The Presidential Fitness Test Won’t Make America ‘Tough’ Again

The Trump administration Is borrowing from a failed cold-war era playbook.
An illustration of three schools on a podium and ranked from first place to third.

College Rankings Were Once a Shocking Experiment

Now they’ve become an American ritual.
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy receives an honorary diploma from George Boas during  1951 commencement ceremony.
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The Real History of Tenure

Tenure is more than just academic freedom; it is also about labor protection, and it has a long history.
A book on top of a column.

American Higher Ed Never Figured Out Its Purpose

The centuries-long debate over who and what college is for has yet to be resolved.
Students use the Clio history app at Marshall University to learn about a public art piece.
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Starting with a Question

Meet Clio, a pedagogical tool that doubles as a travel app to get people hooked on learning history.
UC Berkeley's Campus Women's Forum poster

The History of Women’s Studies Is a History of Conflict

How the first Women's Studies department was developed at U.C. Berkeley in the 1970s.
Buildings at the University of Minnesota.

The Book That Explained the University To Itself

Laurence Veysey’s 1965 tome remains the most incisive portrait of higher education.
Painting of Renaissance poets reading and chatting together.

The Strange History of University Autonomy — and Why We Need It More Than Ever

Academic freedom from the Middle Ages to apartheid South Africa to now.

The Crisis of the University Started Long Before Trump

The financial crisis of the University of Chicago sheds light on the forces that are "corroding ideals, and wasting money" throughout American higher education.
A television set pictures Ronald Reagan gesturing towards a graph.

How the AIDS Epidemic Led to the Creation of Sex Ed in America

On the grim legacy of Ronald Reagan.
A teacher holds a students feet while the student does situps as part of a fitness test.

Can President Trump Run a Mile?

By reviving the Presidential Fitness Test, Trump is joining his predecessors in setting forth a competition that he would likely fail at.

What Besieged Universities Can Learn From the Christian Resurgence

Educators can fight back against Trump’s attacks by re-embracing “old-fashioned” disciplines and ideas.
A Caduceus with one snake ready to attack the other.

The Rapid Rise — and Precarious Future — of the Medical University

For decades, health care subsidized research and reputation. Now that model is cracking.
Joseph Pilates and Romana Kryzanowska illustration of them doing pilates.

Bodies by Joe

With his strange machines and an uncanny, intuitive understanding of muscles, Joseph Pilates created a new technique for improving strength and movement.
The book "A Forgotten Migration," and author Crystal R. Sanders

A Forgotten Migration: An Interview with Crystal R. Sanders

A new book examines the long history of racial inequality in higher education through the post-baccalaureate experiences of Jim Crow era African Americans.
Columbia University building shrouded in darkness.

In the Hallowed Place Where There’s Only Darkness

Columbia University as security state.
Photo of Claudine gay testifying to Congress.

What a 1964 Book About American Anti-Intellectualism Can Teach Us About the Trump Era

On Richard Hofstadter and the current assault on academia.

Teaching the Holocaust Just Got Harder in Mississippi

A new state law forbids education increasing ‘awareness’ of issues relating to race. How are educators supposed to teach history?
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The History of Government Influence Over Universities

During the Cold War, the government relied on universities for research, but also saw scholars as dangerous.
Brown University women's glee club, including Clara Gomberg, the first Jewish woman to graduate Brown.

“A Jewess Would Not Be Acceptable”

When it came to antisemitism, women’s colleges were no better than the Ivy League.
Title card for "Legacies of Eugenics" series, with a drawing of a form board for teaching shapes.

Trumpian “Common Sense” and the History of IQ Tests

On the troubling history of IQ tests and special education.
Painting of a person doing arithemetic.
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Solve for AI

What the history of the pocket calculator reveals about the future of AI in classrooms.
Illustration of characters from "The Great Gatsby."

How “The Great Gatsby” Took Over High School

The classroom staple turns a hundred.
Edward Said.

Said’s Specter

Columbia is at war with its intellectual heritage.
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his aide Roy Cohn.

Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump

The target then was the nonexistent threat of Communist teachers; today, it’s the supposed radicalism of the academy.
City College of New York in a still from Joseph Dorman’s Arguing the World, 1997.

The 176-Year Argument

How the City College of New York went from an experiment in public education to an intellectual hot spot for working class and immigrant students.
Immanuel Wallerstein

Immanuel Wallerstein at Columbia University

C. Wright Mills, Karl Polanyi, and the Frankfurt School in postwar America.
Eve Ewing, and the cover of her book "Original Sins."

How Do We Combat the Racist History of Public Education?

On the schoolhouse’s role in enforcing racial hierarchy.
Erased chalkboard in empty classroom

Cruel to Your School

Public education is meant to be a great equalizer. That’s why Trump wants to do undo it.
Minnijean Brown, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo (three of the Little Rock Nine), and NAACP president Daisy Bates.

Selling Out Our Public Schools

For decades, the term “school choice” was widely and rightly dismissed as racist. Now it’s the law in thirty-three states.