://teapaw.org/t.co/qDRsQnGBdh is an anonymous dispatch from inside higher education. Some identifying details have been changed. The dysfunction has not.
Joined April 2026
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Salon.com is shutting down after 31 years — a devastating blow to the field of higher ed reporting.
Our thoughts are with campus DEI offices that have lost their favorite source of unbiased journalism.
🤖 Made with AI
Humanities Ph.D. dissertations have declined 49% over the past decade. Meanwhile, one professor reports that dissertation acknowledgments now average 5.2 pages, with students thanking their therapists, pets and even themselves.
Bad time to pursue a humanities Ph.D. Great time to be a dog.
A new study by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters reveals that humanities Ph.D. dissertations dropped 49% from 2015 to 2025, while the presence of identity politics and social theory terms in academic research increased tenfold since 1960. buff.ly/Ve2OcoH
This new Chronicle of Higher Ed article suggests the MAGA campus culture war may be over after Democrats' midterm victories. But it ignores a major part of the story: federal civil rights law. Not a single mention of Title VI, Title VII, § 1981 or SCOTUS's SFFA ruling.
Those laws and precedents don't disappear after an election. Neither does Trump's DOJ or EEOC. Universities that maintain discriminatory DEI mandates still face legal consequences.
As the article itself acknowledges: “Even if the higher-ed culture war is no longer working or needed, politically, for conservatives, they’re unlikely to abandon real policy change.”
New: In recent years, Republicans made the higher-ed culture wars a central part of their public personas. (Hello, Florida governor Ron DeSantis!) But even before this week's election, they had been backing off that talking point. What does that mean for higher ed? chroni.cl/4in10wH
Higher ed definitely needs a serious overhaul. Academia sometimes operates like a medieval guild, with faculty more interested in protecting their sinecures than adapting to a changing world. I’m increasingly skeptical that universities can reform themselves from within. At my own school, I’ve found that meaningful change often requires union grievances (though unions can also protect bad actors and obstruct reform), federal investigations, lawsuits, or media scrutiny. Administrators seem unwilling to make tough but necessary changes unless they’re forced to.
The whole education system, from preschool through college and postgraduate needs to be scrapped. It’s a relic of age where knowledge was trapped inside the brains of the elite, and in physical books that were hard and expensive to access. Fifty years ago if you wanted to learn philosophy, plumbing, Chinese, real estate, etc, then someone had to teach it to you. Now all knowledge is free, and freely available, in any form you like; video, audio, computer, AI—and it’s all updated immediately. I wonder when everyone will realize this.
At many schools — including prestigious universities and medical schools — tuition is from 2026, but some course descriptions sound older than the students. Examples:
• Carnegie Mellon still describes social media using MySpace and Second Life.
• Johns Hopkins says No Child Left Behind is awaiting reauthorization. Congress replaced it in 2015.
• Pitt's medical school advertises psychiatric diagnosis using DSM-IV, replaced in 2013.
• One college's catalog even tells students to save homework on a floppy disk or flash drive.
Universities charge students a fortune to prepare them for the future. Yet their current course catalogs still reference MySpace, floppy disks, Brexit as a future event, and outdated medical standards.
I found examples at some prestigious universities. My latest for Faculty Leaks:
facultyleaks.com/p/outdated-…
Universities charge students a fortune to prepare them for the future. Yet their current course catalogs still reference MySpace, floppy disks, Brexit as a future event, and outdated medical standards.
I found examples at some prestigious universities. My latest for Faculty Leaks:
facultyleaks.com/p/outdated-…
We've been tracking the EEOC's crackdown on discriminatory DEI practices in higher education since the agency made it an enforcement priority.
Following the dismissal of Colin Wright's discrimination lawsuit against Cornell, a new interview with two former EEOC commissioners raises an important question: Does the agency lack strong cases involving DEI-related discrimination against white men, or is it failing to pursue the ones it already has?
1/8
Both of the former EEOC commissioners interviewed acknowledge the agency faces serious resource constraints.
Jenny Yang explains that investigators historically used demographic hiring data to identify complaints suggesting broader discrimination patterns. Leslie Silverman confirms that the EEOC is actively seeking cases to litigate under its current priorities.
So why aren't more university hiring cases advancing?
Perhaps the problem isn't a shortage of evidence. Perhaps it's what happens after the evidence reaches the agency.
7/8
The @USEEOC doesn't need another press release announcing that Title VII protects white men, too. It needs to enforce the law.
Interview the witnesses. Obtain the search-committee emails. Examine the hiring statistics. Make determinations.
If the EEOC wants to put higher education on notice that discriminatory DEI hiring practices violate federal law, the evidence is already sitting in its files.
The question is whether anyone will act on it.
8/8
Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright helped expose discriminatory DEI hiring practices that excluded white candidates at Cornell when he sued the university earlier this year. On Monday, a federal judge dismissed his case on standing grounds, without ever addressing whether Cornell’s hiring practices violated federal law.
But the broader issue is far from settled. The EEOC is investigating Harvard’s faculty hiring practices, and its discrimination lawsuit against the New York Times is moving forward.
As I recently reported on my Substack, there’s also some low-hanging fruit at less prominent universities. Some are currently under federal investigation for DEI-related faculty hiring discrimination at least as egregious as Cornell’s, but lack the resources to fight a prolonged investigation or withstand the negative publicity. The EEOC could make an example of one of them and put higher ed on notice that Title VII applies to everyone.
Colin Wright's discrimination lawsuit against Cornell was dismissed today. The reasoning is somewhat.. interesting.
Wright claims that Cornell conducted a secret, discriminatory faculty search, filling a position for which he was qualified, and for which he would have applied, had the opportunity only been available.
Today's decision does *not* determine that Cornell's search was or was not discriminatory. Rather, the case is dismissed based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Under the relevant standard, Wright must have been "able and ready to apply." The court found that, while he may have been "able," he was not "ready": this is based chiefly on Wright's own public statements expressing his opposition to various university DEI policies, and his resulting disinterest in academia in general.
Thus, the judge concluded that Wright would not have applied for a job at Cornell -- even if they conducted a fair and open search.
However, the academia policies he publicly opposed *are precisely those that he alleges prevented his employment*. Arguably, the court's decision conflates unwillingness to participate in a discriminatory selection process with unwillingness to take the job.
But, putting aside the court's questionable reasoning about Wright's statements, the fact that he applied for only one single academic position in the relevant time period remains, I think, as a difficult argument to overcome against his being "ready" to apply to Cornell.
Saw this ad online. Apparently, academic publishers have adopted the old journalism motto: “If it bleeds, it leads.”
This textbook cover looks more like a true-crime thriller.
The next budget crisis in higher ed: legal bills.
Universities are facing mounting legal challenges from seemingly every direction. They’re being sued by students, faculty, donors and activists over everything from speech codes and campus protests to antisemitism, DEI policies and college athletics. The federal government is also investigating several schools.
Harvard spent $210 million on legal expenses last fiscal year. Other colleges face mounting legal bills while cutting jobs and programs.
Some of these problems are self-inflicted, and costs will likely keep climbing. But the administrators responsible rarely pay the price.
facultyleaks.com/p/universit…
Harvard spent $210 million on legal expenses last fiscal year. Other colleges face mounting legal bills while cutting jobs and programs.
Some of these problems are self-inflicted, and costs will likely keep climbing. But the administrators responsible rarely pay the price.
facultyleaks.com/p/universit…
The @USEEOC is finally taking on higher ed: Harvard, WUSTL, Columbia, Penn...
That's encouraging.
But there are also well-documented DEI-related discrimination cases at lesser-known schools that have been sitting in the pipeline a lot longer. Title VII doesn’t have a prestige threshold. 👀
New from Faculty Leaks: facultyleaks.com/p/eeoc-high…