Wimpering Students Need to Grow Up Or Get Out of University

THE TELEGRAPH: Political correctness was admirable. Now it has gone too far on campus. Far too far. It is time to fight back

A university should be a “safe space” – for free speech, for challenging dogmas and assumptions, for putting forward innovative ideas, for robust debate, for discovery, for intellectual courage. It should not be a safe space for preserving the timidities and assurances of pre-university childhood and adolescence.

Yet that is what university students on many American campuses now demand. They want to be warned in advance if course material contains references to subjects that could distress them. They want to be exempted from reading texts that touch on such matters as sexual abuse, divorce and suicide – which immediately puts Thomas Hardy, F Scott Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf off the syllabus. It has even happened that professors have been driven from their jobs by students accusing them of being insufficiently “politically correct”.

On some campuses, students have set aside “safe spaces” with cuddly toys and puppy videos where those stressed by uncomfortable topics can avoid them. The atmosphere of hypersensitive inability to handle challenging ideas invites caricature: today’s American students, it seems, want mollycoddling and reassurance, not education; they want security, not intellectual and personal growth. And what happens in America is too soon copied elsewhere – including in Britain. Read on and comment » | AC Grayling, Master of New College of the Humanities in London | Friday, December 4, 2015

Texas Approves Concealed Handguns in Public Universities
THE GUARDIAN: Republicans in state senate pass 'self-defence' measure despite resistance from higher education officials

The holders of concealed handgun licences are set to be allowed to carry weapons into public college buildings and classrooms in Texas, after Republicans in the state senate approved the measure as part of a universities spending bill.

Republican senator Jeff Wentworth had been unable to gain the votes he needed to pass the issue as its own bill after it met stiff resistance from higher education officials, particularly from within the University of Texas UT-System.

The senate's 12 Democrats had mostly worked together to block the measure but were powerless to stop it on Monday when a majority in the 31-member chamber got it added to the spending bill as an amendment. » | Associated Press | Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Iran to Make University Courses More Islamic
REUTERS – BLOGS – FAITH WORLD: Iran plans sweeping changes to university courses to make them more compatible with Islam, the official IRNA news agency reported on Friday. Deputy Minister of Science for Research and Technology Mohammad Mehdi Nejad Nouri, quoted by IRNA, said at least 36 courses would be changed by September after revision by a group of university and seminary experts.

The report did not name the subjects that would be changed, but officials said last year Iran would review 12 disciplines in the social sciences, including law, women’s studies, human rights, management, sociology, philosophy, psychology and political sciences, as their contents were too closely based on Western culture. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for modification of these studies in August, saying that many humanities subjects are based on principles founded in materialism rather than divine Islamic teachings. » | Mitra Amiri | Friday, May 06, 2011

Syrian Funding Causes Embarrassment at British University
THE GUARDIAN: University of St Andrews to review acceptance of funding arranged by Bashar al-Assad's controversial regime in Damascus

A prestigious British university is to review the work of one of its academic research centres because its funding was arranged by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Guardian can reveal.

The University of St Andrews, where Prince William and Kate Middleton studied, has received more than £100,000 in funding for its centre for Syrian studies with the assistance of the Syrian ambassador to the UK, Sami Khiyami.

Following questions on Wednesday from the Guardian about its relations with figures associated with the regime – and "in view of significant international concerns about recent events in Syria" – a spokesman for St Andrews said the university would be reviewing the centre's work "to ensure its high academic standards are maintained".

The university's association with the Assad regime has come under scrutiny in the wake of the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Syria which is estimated to have claimed 450 lives so far. » | Peter Beaumont and Jeevan Vasagar | Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Iranian Police Shoot at Unarmed Protesters During Tehran Demonstrations
THE TELEGRAPH: Iranian police fired tear gas and live bullets as they fought back thousands of unarmed protesters on the streets of Tehran.

There were bloody clashes as young people launched a fresh wave of anti-government protests on the country's official Students Day.

Police used warning shots, baton charges and gas but failed to stop rallies, sit-ins and campus marches across the capital.

Universities in several cities, including Tehran's top seats of learning, were sealed off as guards checked identity cards of people trying to join the student demonstrations.

Earlier in the day, the authorities detained 23 members of a protest group of grieving mothers. They included the mother of Neda Agha-Soltan, known as the "Angel of Freedom", who was shot by pro-government militia at the height of demonstrations against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election in June.

Hajar Rostami-Motlaq has enraged the authorities by condemning pro-government students who accused British agents of killing Miss Soltan.

She was later released but friends expressed concern for other members of the protest group, Mourning Mothers of Iran, who were rounded up at a weekly protest in Tehran's Laleh Park.

Supporters of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi chanted "Death to the dictator" and "Do not be scared. We are all together", according to witnesses at the rallies on university campuses. >>> Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent | Monday, December 07, 2009

Two Years On – Bruni, Bling and Barricades
THE GUARDIAN: Nicolas Sarkozy took office in May 2007 promising to transform France and restore its status as a great nation. Brash, confident and now married to one of the most glamorous woman [sic] in Europe, his presidency has not lacked drama. But approval ratings have plummeted, unemployment is rising and public sector workers are in revolt. Has Sarko really delivered?

French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his model-turned-singer girlfriend Carla Bruni. Photo courtesy of The Guardian
A strange and somewhat surreal party took place last week on the Champs Elysées, on the pavement outside Le Fouquet's restaurant. Dressed in overcoats to ward off the unseasonal cold, the guests whistled loudly, held aloft a two-tier cake and sang a deliberately discordant rendition of "joyeux anniversaire".

Fond as he is of events held in his honour, Nicolas Sarkozy would not have enjoyed this one. The placards gave it away, particularly the one that read: "Sarkozy: a pandemic all by himself".

President Sarkozy has chosen not to mark the second anniversary of his arrival at the Elysée Palace. And it is not hard to see why. His approval ratings, once riding high at more than 60%, have slumped to the low 30s. One poll released last week suggested that 63% of the population were disappointed with his first 24 months. The number of people who approve of his social policies stands at a dismal 36%.

The political facts on the ground are incontestable: the rapidly rising unemployment rate reached 8.6% in February and among the young the figure is a demoralising 21%; public sector strikes are commonplace and millions have turned out in recent months to protest against the government.

Each week a new constituency makes its grievances known: last week it was prisons, the week before hospitals. Universities have been paralysed for months by the biggest strike action in the history of the French Academy.

Then there are the private sector workers who, faced with mass job cuts and meagre redundancy payouts, kidnap their bosses in the hope of a better deal. "Bossnapping" may yet come to be recognised as the signature protest of the Sarkozy years. >>> Lizzy Davies in Paris | Sunday, May 10, 2009