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After Temple student’s TikTok controversy, the university clashes with reality
Campus busybodies notched a win last week as Temple University came down hard on a student for posting an off-color joke about its surrounding neighborhood.
Administrators were tipped off to a short video by one male student labeling Temple’s environs a “ghetto” by a tattletale tweet accusing the student of spreading “hate” and “bigotry.” Instead of telling the tattler to deal with the problem herself — you know, as future adults must ostensibly do — the administration jumped in, announced that the student would be barred from helping to welcome incoming freshmen, and that they planned to discipline him with “education.”
While Temple spokesperson Raymond Betzner lamented the “deeply concerning” circumstances, he seemed bullish on the power of conversation: “When you sit down and you talk to students,” lo and behold, “their perspective changes.” It is indeed amazing how one’s perspective changes when faced with the prospect of having one’s future canceled by an incensed bureaucrat.
This all brings to mind a campus phenomenon that is now seeping into everyday life, best illustrated in Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s brilliant The Coddling of the American Mind.
An overprivileged kid expecting not to be offended tattled on her peer; a helicopter administration swept in to solve the problem — just like mommy and daddy do. Was this publicly funded response really beneficial to anybody?
It is possible to disagree with the student’s language and with the Orwellian reaction by Temple’s administration.
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Colleges agree to allow increased competition for applicants
WASHINGTON — The financial aid stranglehold on students who commit to colleges may be broken.
In a proposed agreement announced this month to answer Justice Department antitrust accusations, the National Association for College Admission Counseling said it would allow its member college and university counselors to recruit students even after they have committed to another school and would permit members to encourage students to transfer after they have already enrolled.
Colleges and universities have been heavily criticized for encouraging potential students to enter into agreements, particularly for early admissions, with the understanding that an accepted applicant could not then turn to another school. That understanding, which was not legally binding but was widely followed, prevented universities from competing for applicants by offering more enticing financial aid packages.
Now colleges will be free to offer perks, like special scholarships or priority in course selection, to early-decision applicants — students who are less likely to need tuition assistance and use the process to secure a spot at their first-choice schools. For many selective colleges, more than half of an incoming freshman class will have been accepted through early admission.
Institutions will also be able to continue recruiting students beyond a widely applied May 1 deadline that is typically imposed for students who have applied through a regular decision process and are considering offers based, at least in part, on financial aid packages.
The changes stand to shake up the admissions process in the next year, affecting some colleges’ ability to predict the size of their freshman classes while allowing some students to benefit from competitive financial aid packages or even bargain for assistance right up until they walk onto a campus.
The agreement brings to a close a two-year investigation into the association’s code of ethics by the Justice Department’s antitrust division, which enforces laws governing fair consumer and competitive market practices. In a complaint, the Justice Department maintained that the organization’s recruitment standards violated antitrust laws because they “substantially reduced competition among colleges for college applicants and potential transfer students and deprived these consumers of the benefits.”
The department began investigating shortly after the National Association for College Admission Counseling adopted new recruitment rules in 2017, which sought to protect students and families from undue pressure and aggressive tactics that could be construed as coercive. The rules were part of a broad set of voluntary professional standards that the organization writes for its members, more than 15,000 high school and college admissions counselors.
The Justice Department took issue with three provisions: Schools should not offer incentives, like prime housing, to persuade students to apply early decision; colleges should not knowingly recruit or offer enrollment incentives to students who are already enrolled, registered, or have submitted their deposits to other institutions; and members must not initiate contact with students to lure them into transferring.
In September, the organization preemptively voted to strike the provisions from its ethics code to avoid a costly legal fight with the Justice Department, saying such litigation would have “dire consequences on the association’s finances and ability to operate in the future.”
The association “continues to believe that the now deleted provisions provided substantial aid and protection to students in their process of choosing and moving from high school to college,” the organization said in a statement. “However, the association understands its obligations under the decree and intends to strictly implement and abide by its provisions.”
In a statement, Makan Delrahim, the assistant attorney general who leads the antitrust division, called the settlement “a victory for all college applicants and students across the United States who will benefit from vigorous competition among colleges for their enrollment.”
“While trade associations and standards-setting organizations can and often do promote rules and standards that benefit the market as a whole, they cannot do so at the cost of competition,” he said.
In the early 1990s, the antitrust division investigated the eight colleges and universities in the Ivy League, which used “overlap meetings” to share information and collaborate on financial aid offers.
Last year, the Justice Department began investigating whether colleges and universities were violating antitrust laws by exchanging information about prospective students who make early-decision commitments.
Higher education experts anticipate that the changes will be mostly felt by smaller or less-selective institutions, many of which are already forecasting enrollment losses because of a looming “demographic cliff” from falling birthrates and diminishing interest from foreign students. Institutions may also have a harder time predicting their fall enrollment, and that uncertainty could affect their ability to pull from waiting lists or project how many students they lose over the summer.
Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost of enrollment management at Oregon State University, anticipated that the changes would prompt colleges and universities to lower costs for some prospective students.
“If there is anything good that comes out of this, it might be that colleges looking to fill their last slots might go and find some low-income students who are extremely price sensitive and would be thrilled to take a slot for a discounted price,” he said.
Brian Rosenberg, president of Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minn., said he did not believe there would be enough slots for those students. Affluent students will still disproportionately apply for early decision, Rosenberg said, and with the increased competition, colleges will rush to recruit tuition-paying students to secure their revenue early.
“It results in more benefit to the people who already benefit,” Rosenberg said. “The problem that it creates, and the problem that’s most endemic in our higher education system, is the students that stand to be most harmed are the ones already disadvantaged.”
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Hillsdale College receives $4.6M after it sues Mizzou for ignoring donor's wishes
Months before Sherlock Hibbs died in 2002 at the age of 98, he drafted his will, laying out his wish to invest in the economic principles that had shaped his life.
Hibbs’ success in finance had introduced him to the Austrian economists — and as his legacy, he hoped to leave new generations with the knowledge that had influenced him.
Prior to embarking on a business career in New York City, Hibbs graduated from the University of Missouri in 1926. He then joined the Navy in early 1942, and during World War II, he fought in North Africa, Italy, France and the Pacific. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
Hibbs didn’t have children, so in his will, he left millions to three Midwest colleges, including his alma mater, the University of Missouri, and Michigan’s Hillsdale College — a small liberal arts school that has achieved renown in part for eschewing government funding (Hillsdale is my alma mater).
Many years after Hibbs’ death, those two schools became entwined in a legal battle that found resolution this week. The case raises many questions about how a university — or any institution for that matter — honors (or doesn’t) the intent of a donor’s gift.
In Hibbs’ case, Mizzou accepted the $5 million gift from him, and then never honored the terms.
Here’s the background: In Hibbs’ will, he wanted his alma mater to create six endowed chairs and professorships in its business school with the express purpose of promoting a specific ideology.
According to the lawsuit, “The Will also required that each appointee to a Chair and Distinguished Professorship be a dedicated and articulate disciple of the Ludwig von Mises Austrian School of Economics.”
There’s not much room for misunderstanding there.
Mises, who died in 1973, advocated for free markets and the central role of the entrepreneur — and he warned against socialism and government intervention. His message is more important today than ever. Friedrich Hayek was another famous proponent of the Austrian school.
But administrators at the university resented having to adhere to this “school of conservative economic thought” and while they filled the positions, the professors were by no means the disciples Hibbs’ envisioned.
This is where Hillsdale College comes in. Hibbs intended to give money to Hillsdale, and knew the college was a proponent of Austrian economics (Ludwig von Mises gifted his personal library to Hillsdale, and it’s located in a beautiful room in the campus library).
Hibbs, realizing that the University of Missouri may not follow through with his wishes, had stipulated the university check in with Hillsdale every four years as to how the money was being spent. If Mizzou wasn’t honoring the terms, the funding would revert to Hillsdale. Hillsdale didn’t really want to play watchdog, but President Larry Arnn respected Hibbs’ request and agreed.
When it became obvious to Hillsdale that Mizzou was neglecting Hibbs’ intent, the college sued. Administrators, including a university provost who said he didn’t want the university being “held hostage by a particular ideology,” were called out in the lawsuit:
“These same individuals, not one of whom was a trustee of any purported trust involving the bequest, then concealed their conduct from the University’s Board of Curators, from the professors they appointed to the positions funded by the bequest, and from Hillsdale. Worse still, they pressured those professors to falsely certify to the Board of Curators and to Hillsdale — repeatedly — that the University had complied with the condition of the Hibbs’ bequest.”
Several years later, the two institutions have reached a settlement.
The agreement calls for Hillsdale to receive $4.6 million — 50% of what remains in the Mizzou trust, and almost the full amount of the original grant.
“They aren’t very good at teaching Austrian economics, but they are pretty good at investing,” says Peter Herzog, St. Louis-based lead trial counsel for Hillsdale. “Mr. Hibbs’ legacy will be upheld at Hillsdale. Fortunately, Mr. Hibbs was wise to set up his own enforcement mechanism and found an institution ready, willing and committed to ensure that his donor intent was honored. It is imperative for institutions and donors to know and understand one another so that intent is very clear.”
Jay Nixon, a Democrat and former governor of Missouri, is also representing Hillsdale in the suit.
With its remaining funds, the University of Missouri has promised it will hold a symposium every two years dedicated to Austrian economics, for a total of $15,000 for each event. Other funds will go toward economists who support a free and open economy.
While Hibbs would no doubt be disappointed with how his alma mater treated his generosity, he would be pleased that Hillsdale stepped up to defend his legacy.
Ivan Pongracic, a professor of economics at Hillsdale, is also the William E. Hibbs/Ludwig von Mises chair of economics. His gratitude toward Hibbs, as well as the economic values they share, is evident.
“As far as I'm concerned, Mises was the greatest economist of the 20th century, and his ideas have had a profound influence on my own thinking,” Pongracic told me in an email. “I'm also confident that they will continue to rise in acceptance and impact in the wider profession. I'm grateful to Mr. Sherlock Hibbs for recognizing that and endowing this chair to promote educating our students about Mises' many insightful contributions to economic thought as well as achieving greater general economic literacy.”
I have a feeling that’s exactly what Sherlock Hibbs had in mind.
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