kc johnson

==
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/author/kcjohnson/

With the 25th Anniversary of Allan Bloom’s The Closing Of The American Mind upon us,

the absence of intellectual pluralism that Bloom decried is still

depressingly upon us. There is an undeniable divide between the Academy

and larger society; a curtain has been drawn around the academy, inside

of which the protection of certain ideas has trumped intellectual

exchange and a search for the truth. There should be no easy or

protected answers in our schools. In the modern academy, many certainly

do not know all of the ideas worthy of consideration. Minding the Campus

hopes to change that by fostering a new climate of opinion that favors

civil and honest engagement of all sides, offering an engaged debate for

readers concerned with the state of the modern university. We provide a

simple central resource, featuring fresh original content and drawing

upon the best from established magazines and publications, as well as

from less-visited corners, from professional journals to blogs and

student publications. In connecting resources from disparate worlds, we

hope to connect their readers, fostering potential for real discussion

and change. A conversation about America’s Universities is needed; look

for it here.

Minding the Campus Board of Directors

James Piereson, Chair of Minding the Campus, is  president of the William E. Simon Foundation and serves on the boards of many other non-profits, including the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pinkerton_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1">Pinkerton Foundation</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_W._Smith_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1">Thomas W. Smith Foundation</a>, the Center for Individual Rights, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philanthropy_Roundtable">Philanthropy Roundtable</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Foundation_for_Cultural_Review&action=edit&redlink=1">Foundation for Cultural Review</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Spectator">American Spectator Foundation</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Institution">Hoover Institution</a> at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University">Stanford University</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donors_Trust">Donors Trust</a>.

Trained in political science, he taught courses in political thought

and U.S. government at Iowa State, Indiana University and the University

of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution (2007).

Debra S. McEneaney, Director and Treasurer, is a

partner in Hopeworks Ltd, a consulting company. She has applied over 40

years of marketing, management, and strategic planning know-how to a

spate of non-profits, including the East Hampton Artists and Writers

Charity Softball Game, where she grew the annual donations from $20,000

to $202,000 over nine years. She is currently Marketing and Community

Advisor for the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreational Center.

Mark Bauerlein, Director and Vice President is an English professor at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emory_University">Emory University</a> and the author of the 2008 book, The

Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and

Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30), which won the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus_Book_Award">Nautilus Book Award</a>. Bauerlein worked at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_the_Arts">National Endowment for the Arts</a>,

serving as the Director of the Office of Research and Analysis.

 Bauerlein contributed to the NEA study, “Reading at Risk: A Survey of

Literary Reading in America.”

Karen Ann Love, Director and Secretary, has

provided, strategic, operating and legal advice to nonprofit

organizations on matters relating to governance and board relations,

development and charitable events for more than 15 years. She has

advised, drafted or negotiated on fundraising, sponsorship, and

commercial disaster relief and other emergency assistance programs; gift

agreements and grant agreements; establishing and administering

grant-making guidelines; establishment, and approval, of scholarship

programs; and forming and seeking federal, state and local exemptions

for nonprofits. In addition to her work with nonprofits and her strong

commitment to pro bono matters, she has devoted the rest of her practice

to media/ entertainment / sports law matters, and general corporate /

litigation matters.

John Leo, Editor,  is a former senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and  contributing editor at the Institute’s City Journal.

His popular column, “On Society,” ran in U.S.News & World Report

for 17 years, and was syndicated to 140 newspapers through the Universal

Press Syndicate. Leo has worked as a senior writer for Time magazine,

and as a staff reporter for the New York Times specializing in

intellectual trends and the social sciences. Among other position he has

held are assistant administrator of New York City’s environmental

protection administration, editor of a Catholic newspaper in Iowa,

associate editor of Commonweal, book editor of the social science

journal Trans-Action (now Society), and “Press Clips” columnist for the

Village Voice. He is the author of three books, most recently “Incorrect

Thoughts.”

==<header class="entry-header"><h1 class="entry-title">Links</h1></header>

LINKS – LEADING ORGANIZATIONS

<a href="http://www.goacta.org/flashindex.html" target="_blank">American Council of Trustees and Alumni</a>

ACTA, founded in 1995, has proven a consistent voice for alumni

interests, working “to ensure responsible management of higher education

resources, end grade inflation, establish a solid core curriculum, and

restore intellectual diversity on campus.” Its founding members included

Lynne Cheney, Joseph Lieberman, and Saul Bellow. ACTA has proven a

reliable voice for the interests of trustees and alumni in University

affairs, with members from over 400 colleges and universities. It

produces a quarterly publication Inside Academe.

<a href="http://www.thefire.org/index.php/" target="_blank">Foundation for Individual Rights in Education</a>

FIRE, founded in 1998 by Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate

following the publication of their The Shadow University is devoted to

protection of “freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious

liberty, and sanctity of conscience” at American universities. FIRE has

two principal efforts, the Individual Rights Defense Program and the

Individual Rights Education Program. The defense program provides legal

and institutional support for students’ free speech rights. The

education program is devoted to appraising students of these rights. In

both particulars FIRE is active in campaigning against restrictive

campus speech codes. It publishes a yearly Spotlight on Speech Code,

publicizing speech restrictions at American universities, as well a

several student guides to free expression. The Spotlight, available

online, profiles the speech policies of some 200 colleges and

universities.

<a href="http://www.isi.org/" target="_blank">Intercollegiate Studies Institute</a>

ISI was founded in 1953 by Frank Chodorov, with William F. Buckley as

first President to convey to students “an appreciation for the values

and institutions that sustain a free and virtuous society.” At present,

ISI conducts a wide variety of educational programs, providing

conferences, lectures, and seminars, and offering Fellowships for

Graduate studies. It pursues a wide range of publishing, issuing

numerous books, including a noted College Guide, and three journals, The

Intercollegiate Review, Modern Age, and The Political Science Reviewer.

Its membership numbers over 50,000 students and faculty members.

I.S.I. additionally directs the Collegiate Network, which provides

“technical and financial assistance” to nearly 100 independent

publications at many American universities. It administers student

internships and fellowships, as well as an online publication, Campus

Magazine.com.

<a href="http://www.nas.org/" target="_blank">National Association of Scholars</a>

The NAS is an academic association of professors, graduate students,

trustees, and administrators pressing for “an informed understanding of

the Western intellectual heritage.” Its prominent concerns include “the

substitution of social reform for the pursuit of knowledge”, “dogmatic

hostility to Western civilization”, and the decline of core curricula

and rise of “unscholarly curricular innovations.”

It publishes a quarterly journal Academic Questions, a quarterly

newsletter NAS Update, a general scientific publication, Science

Insights, and commissions occasional research and surveys. Conferences

and events are help by both the national organization and local

chapters. It has local chapters in 45 states and the District of

Columbia and a Canadian affiliate, with a membership in total of

something over 4,000

ALSO RECOMMENDED

<a href="http://www.aale.org/aale/about.htm" target="_blank">American Academy for Liberal Education</a>

The American Academy for Liberal Education is an association that

accredits institutions offering “quality general education programs in

the liberal arts.” Their accreditation is premised upon “demanding core

studies in the arts, sciences, and humanities” These distinctions are

measures for parents and students seeking challenging and comprehensive

programs of studies. It is a U.S. Department of Education-approved

accreditor of Higher Education institutions, with members such as St

John’s College, Thomas Aquinas College, and the University of Dallas.

<a href="http://www.coretexts.org/history.htm" target="_blank">Association for Core Texts and Courses</a>

ACTC, founded at Temple University in 1994, is a liberal arts

professional association advocating the study of great texts and core

curricula. It promotes “the integrated and common study of world

classics and other texts of major cultural significance” through

conferences, and symposia, continuing research on the varying nature and

direction of core studies at U.S. Institutions. It possesses 66

“institutional contributors” including Columbia, Emory, Hampden-Sydney,

Pepperdine, St. John’s, and the University of Chicago.

<a href="http://www.freestudies.org/background.html" target="_blank">Association for the Study of Free Institutions and Free Societies</a>

The Association is dedicated to the revival of the study of free

institutions and free societies in Higher Education. It works to promote

the study of such institutions and their histories, along with

ideological, totalitarian, or religious threats to their functioning.

Particular encouragement is provided to centers on the model of the

Madison Center at Princeton and the Colgate Center for Freedom and

Western Civilization.

<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/" target="_blank">Campus Watch</a>

Campus Watch is a project of the Middle East forum dedicated to the

review of Middle East Studies in U.S. Higher Education. Its principal

focus is review for “analytical failures, the mixing of politics with

scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the

abuse of power over students.” Campus Watch offers profiles of over

fifty higher colleges and Universities, and the details of such

incidents occurring there.

<a href="http://www.claremont.org/" target="_blank">Claremont Institute</a>

The Claremont Institute’s mission is “to restore the principles of

the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our

national life.” Since 1979, it has engaged in a wide variety of such

activities, with many of them focused on higher education. It hold

frequent lectures and symposia, and publishes both the Claremont Review

of Books, a notable book review, and The Proposition, which features

excerpts of the work of Claremont scholars. The Institute offers the

Lincoln and Publius Fellowship, educational programs focused on the

American founding, for students and professionals respectively.

<a href="http://www.fed-soc.org/" target="_blank">Federalist Society</a>

The Federalist Society is a legal association dedicated to

“reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on

individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law.” Law

schools’ advocacy of a “centralized and uniform society” has been a

prominent focus of their activities since their founding in 1982. The

Society has faculty and student divisions with some 5,000 members at

over 180 law schools. It holds numerous lectures, symposia, and debates

at member schools and engages in a wide variety of publishing, from the

ABA Watch to the Pre-Law Reading List.

<a href="http://www.tfas.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=216&srcid=244" target="_blank">Fund for American Studies</a>

The Fund for American Studies hosts nine institutes to provide

college students with an education in “the theory, practice and benefits

of a free society.” Eight institutes are held each summer, in

Washington, Greece, Hong Kong, and the Czech Republic. One institute is

held in the spring and fall in Washington. The Fund holds additional

professor and journalism seminars. The institutes, consisting of

internships, coursework, and lectures, focus on such particular topics

as Political Journalism, Comparative Politics and Economics, Business

and Government Affairs, and Philanthropy and Voluntary Service. It has

some 7,500 alumni from 700 colleges and universities in the US and

worldwide.

<a href="http://www.theihs.org/" target="_blank">Institute for Humane Studies</a>

IHS is dedicated to “change the current climate of opinion to one

more congenial to the principles and practice of freedom” and pursues

this goal through a variety of student programs and fellowships. It

awards over $400,000 in scholarships each year to University students

worldwide, for graduate or undergraduate study, research, and

filmmaking. Additional grants are available in essay competitions and to

support faculty research. Numerous student summer seminars are held at

colleges and universities across the country on a range of topics

concerning liberty, free societies, economics, and journalism.

<a href="http://www.libertyfund.org/" target="_blank">Liberty Fund</a>

Liberty Fund is an educational foundation and publisher established

to “encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and

responsible individuals.” Founded in 1960 by Pierre Goodrich it has

since been devoted to publications and conferences devoted to exploring

the “dimensions of liberty.” It publishes around 20 volumes a year, many

of them reprints of seminal works of economic and political theory. It

organizes some 160 related conferences a year in Europe and the

Americas.

<a href="http://www.neh.gov/" target="_blank">National Endowment for the Humanities</a>

NEH is an “independent grant-making agency of the United States

government dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation,

and public programs in the humanities.” It has been providing support

since 1963 to fellowships, research, publications, and education in the

humanities. It has supported such projects as Ken Burns’ Civil War and

volumes on American history by Bernard Bailyn, Louis Menand, and James

McPherson. It publishes a bimonthly magazine, Humanities.

<a href="http://www.popecenter.org/" target="_blank">John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy</a>

The Pope Center, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, is dedicated to

reform of higher education, especially, but not exclusively, in North

Carolina. It encourages scholarly inquiry, responsible teaching, and

student commitment to learning. It conducts a variety of research,

publishing inquiry papers and holding conferences on such topics as

governance, curriculum, financing, access, accountability, faculty

research, and administrative policies. It publishes a weekly email

newsletter on higher education, The Clarion Call, and the higher

education section of The Carolina Journal.

<a href="http://www.safs.ca/" target="_blank">Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship</a>

The Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship is a Canadian

organization devoted to the maintenance of freedom and excellence in

teaching, research and scholarship. Its concerns include resistance

against speech codes, discrimination on grounds of thought, and unfair

preferences. Its goal of “promoting reasoned debate on issues of

academic freedom and scholarship” is pursued through a variety of

advocacy activities. The Society publishes SAF Newsletter monthly.

<a href="http://www.splc.org/" target="_blank">Student Press Law Center</a>

SPLC is a legal assistance agency devoted to “educating high school

and college journalists about the rights and responsibilities embodied

in the First Amendment and supporting the student news media in their

struggle to cover important issues free from censorship.” The center

provides legal advice and educational materials to students, along with a

network of 150 attorneys offering free representation under most

circumstances. It produces a quarterly report of Student Journalism

censorship cases.

<a href="http://cms.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1" target="_blank">Students for Academic Freedom</a>

SAF’s mission is to “end the political abuse of the university and to

restore integrity to the academic mission as a disinterested pursuit of

knowledge.” Founded by David Horowitz, a central focus of SAF has been

the promotion of an Academic Bill of Rights, dedicated to ensuring

non-political instruction and freedom of expression. Students for

Academic Freedom has over 200 College and University chapters, dedicated

to the removal of political concerns from academic considerations.
==
wiki
Stuart Taylor Jr. is an American journalist and author. He also serves as a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookings_Institution" title="Brookings Institution">Brookings Institution</a> and practices law occasionally. He was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun from 1971-1974; The New York Times from 1980-1988, covering legal affairs and then the Supreme Court; wrote commentaries and long features for The American Lawyer, Legal Times and their affiliates from 1989-1997, and for National Journal and Newsweek

from 1998 through 2010; and has written on a freelance basis for

numerous publications both before and since 2010. He has also coauthored

two books and he and a coauthor will soon publish a third.

<h2>Contents</h2>

</div></div><div id="toc" class="toc"><ul><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#Career">1 Career</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#Literary_work">2 Literary work</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#Books:Duke_lacrosse_case_and_how_racial_preferences_hurt_students_they.27re_intended_to_help">3 Books: Duke lacrosse case and how racial preferences hurt students they're intended to help</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#References">4 References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#External_links">5 External links</a></li></ul>

</div>

<h2>Career</h2>Taylor

comments on legal affairs and political issues and often focuses on the

Supreme Court, appearing frequently in other publications such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic" title="The Atlantic">The Atlantic</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_%28magazine%29" title="Slate (magazine)">Slate</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Republic" title="The New Republic">The New Republic</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal" title="The Wall Street Journal">The Wall Street Journal</a>.

He also does numerous radio interviews and has been interviewed on all

major television news programs. Taylor graduated in 1970 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University" title="Princeton University">Princeton University</a> and in 1977 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Law_School" title="Harvard Law School">Harvard Law School</a>, magna cum laude. He was an associate from 1977-1980 at the D.C. law firm of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WilmerHale" class="mw-redirect" title="WilmerHale">WilmerHale</a>.

<h2>Literary work</h2>Taylor

has written about a very wide range of issues, from what he calls a

generally moderate ideological orientation. A random sampling: “Don't

Ask, Don't Tell,”<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-1">[1]</a> Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-2">[2]</a> and the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-3">[3]</a> He has argued for reform of the Voting Rights Act,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-4">[4]</a> has defended Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito from charges of being a “far-right activist,”<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-5">[5]</a> and has written and commented about the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-6">[6]</a> and about Obamacare.,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-7">[7]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-8">[8]</a>

Taylor wrote in The Atlantic in 2005 that despite all the debates

over the Supreme Court's ideological, ethnic, and gender “balance,”

“there is likely to be little discussion about the greatest

imbalance—the one in the collective real-world experience of its

justices. The Court's steady homogenization by professional background

has gone largely unremarked.”<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-9">[9]</a> He wrote in The Atlantic in 2011 that prosecutors in the rape case against <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Strauss-Kahn" title="Dominique Strauss-Kahn">Dominique Strauss-Kahn</a> didn't “have a viable criminal case,” but “the hotel maid should still get her day in civil court.”<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,Jr.#cite_note-10">[10]</a>

<h2>Books: Duke lacrosse case and how racial preferences hurt students they're intended to help</h2>He is the co-author, with Professor K.C. Johnson of Brooklyn College, of Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustice of the Duke Lacrosse Case (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0312369123" class="internal mw-magiclink-isbn">ISBN 0-312-36912-3</a>). It was published in September 2007. In the book, Johnson and Taylor recount in detail the entire story of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case" title="Duke lacrosse case">Duke lacrosse case</a>,

and explore some of its lessons as regards, for example, the

reliability of prosecutors, the trustworthiness of the media, and the

role of extreme political ideology in the academy. The New York Times

Sunday Book Review, referred to the book as a “riveting narrative” and

stated that “Taylor and Johnson have made a gripping contribution to the

literature of the wrongly accused. They remind us of the importance of

constitutional checks on prosecutorial abuse. And they emphasize the

lesson that Duke callously advised its own students to ignore: if you’re

unjustly suspected of any crime, immediately call the best lawyer you

can afford.”<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor,_Jr.#cite_note-11">[11]</a> In 2012, Richard Sander and Taylor coauthored Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It.

Judge Richard A. Posner wrote: "This lucid, data-rich book is simply

the best researched and most convincing analysis ever done of

affirmative action in higher education, a work at once impeccably

scholarly and entirely accessible to anyone interested in the social and

legal ramifications of well-intentioned policies that, as the authors

show, have a boomerang effect on the intended beneficiaries."

==
http://www.cato.org/events/until-proven-innocent-political-correctness-shameful-injustices-duke-lacrosse-rape-case

<div class="field-speakers">

    Featuring the coauthor <strong>Stuart Taylor Jr</strong>, Senior Writer, <em>National Journal</em>’ with comments by <strong>Victoria Toensing</strong>, Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Justice Department.  </font></div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">

    The Duke lacrosse rape case, which dominated cable news shows for

months, turned out to be one of the most shameful episodes of

prosecutorial abuse in recent memory. More than that, it exposed the

soft underbelly of both the academy and the media—the rush to judgment

by people obsessed with class, race, and gender politics. Stuart Taylor,

one of the nation’s foremost legal journalists, and Prof. KC Johnson

have just now drawn the vast material that surrounded the case into a

riveting narrative that George Will called a “scalding and disturbing

book on America’s civic culture” and John Grisham said “smothers any

lingering doubt that in this country the presumption of innocence is

dead.” Please join us for a discussion of this important new book. </div>
==