Academic Questions articles from June 2000

Academic Questions archives from June 2000

LETTERS.(Letter to the Editor)
June 22, 2000... A Descent in Twelve Tones To the editor, Edward Rothstein's article on PC follies in musicology (Winter 1999-2000) is the first, I believe, to treat this topic at length. One or two words could be added to the account by way of...

The Forbidden Discovery of Kennewick Man.
June 22, 2000... On a hot July day in 1996 two young men took a walk along the Columbia River after attending the annual hydroplane races at Kennewick, Washington. As they waded in the shallow water near the shore they came across a human skull. The men...

Where Ethics Has Gone.
June 22, 2000... Two words loom large these days in think-pieces about the state of the nation or the world: "values and "culture." It seems to be accepted that these words have the ring of principle and announce a serious moral intention on the part of those...

A Liberal Education: Knowing What to Resist.
June 22, 2000... The worries, the studies, the taxes, and the activities employed to reform education at each level are vain unless and until we recapture the purpose and content of liberal education. Modernity's success in health and welfare has not, it seems,...

A Tale of Two Frauds.
June 22, 2000... For academics, whose vocation is the pursuit of the truth, what justification, if any, can excuse their lying? And what action will a university take when it is exposed publicly that one of their professors has perpetrated a wide-ranging fraud?...

Cultural Or Scientific Literacy?
June 22, 2000... About two hundred years ago the United States was a poorly developed (both culturally and economically), newly independent nation with a population about ten times smaller than that of either England or France. Over the years, our country...

Reverse Discrimination by the Numbers.
June 22, 2000... Racial discrimination can be defined as unequal (unfavorable) treatment of an individual on account of his or her racial or ethnic group membership.(1) Discrimination involves denying to someone a privilege or reward that he would have...

The Ups and Downs of Affirmative Action Preferences.(Review)
June 22, 2000... The Ups and Downs of Affirmative Action Preferences, by M. Ali Raza, A. Janell Anderson, and Glynn Custred. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999, 207 pp., $59.95 hardbound. The proper role of race, ethnicity, and gender in the allocation of...

The Color Bind: California's Battle to End Affirmative Action.(Review)
June 22, 2000... The Color Bind: California's Battle to End Affirmative Action, by Lydia Chavez. Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, 305 pp., $40.00 hardbound and $18.00 paperback. The proper role of race, ethnicity, and gender...

The Betrayal of Liberalism: How the Disciples of Freedom and Equality Helped Foster the Illiberal Politics of Coercion and Control.(Review)
June 22, 2000... The Betrayal of Liberalism: How the Disciples of Freedom and Equality Helped Foster the Illiberal Politics of Coercion and Control, ed. Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee Publishers, 1999, 248 pp., $14.95 paperback. ...

Books and Articles of Academic Interest.
June 22, 2000... The mention to AQ readers of "affirmative action" in higher education usually conjures thoughts of the racial or gender quota regime that has long dominated the academic hiring process, or to the race-based undergraduate admissions policies now...