The Woke Mob Comes for Professors Amy Wax and Kathleen Stock

Stephen Kershnar

A Tale of Two Professors

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

January 23, 2022

 

            In two cases, administrators and academics are trying to silence high profile professors.  

Recently, the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s dean, Ted Ruger, announced that he will try to sanction law professor Amy Wax. In a 2017 Philadelphia Inquirer article, Wax and University of San Diego law professor Larry Alexander said that the country is paying a price for breakdown of the country's bourgeois culture. They argued that since the 1950s, the decline of bourgeois values - such as hard work, marriage, respect for authority, and self-discipline - contributed to societal problems such as opioid abuse, half of all children being born to single mothers, male labor force participation rates down to Great-Depression-era levels, and many college students lacking basic skills.

In a 2017 interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian, Wax argued that not all cultures equally prepare people to be productive in an advanced economy. She said, "everyone wants to go to countries ruled by white Europeans" because of their superior norms. Wax added that she did not believe in the superiority of one race over another but was describing the situation in various countries and cultures. Again, with the exception of a few East Asian nations, no adult seriously doubts this claim. By the millions, people vote with their feet in favor of Wax’s claims.

In 2021 on Glenn Loury’s website, Wax wrote “As long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.” Wax argued that Asians are ungrateful for the advantages of living in the US. This can be seen, she claimed, because they vote disproportionately for the “pernicious" Democratic Party. She further noted that this voting pattern is "mystifying" because the Democratic Party pushes equal outcomes despite well-known group differences. Regardless of whether one agrees, the claims are plausible.    

In a 2017 interview with Loury, Wax said regarding affirmative action: "Take Penn Law School, or some top 10 law school... Here's a very inconvenient fact ... I don't think I've ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely in the top half ... I can think of one or two students who scored in the top half in my required first year course.” This claim surprises no one who is familiar with elite law schools. Penn is ranked 6^th.

In 2017, a petition to fire Amy Wax was started. Today it has 76,000 signatures. 33 of her Penn Law colleagues denounced her Philadelphia Inquirer  and Daily Pennsylvanian statements. Ruger later banned her from teaching required first-year courses.

In England, Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex recently resigned. She  argued that people cannot change their sex. She also argued that many trans women are males – consider, for example, ones with penises who are sexually attracted to females – and, as a result, they should not be in places where females undress or sleep in an unrestricted way. She said ad nauseum that she thinks trans people should live free from fear of violence, harassment, or discrimination, but that her claims about identity are distinct from the need to protect these rights.  

When Stock was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, philosophers from the most elite universities – for example, Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale – and others denounced Stock. The professors said, “We are dismayed that the British government has chosen to honour her for this harmful rhetoric.”

Stock’s resignation followed her having been told by police to stay away from her campus for safety reasons. Students at her university, put up posters and graffiti demanding that she be fired. The Sussex branch of the University and College Union called for an investigation into transphobia. An ironic fact is that Stock is a left-wing lesbian and sex-nonconforming woman. Some of the elite philosophers who denounced her used to be her friends and allies. The revolution always eats its own.

Were Wax or Stock to teach at a public American university, the Constitution would make it illegal for the schools to sanction them. Their speech and writing were not pursuant to their official duties. See Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006). Even if their speech and writings were pursuant to their official duties, and it was not, their speech is still protected because it would easily pass the Pickering test. Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). Specifically, their speech is a matter of public concern and their interest in commenting on matters of public concern outweigh the state’s interest of the State regarding the public services it provides.

Note two things. First, regarding Wax, no one seriously doubts that the country would be better off with bourgeois values or that – with the exception of a few East Asian countries - Western culture is better.    

Second, regarding Stock, it is hard to dispute that biologically, trans women are not women. Whether trans women are gender-women – that is, women according to cultural norms – depends on what we do and should think a woman is. At the very least, it is worth discussing Stock’s careful-and-technical arguments. There are additional reasons to be wary of radically revising our view of gender. Consider athletics, gender-transition contagion, and the percentage of people who change their minds about transitioning.  

The mean-spirited bullying of Wax and Stock is not unique. Professors from Colorado, Cornell, Oxford, Princeton, Rutgers, etc. have been blackballed, publicly denounced, or pressured to retract articles. The elite schools matter because they have an enormous influence on the country’s commanding heights. Consider, for example, Big Tech, government, Hollywood, mainstream media, and Wall Street. What the elites believe will flow down to culture, law, and the rest of academia. This abuse will continue until alumni cut off donations, boards of trustee fire disgraceful administrators (for example, Penn’s Ruger), and federal and state governments defund these institutions.

 

Against CUNY and SUNY Vaccine Mandates

Stephen Kershnar

Kathy Hochul’s Mandate

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

January 10, 2021

 

            Kathy Hochul recently required CUNY and SUNY faculty members be vaccinated.

            The state should not protect faculty against themselves. That is, the state should avoid paternalistic employment conditions. The state would not be justified in requiring that faculty – or other employees – avoid divorce, obesity, or gender-transition even if such requirements were good for the faculty. Here I take no position on whether such requirements would be good for them. In addition, the state should not interfere with whether a faculty member gets an abortion because a woman owns her own body. This is true regardless of whether abortion makes a woman’s life go worse.

            The issue, then, is whether the vaccine mandate protects the unvaccinated from harming others. First, consider whether unvaccinated faculty endanger students. Students are in little danger from Covid. John Hopkins Medical School professor Marty Makary points out that over the last 6 months, the chance of a younger person (15-24) dying from or with Covid is 0.001%, that is, 1 in 100,000. Because the data does not distinguish between dying from Covid or dying from something else while infected with Covid, let us assume that the number overestimates Covid deaths by a factor of 2 (I made this number up). Thus, the chance of a younger person dying of Covid is 1 in 200,000. This still overestimates the risk an unvaccinated person imposes on a student because the unvaccinated person has less than a 100% chance of getting Covid and less than a 100% of passing it on – whether directly or indirectly - to a vulnerable person. Let us again assume that these numbers are 33% each –likely an overestimate - and we end up with a 1 in 1.8 million chance that someone choosing not to be vaccinated causes a student to die. This is too low a risk to have the state require an employee put an unwanted substance into her body.  

            By analogy, many people – including me – think that the state should permit abortion even if the fetus is a person because the fetus infringes on the woman’s right to control her body. This is true even if abortion has a 100% chance of killing a person. In short, we do and should take very seriously a person’s right to control her body. This applies to unwanted vaccinations in a manner similar to abortion, although the former involves a less significant impact on a woman’s body. On a side note, zygotes and embryos are not people, but this is a discussion for another day. 

            Second, consider whether unvaccinated faculty endanger vaccinated employees, for example, vaccinated faculty. Vaccinated people have a 0.003% chance of dying from Covid, that is, 3 in 100,000. On campuses, the risk is noticeably lower because they have fewer people 75 and older than does the general population. Again, given this low risk and the small risk that an unvaccinated person transmits the virus to a vulnerable, vaccinated employee, this is too low a risk to pressure someone to take a strongly unwanted substance into her body. By analogy, CUNY and SUNY do not require faculty to get a flu, pneumonia, or shingles shots despite these being contagious diseases. CUNY and SUNY also do not require that faculty not be obese, get divorced, or gender transition, even though these have contagion-like effects.

            Third, consider whether unvaccinated faculty endanger unvaccinated employees, for example, unvaccinated faculty. Such faculty have chosen to assume a greater risk than if they were vaccinated. By analogy, we do not and should not require that faculty members get the flu shot in order to protect those who choose not to get a flu shot. Because they assumed the risk, the unvaccinated have no special claim to state protection, especially if the protection involves strongarming people to put unwanted substances into their bodies. In any case, the risk is not all that great because in the US, the unvaccinated are only 7 times more likely to die from Covid than the vaccinated and the risk of the former is quite small.

            Fourth, consider the public. If Hochul’s order is designed to protect the public, then it is not faculty-specific. If Hochul wants to require it of all New York employees, she should do so. Singling out the faculty is just taking advantage of their weakness – specifically, their far-left ideology – and is not a principled attempt to focus on a dangerous group. By analogy, if the New York wants to lessen or eliminate gun ownership, it should not do so by requiring that CUNY and SUNY faculty not own guns as a condition on employment. Rather, it should mandate this for all of its employees.

            One expects this sort of virus-related idiocy on campuses these days. Amherst requires students to wear two masks if they are not wearing a KN95 mask. Cornell recommends its students wear masks outdoors. Georgetown requires events be held virtually or outdoors. Princeton requires that vaccinated students not leave the county unless they are on a sports team.  

            One objection is that vaccination provides a public good. A public good is one that for which people cannot be excluded and for which one person’s consumption of the good does not make less available to others. Examples include clean air and nuclear defense. The state should be wary of requiring important rights be waived in order to bring about public goods. For example, consider an imaginary scenario in which that contraceptive implants and IUDs in teenage girls produce very good results because they significantly reduce the number of dropouts, out-of-wedlock births, and welfare usage. Further assume that these things are a public good because of their effects on communities. New York still should not require this for teenage girls who attend public schools. Nor should it require this for girls whose mothers work for CUNY or SUNY. We should take a person’s right to control her body seriously.  

Disclosure: I had three Moderna-shots.

Immigration and the Soul of a Nation

Stephen Kershnar

Immigration and the Essence of a Nation

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

December 27, 2021

 

            Large numbers of immigrants have recently come to the United States. This will change the country.  

            Using Census Bureau numbers, the Center for Immigration Studies reports that in the US there are now 46 million immigrants (legal and illegal). This is the largest number ever recorded. Immigrants are now 14.2% of the population. Roughly, this percentage has tripled since 1970 and doubled since 1990. It is nearly the highest percentage ever. The highest was in 1890 when 14.8% of the population were immigrants. By 1910, the percentage of immigrants began to drop precipitously.

            This flood of immigrants ratcheted up the country’s population. Using Bureau of Labor numbers, roughly 86 million people – 26% of the US population – are immigrants and their children. This makes the country considerably more crowded than it was in the 70’s and 80’s.

This flood of immigration is not only new but differs from the rest of the world. In 2015, the US had a larger immigrant population than any other country. It had 19% of the world’s immigrants despite having 4% of its population. Currently, no other country has even a quarter the number of immigrants we do.

            The Biden administration is on track to let in more than 2 million illegal aliens. There were already more than 22 million illegal aliens in the country. On one estimate, the average illegal alien and her children cost taxpayers $8,000 per year. As a group they cost taxpayers more than $100 billion per year. These estimates are controversial and other estimates are far lower. Still, on most estimates, illegal aliens pull money out of citizens’ wallets.   

            The question is how this flood of immigrants will change the US. One important issue here is whether the United States is constituted by a people, a set of ideas, or both. Many countries are constituted by a people or a limited number of peoples. Consider, for example, China, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Norway, and South Korea.

It is often thought that the US is not constituted by a limited number of peoples - despite its Western European and African heritage - rather it consists of a set of ideas. These ideas include economic and political freedom, specific Constitution-based content and structures, and individualism. This is what allows the US to persist despite incorporating 86 million new people. The question arises whether the new peoples accept this set of ideas.

Currently, the politically freest countries in the world are European and some East Asian countries (Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan). The economically freest countries largely follow roughly the same pattern. It is not obvious that immigrants from countries that are currently and historically unfree will support the American set of ideas. As George Mason’s economist Garrett Jones argues, immigrants tend to bring their worldview with them and change the country they move into to be more like the country from which they came. If this is correct, we can expect immigrants who come from countries with less of a history of freedom to be less likely to support this set of ideas than those from countries with better histories.

This is not merely an economic finding. Consider whether the historic American people – that is, current Americans minus immigrants and their children - would have voted for the Biden administration and Democratic Party that continues to try to cut back on freedom, engages in political corruption, and considers destroying long-standing American institutions. For political freedom, consider free speech on university campuses, gun ownership, and social media censorship. For economic freedom, consider attempts to jack up taxes and regulations, monitor people’s bank accounts, and push affirmative action and quotas. For corruption, consider immigration policies that run roughshod over the law, Obama-era IRS corruption, the Russia Hoax, and unconstitutional Covid policies. For attempts to change long-standing American institutions, consider attempts to add DC and Puerto Rico as states, eliminate the electoral college, nationalize election procedure, and pack the Supreme Court. Consider, also, the administration’s indifference to inflation. Were the 86 million new people not here, most, if not all, of these changes would not have occurred and the proposed changes would not get serious consideration.

This is not to say that immigrants do not bring plenty to the nation. They clearly do. But it is to say that they will greatly change it. This is especially true with regard to immigrants who are not from Western or East Asian nations. Part of the problem here might be cultural diversity. The most culturally diverse countries in the world are poor – consider India - and often unfree – consider, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, and Nigeria. Economist Erkan Gören found that cultural diversity is inversely related to per capita income. Still, one might doubt whether cultural diversity causes poverty or unfreedom. Some of the worst nations in the world lack diversity. Consider Haiti and Rwanda.

Massive immigration - especially from non-European and non-East-Asian countries – will likely change the set of ideas that are part of the American identity and affect Americans’ wealth. Even if this were not true, it is unclear that a nation is merely a set of political institutions or a way for citizens to become wealthier. Arguably, it is a people who have a shared history and identify with one another. This explains why no leading figure supports admitting 20 million third-world immigrants a year even if doing so would make us freer and richer. Similarly, almost no one wants Americans to be citizens of ten or more countries and, thus, have little connection to the American people. It also explains why almost no one wants her small town to be flooded with Hasidic Jews or strictly observant Muslims regardless of how they vote and regardless of whether they are pleasant and supercharge the business community.

As the US takes in a massive number of immigrants it will change the country. This change is worth considering before we let in another 46 million.  

The Left Dominates the Professoriate

Stephen Kershnar

The Left Ratchets Up Its Control of Academia

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

December 14, 2021

 

            The left has a chokehold on universities. This will shape the America for years to come.

Americans are roughly evenly split between liberals and conservatives. Here I use party affiliation as evidence of political orientation. The Pew Research Foundation found that the ratio of Democrats to Republicans is 1.1 to 1, that is, roughly equal (2020 data). Specifically, 33% of registered voters identify as Democrats and 29% identify as Republicans.

First, consider top universities. Brooklyn College’s Mitchell Langbert and Heterodox Academy’s Sean Stevens found that in 2019 at top universities - specifically the best private universities, public universities, and liberal arts colleges in each state - the ratio of Democrat to Republican professors is 9 to 1. The drift to the left appears to be increasing as the ratio among younger tenure-track professors is 11 to 1. Among female professors the ratio is an incredible 16 to 1.

In some fields, the ratio is even more skewed. Langbert and Stevens found that the Democrat-to-Republican ratios for some departments are as follows: anthropology (42 to 1), English (27 to 1), and sociology (27 to 1).

Second, consider the Ivy League. In 2016, The Washington Times’ Bradford Richardson reported that Columbia and Princeton had 30 Democrat professors for every Republican professor. In 2020, The Yale News’ Madison Hahamy reported that Yale professors gave less than 3% of their political donations to Republican candidates and affiliated groups.

The elite schools matter. Six of the last ten presidents graduated from Ivy League schools and another two graduated from the Ivies’ peers (Duke and Naval Academy). Seven current Supreme Court justices went to the Ivy League or Stanford for both undergraduate and law school. Ditto for the senate majority leader. The Ivies and their peers produce a significant portion of the leadership of Silicon Valley, U.S. military, and Wall Street. The faculty’s ideas likely explain - at least in part - the nearly homogenous public views of the leaders of these fields concerning affirmative action, Big Tech censorship, illegal aliens, interventionist wars, transgenderism, vaccine mandates, voter IDs, etc.   

            Third, consider top tier liberal arts colleges. Examples include Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore. Langbert found that the ratio of Democrat to Republican professors at these schools is 10 to 1. Incredibly, 39% of the colleges – 20 of the 51 - did not have a single Republican professor. In New York State, these schools include Colgate (19 to 1), Hamilton (25 to 1), and Vassar (35 to 1).

            Lest one thinks this is just a feature of the faculty, Sarah Lawrence University’s Samuel Abrams points out that university administrators skew even further left than the faculty. Their liberal-to-conservative ratio is 12 to 1. In contrast, Abrams points out, most occupational categories have more conservatives than liberals. As a result, the administrators will not be keeping the faculty’s political biases in check.

            The University of Colorado’s Spencer Case argues that the lopsided ratios are in part the result of discrimination. He cites research from several sources. The University of Toronto’s Yoel Inbar and the University of Cologne’s Joris Lammers found that 38% of social and personality psychology professors said that they would hire a liberal over a conservative if forced to choose between two equally qualified candidates. A significant minority said they were willing to discriminate against conservatives regarding grant review, paper review, and symposia invitations. In 2010, University of North Texas’ George Yancey found that roughly 30% of sociologists would be less likely to support a job seeker if they knew that he was a Republican. Cambridge University’s Uwe Peters et al. found that a significant minority of surveyed philosophers were explicitly willing to discriminate based on political orientation. The further to the left a philosopher is, Peters et al. found, the more she is willing to discriminate. Case points out that this willingness to discriminate aligns with conservative professors’ perception of hostility. Nearly half report censoring themselves.

There is no clear solution to this problem.

First, at least some of the leftist bent among faculty is due to demographics and self-selection. Writing in The Atlantic, Adam Harris points out that in the 2018 election, college-educated white voters were noticeably more likely to cast their votes for Democrats than white voters without a degree. Demographic and self-selection factors are difficult to disentangle from discrimination. 

Second, there is no way to prevent this discrimination without having outside people hire and promote faculty. The willingness to discriminate is too strong to be voluntarily set aside. Outside people would lack the expertise to make these decisions or would come from the same class as current discriminators.   

Third, affirmative action for conservatives would come at the expense of merit. Conservatives would end up underperforming. This would result in people looking askance at conservative faculty just as they do regarding current affirmative action faculty.  

The problem here is Robert Conquest’s second law of politics. It states that, “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.” If this is correct, then conservatives will have a significant presence at a university only if it is explicitly right-wing. There are some universities that have such an identity – for example, Brigham Young, Hillsdale, Liberty, and SMU – but they lack the national importance of the elite universities. In addition, they are often sectarian and, thus, lack broad-based appeal. The elite schools continue to have the best faculty and students. A conservative attempt to capture an elite university would be prohibitively expensive (the schools have large amounts of money that would be used to fight the capture) and, if successful, would likely endanger its elite status.  

The best alternative is to offer alternative programming. Conservative organizations try to do so. Perhaps the most high-profile instance of this is the Federalist Society, which provides a vital counter to the left in law schools (Disclosure: I was a member). Still, it is unclear if this alternative programming does much to counteract the leftist programming.

How the Supreme Court Should Approach Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Stephen Kershnar

The Constitution Does Not Protect Fetuses

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

November 29, 2021

 

            This Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concerning Mississippi’s abortion law.

Mississippi banned abortions performed after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law does not permit abortion in the case of rape or incest but permits it when there is a medical emergency or severe fetal abnormality. The 15-week period is odd. A fetus begins to have a heartbeat after 6 weeks, forms a brain after 6 weeks, and – on one influential account - does not become conscious until 24 weeks. It is unclear what happens at 15 weeks.

            Other states have also passed other pro-life laws. The Texas Heartbeat Act prevents abortions after fetal heartbeat, which usually occurs 6 weeks after conception. Georgia banned abortions after 6 weeks. The three states’ laws conflict with Roe v. Wade (1973), a landmark Supreme Court case that held that a woman has a right to an abortion up to 24 weeks because fetuses up to that time are not viable. A fetus is viable when it can survive outside the womb.

            One issue is whether the Constitution protects fetuses. There are two provisions that someone might think protects the fetus. The Due Process Clause says, “[No state shall] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Equal Protection Clause says, “[No state shall] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Emphasis added. The issue here is in part whether “person” refers to fetuses. Oxford University’s C’Zar Bernstein argues that the Due Process Clause is less relevant because, in the context of abortion, the life-takers are private citizens rather than the state. He also notes that the argument over abortion does not concern procedure.

            The most plausible way to way to interpret the Constitution involves originalism. Originalism asserts that the meaning of a Constitutional provision was set at the time it was passed. The idea is that Constitutional provisions have meaning, and this meaning persists over time. This can occur only if the meaning is set when it was originally passed. On different interpretations, the meaning of a provision is fixed by the authors’ or ratifiers’ intention, the ordinary meaning of the language to the public when it was passed, or its inherited common-law meaning. On this last view, the law incorporated the common law – specifically, English-judge-made law – because it used common-law words and phrases.

            The meaning of “person” should be understood in common law terms because it – along with other terms such as “cruel and unusual punishment” – was intended and understood to be a term of art, that is, a word whose meaning tracked specific legal meaning rather than ordinary meaning. One reason for this is that the Constitution’s authors and ratifiers thought about and wrote the Constitution with common-law meanings in mind. Another reason for this is the way in which language works in specialized fields. Consider, for example, how commerce, science, and sport use terms of art.

            Bernstein argues that the common law set the meaning of person according to the Born Alive Rule. This rule states that a human being becomes a person only after live birth. This can be seen in English common law regarding homicide (homicide applied only to the killing of a born human being), tort law (no liability for pre-natal injury), and inheritance (a human being may inherit only if he is born). This matters because the 14^th Amendment’s Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses used some of the same language as the 5^th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, language that came from the British common law.

            If this common law interpretation is correct, then the Constitutional term, “person,” does not refer to a fetus. It still might be the case that as a matter of constitutional law, states have a compelling interest in protecting fetal life and that the ban on abortion is a necessary means by which to do this, but this involves the sort of moral reasoning that originalists hesitate to engage in.

            Consider the moral debate over abortion. It comes down to three issues. (1) Is the fetus a person in the metaphysical sense? That is, were we ever fetuses? (2) Does the fetus have a moral right to inside the woman? (3) If the fetus does not have a right to be inside the woman, may the woman kill it as a way of protecting her body against invasion? That is, is an unwanted pregnancy a body-invasion similar to a rape? These philosophical issues are outside of the Supreme Court’s expertise and ones that it botched in the past. Perhaps the court must address these issues in deciding what the Equal Protection Clause means, but then it seems to blur the distinction between interpreting and making law. That is, addressing (1) to (3) appears to be legislating.

            If the common-law interpretation is correct, then professors – for example, Oxford University’s John Finnis – who argue that the Constitution requires that abortion be made illegal because the Constitution protects “persons” - are mistaken because fetuses are not Constitutional persons. In addition, if the common-law interpretation is correct, then the Justices should be wary of putting too much weight on precedent - especially Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) - because the Court decided these decisions without acknowledging that a fetus is not a Constitutional person and because it did not show its moral reasoning, particularly with regard to issues (1) to (3). In addition, its focus on viability is best seen as a political compromise rather than a good faith attempt to interpret the Constitution.

            Instead, the Court should do one of two things. It should engage in explicit moral reasoning regarding women’s and fetuses’ rights. Alternatively, it should declare that such reasoning is legislating and hold that Constitution does not address the issue. The issue would then get kicked back to the states.

SUNY Fredonia at the Crossroads

Stephen Kershnar

Standing at the Crossroads

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

November 12, 2021

 

            The State University of New York at Fredonia appears to be standing at the crossroads.

            First, the school’s enrollment is dropping. The school currently has roughly 3,800 students. By way of contrast, it had roughly 5,800 students in 2010. According to the Democrat & Chronicle, from 2011 to 2021, Fredonia’s enrollment fell 33%. In general, during this period, SUNY enrollment fell by 20%. Still, with the exception of Potsdam, Fredonia’s enrollment fell noticeably more than its comprehensive-college peers. In addition, SUNY’s elite (non-specialized) research universities did not lose enrollment. Some significantly increased enrollments. Consider Binghamton (+26%), Stonybrook (+13%), Buffalo (+12%), and Albany (0%).

            Second, in response to Fredonia’s shrinking enrollment, the school sharply increased the percentage of students accepted. In 2013, it accepted 53% of applicants in 2013. In 2020, it accepted 72%. Recently, it is alleged that the acceptance rate for first-time-first-year students is at roughly 90%, although this is likely a different category than the overall acceptance rates listed in the preceding sentence. The college is thus moving in the direction of open admission. Part of the reason for moving in this direction is that the yield rate – the number of students whom Fredonia accepts and who then accept Fredonia – dropped from 35% in 2013 to 18% in 2020.

A few years ago, President Ginny Horvath allegedly dropped the SAT floor by 100 points and made recruiting NYC students a priority. It is unclear how this affected the numbers.

            Despite the increase in acceptance and decrease in yield, the reported average SAT score increased from 1080 in 2013 to 1110 in 2020. The percentage of students in the top quarter decreased slightly (-9%) and the percentage of students in the top decile increased significantly (+46%). It is unclear how much, if any, of these reported changes result from the 35% of students for whom a class rank is not available (2020 number).

Despite the reported caliber of students holding steady or improving, the graduation rate is dropping. The four-year graduation rate decreased 10% between 2006 and 2016 (the latest available number). The above changes occurred even as the school diversified its student body. Over the last decade, the percentage of minority students more than doubled, going from 12% to 26% of the student body. This figure leaves out students whose race or ethnicity is unknown.

            As a result of these changes in enrollment, the school has a $16.4 million structural deficit. The administration says that it expects to make up most of the structural deficit up with federal and state money but has called for $1.5 million in salary savings from unspecified sources. These problems are not new. A few years ago, Horvath said that the school had a $12-million-dollar structural deficit and largely exhausted its reserves, and, so, things would have to change . Note that a structural deficit is not an actual deficit and so we should be wary of putting too much weight on these deficit-numbers.

Fredonia College Council President Frank Pagano said, “We had the same amount of people working when we had 5,700 (students) as we do when we have 3,700 students.” He also said, “[S]ome programs will also have to be cut or eliminated. It will be tough to do with tenured professors, but it will have to be done if the campus wants to shore up its finances.”

President Stephen Kolison promptly contradicted Pagano’s statement. He said, “[T]here are no existing plans for reducing programs or eliminating tenured faculty positions.” In addition, the administration recently approved a plan to hire 11 new, tenure-track faculty next academic year. Hiring these faculty will likely eat up 40% of the planned $1.5 million in salary savings. The statement and approval are hard to square with the supposedly dire financial state of the college. Last year, Kolison announced the college would hire 9 new permanent administrators. This also suggests that the financial situation is not terrible. So far no one has publicly explained the conflict between Pagano’s and Kolison’s statements.

            The tension between the administration and faculty is building. A few years ago, some faculty proposed a no-confidence vote in President Ginny Horvath. The university senate never voted on the proposal, but there was a good chance it would have passed. The UUP recently filed suit against the college because it allegedly used an improper procedure to increase the humanities faculty’s yearly teaching load from six to seven classes.

            Problems arise if the federal government does not give millions of dollars to the college and its students as it did last year. The problems can be addressed in a few ways: retiring faculty and staff might not be replaced, programs with low enrollment might be cut, or programs unrelated to the campus’ identity – its identity includes the arts, education, and science – might be cut.

The first option – refrain from replacing retirees - would avoid the loss of morale that would accompany program elimination and layoffs. On the other hand, it would make faculty and staffing shortfalls depend on who retired rather than prioritizing what is important to the campus. It would also likely result in some programs heavily relying on non-tenure-track faculty. These faculty are on average, less competitive than their tenure-track peers, although their lower salaries make them cost effective.

The second option – eliminate programs with low enrollment – aims at selling programs students want similar to how Walmart sells products customers want. The third option – promote programs tied to the campus’ identity - would allow the college to develop a clearer identity in the competition for students. The third option would lessen the need to compete with the larger, more prestigious university centers – for example, Buffalo – and some comprehensive-college competitors – for example, Geneseo. These last two options come at a cost. They would involve fewer programs, lowered morale, and, perhaps, a fight over the college’s identity.

In deciding how to proceed with program cuts and layoffs – if in fact they must be made –  the college will have to balance market niche, student preferences, and faculty morale. It thus faces the crossroads.

Disclosure: I am a tenured faculty member at Fredonia.

The Bleeding Southern Border

 Stephen Kershnar

The Bleeding Southern Border

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

October 31, 2021

 

            The Biden administration is moving the country toward an open Southern border. This is disgraceful.   

This year, the country will let in roughly 2 million illegal aliens. This is based on internal government estimate of 2 million illegal aliens who will be encountered at the border. Many will be let in. In addition, there are 400,000 who will likely sneak past border patrol. The number of illegal aliens is thus larger than the population of San Diego. It is the equivalent to letting in a population equal to Atlanta, Kansas City, and Miami in one year. 

            The loathsome Biden administration did it through a massive across-the-board effort. It stopped building the Southern wall. It tried to put in place a 100-day freeze on all deportation. This applied even to those found guilty of assault, drunk driving, and manslaughter.

The Biden administration then tried to end the “Remain in Mexico” policy. The policy held that asylum seekers from Central America should apply in Mexico or the first safe country. Common sense demands this rule as the vast majority of Central American asylum seekers are ineligible under American law. It also ended a related agreement with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras that – following international law - asylum seekers must file for asylum in the first safe country they get to rather than breaking into the US and filing there.

Having opened the Southern border, the Biden administration then put in place the Obama administration’s idiotic “catch and release” policy. This policy allows illegal aliens who broke into the country to stay subject only to a notice to appear before a judge far into the future. Many do not do so. Some illegal aliens were even released without a court date. The Biden administration then – at taxpayers’ expense - bussed or flew many illegal aliens to different parts of the country in the dead of night and without telling local authorities.

            The Biden administration also eliminated accountability. It ended the “public charge” rule that required that those who were likely to become dependent on welfare were ineligible for permanent residency (green card). It announced that families or employers who sponsor aliens would no longer have to sign an affidavit of support. Such a promise of support would have made them financially responsible if an immigrant went on welfare. And, of course, the administration ended any financial penalty for sanctuary cities. It is even considering a roughly $1 million dollar payment to families separated while breaking in.

            Many of the above policies are illegal. Like the Obama administration’s criminal use of the FBI, IRS, Justice Department, and NSA, open-and-notorious lawbreaking is now the norm.    

            On average, each new legal immigrant sponsors 3.5 other immigrants. Immigrant women have on average 2.9 children (immigrant women without an education have even more). Thus, letting in and amnestying 2 million illegal aliens in effect adds 10 million people. By way of contrast, Pennsylvania has 13 million people.

Most households headed by immigrants from Central America and Mexico are on welfare (73%). This is more than twice as high as the native population (30%). The economic problems of these immigrants continue to a second generation. Specifically, the children of Hispanic immigrants have much lower incomes (including median household income), are much less likely to be proficient in math and reading when in school, and are much less likely to graduate from college.

One of the reasons this matters is that most taxpayers – 61% - pay no federal income tax and, so, we are importing generations of people who ride in the wagon rather than pushing it. If the country wanted immigrants who – both initially and via their children - would perform better than average in terms of crime, education, income, marriage, and welfare, we could easily get them by admitting immigrants from Asia. Such successful immigrants would even come with an obesity rate less than half of current Americans.

Instead of selecting immigrants similar to how an Ivy League school selects its students – which we easily could do – the administration is hell-bent on doing the opposite. Even if the country were committed to admitting Hispanic immigrants, the country could mimic affirmative-action admission in the Ivy League and admit the best Hispanic applicants, thereby ensuring quite talented immigrants, even if not the very best we can get.

None of this is good for current citizens. It is not good economically. See above. This is true whether we compare the illegal aliens to no immigrants or merit-based immigrants.

Nor is it good politically. People who depend on the government for the basics – education, food, housing, and medicine – are much less likely to care about freedom or vote for it. They are also less likely to be bothered by warmongering or gross criminality – see the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations– and more on keeping the gravy train moving down the tracks.  

This is not even good socially. Most Americans do not want unskilled-and-uneducated illegal aliens as their neighbors or dating their 17-year-old daughters. Such preferences have nothing to do with an American’s race or ethnicity. It makes little sense to import people who Americans, on average, do not want as lovers, neighbors, sons-in-law, or spouses.

What is the justification for opening the Southern border? As noted above, it is not economic, political, or social. It is not even the most charitable thing we could so. If we want to let in the poorest and most desperate, we could admit 2 million from the Congo, Niger, Malawi, etc. They live in far worse conditions than Central Americans. We could also admit 10 million immigrants rather than the 3.2 million immigrants – legal and illegal – that we will probably admit this year. In any case, a country facing a debt 130% of its economy, Social Security and Medicare insolvency, a social fabric increasingly being torn apart (see abortion, Antifa/BLM, Covid-mandates, and school board fights), and possible conflict with China, does not have the luxury of this nonsense.