November 30, 2007
Football Success Delays U. of Missouri's Presidential Search
The University of Missouri has been without a president for eight months. A search committee had been hard at work interviewing candidates — until the university’s football team unexpectedly took over the nation’s No. 1 ranking this week.
Interview requests poured in. A Sports Illustrated cover followed.
What’s a university to do?
Top-ranked U. of Missouri football players take the field before a recent game. A win on Saturday means they will play for the national championship.
Missouri says it has been so overwhelmed with the joy ride that it has temporarily tabled its presidential search, the Associated Press reports.
Unexpected sports success has clouded other universities’ priorities before. Last year, when George Mason reached the Final Four in men’s basketball, the university’s provost, Peter Stearns, asked faculty members to show a “bit of leniency” if students skipped class.
If Missouri beats the University of Oklahoma this weekend to secure a spot in the national-championship game, it could mean an even longer wait for a new president. —Brad Wolverton
FBI Will Not Reopen Inquiry Into 1968 Killings at South Carolina State U.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation will not reopen the case of the fatal shooting of civil-rights protesters at South Carolina State University in 1968, an FBI spokeswoman told The Greenville News on Thursday.
The Orangeburg Massacre, as it’s known, left three black students dead and 27 wounded. Nine white state troopers were tried and acquitted. For all its notoriety at the time, the incident has not been as well remembered as the Kent State shootings two years later. Last summer the governor at the time of the massacre said he bore ultimate responsibility for the deaths.
In recent years, the FBI has been reopening major civil-rights cases involving deaths in which the original investigations and prosecutions decades ago were skewed by biased officials and bigoted juries. Several of the new prosecutions have resulted in convictions.
In this case, however, the FBI spokeswoman said, the agency concluded that a renewal of the investigation would expose the state troopers to double jeopardy, or being tried again for a crime after being acquitted. That is banned by the U.S. Constitution.
The state’s NAACP chapter, which had asked the FBI to reopen the case, said it was disappointed at the decision, the Associated Press reported. —Andrew Mytelka
Traditional Feeders of Top Colleges Face Increased Competition
A Wall Street Journal analysis of freshman data from eight highly selective colleges shows that New York City private schools and New England preparatory schools continue to send a large share of their graduates to such institutions, but some overseas schools and magnet schools focused on mathematics and science are also among the top colleges’ top feeders.
The Daewon Foreign Language High School, in Seoul, South Korea, ranks 13th on the newspaper’s list of high schools sending the largest share of their graduates to one of the eight colleges examined: Chicago, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Pomona, Princeton, Swarthmore, and Williams.
The newspaper’s analysis — limited to high schools with at least 50 students in their graduating classes — also identified schools in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Wales that ranked among the most successful feeders.
The magnet public high schools on the newspaper’s list included the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Alexandria, Va.
Among Princeton’s top feeders was a public high school just down the road, where many of the university’s professors send their children. —Peter Schmidt
Update (12/31/2007): The Journal published a correction on December 28 saying that its analysis had omitted at least 20 high schools and had otherwise used incomplete data. As a result of its recalculations, its rankings have changed significantly. For example, the Daewon Foreign Language High School, in South Korea, is no longer ranked 13th.
Toronto Police Give Art Student's Hoax Project a Failing Grade
The Ontario College of Art and Design, in Toronto, has suspended a student and two faculty members after an unusual art project, involving a bomb hoax, forced the evacuation of the Royal Ontario Museum on Wednesday night and the cancellation of a major black-tie fund raiser for AIDS research.
A bomb-disposal squad was sent in to deal with what was thought to be a genuine explosive, The Globe and Mail reported, and traffic in downtown Toronto was affected for four hours.
The student, Thorarinn Jonsson, turned himself in to the police last night. He told The Toronto Star that the fake bomb was a sculpture and part of his class project.
The art project’s public exhibition began when a suspicious package — bearing a sign saying it was not a bomb — was delivered to the museum. Then a blurry, shaky 1:49-minute video, titled “The fake bombing at the ROM, Toronto, 28.11.07,” appeared on YouTube. The video purported to show the blast. A 19-second clip followed, showing a supposed eyewitness who says there has been an explosion.
The Toronto police have charged Mr. Jonsson with common nuisance and mischief interfering with property. The university said the faculty members, whom it did not identify, would be suspended until its investigation was complete. The museum said the fund raiser would be rescheduled. —Karen Birchard
Angry Students Riot in China
Beijing — Thousands of students at a Chinese military academy rioted this week after learning that the government would not recognize their diplomas, Radio Free Asia reported on Thursday.
The students were all enrolled at the Hefei People’s Liberation Army Artillery Academy, in China’s Anhui province, but as self-financing “contract students” with no military status. They became upset after hearing this week that their diplomas would not be recognized, despite their paying higher than normal university fees and more than their classmates with military status.
China has experienced an increasingly competitive job market in recent years as a result of rapid growth in the number of students going to college. Major universities around the country have set up subsidiary programs at smaller colleges, offering students who fail in the competitive university exam a back-door way of obtaining a big-name degree. But the central government has begun to shut down such programs, leaving many students empty-handed upon graduation.
The radio station said the rioting began on Wednesday and then worsened the next day. Windows were smashed, and classes had to be canceled. One photograph posted online showed the electric gate at the main entrance of the university completely turned over on its side.
“The students rioted because they are angry that their diplomas are fake,” a student surnamed Peng told Radio Free Asia, estimating that 6,000 to 7,000 self-financed students had joined the rioting. “The school sent military personnel to mediate. The students beat them and drove them away — even the military officers. Everyone is like an angry lion now.”
Phone calls to several dormitories went unanswered throughout Friday, an indication that some of the students involved in the rioting had fled the campus.
Students and their relatives were active on the Internet, though, posting complaints about the program. The uncle of one student said his family had paid 9,650 yuan — or $1,300 — to a middleman to get his nephew accepted, 29,200 more yuan to the university, and then 8,800 a year in tuition. “But in the end all he got was a worthless piece of paper,” he said. —Paul Mooney
Turkish Publisher of British Academic May Be Prosecuted Over Atheism Book
The publisher of the Turkish edition of a British scholar’s best-selling argument for atheism has been threatened with prosecution following its publication in Turkey. The book, The God Delusion, is by Richard Dawkins, a University of Oxford biologist.
“A Turkish citizen complained, saying that this book was hurtful to members of religions living in Turkey, and wanted the book banned and the publishers punished,” Erol Karaaslan, head of Kuzey Publications, told the Reuters news agency. Mr. Karaaslan said he had been told he was being investigated under a law that bans “stirring hatred among people.”
Other Turkish publishers have faced charges in recent years under laws restricting freedom of expression, particularly a controversial provision of the penal code that criminalizes “denigrating Turkishness.”
The Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk and the University of Arizona professor Elif Shafak are among the writers who have been charged under that law.
The Independent, a British newspaper, reports that previous works by Mr. Dawkins have also provoked controversy in Turkey. “Published here in the mid-1990s, his less confrontational book The Selfish Gene also faced problems, with the Islamist government then in power trying to get it banned from bookshops,” the newspaper said. —Aisha Labi
November 29, 2007
Unflattering Photo of Regent U. Founder Leads to a Suspension and a Lawsuit
A law student at Regent University who was suspended for posting online an unflattering photo of the Christian institution’s founder, Pat Robertson, has sued the university and Mr. Robertson, accusing them of violating his First Amendment rights, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The 23-year-old student, Adam Key, of Spring, Tex., filed the lawsuit today in federal court in Houston. Judy Baker, a spokeswoman for the university, located in Virginia Beach, Va., said its officials could not comment on the case because of privacy issues.
Mr. Key first posted the photo, in which Mr. Robertson appears to be making an obscene gesture, on his Facebook Web page and later on an e-mail discussion group. According to The Virginian-Pilot newspaper, Regent officials suspended Mr. Key in October, pending a mental-health evaluation, after he refused to publicly apologize for the posting or successfully defend it in a legal brief. —Charles Huckabee
Just 'Mizzou,' Thank You
The flagship campus of the University of Missouri system can call itself just “the University of Missouri,” dropping “Columbia” from its name, in at least some official references, the system’s governing board decided today, according to a statement on the campus’s Web site.
Brady J. Deaton, the flagship’s chancellor, and others had sought the change out of concern that the formal name, “the University of Missouri-Columbia,” sounded too regional and detracted from the campus’s image.
According to the Web site’s statement, the campus will retain the “Columbia” designation on first reference “for purposes of official correspondence,” but the system’s Board of Curators decided that “subsequent references may be to the University of Missouri, MU, or Mizzou.” And for public-relations purposes, like fund-raising and student recruitment, the “University of Missouri” moniker is enough, the curators decided.
The board had previously approved a name change for the system’s Rolla campus, which on January 1 will become the Missouri University of Science and Technology. —Charles Huckabee
Jury Awards Former Alabama Booster $5-Million in Libel Case Against NCAA
The NCAA is on the hook for $5-million after a state jury in Alabama ruled today that the association had defamed a University of Alabama booster during a 2002 investigation, the Associated Press reports.
Ray Keller, a timber dealer with whom the university has since severed ties, had accused the NCAA of libeling him during an infractions announcement in which he and other boosters were described as “rogue boosters,” “parasites,” and “pariahs.”
The NCAA never referred to Mr. Keller by name, but news reports identified him. The NCAA plans to appeal the ruling. —Brad Wolverton
Penn State's Paterno Makes $512,664
After five years of legal wrangling, the secret of Joe Paterno’s salary has been revealed. Penn State’s long, longtime football coach earns $512,664 in salary this year, according to the state’s pension board.
The Patriot-News, a Harrisburg newspaper, filed the lawsuit that forced the disclosure after a ruling last week by the state’s Supreme Court.
While the reported pay does not contain other forms of compensation received by most coaches, like money from TV and apparel endorsements, it still seems low compared with the earnings of Mr. Paterno’s junior peers. A USA Today survey last year found seven football coaches in Penn State’s conference, the Big Ten, whose annual salaries turn out to be higher than his. Kirk Ferentz, for example, makes $2.84-million at the University of Iowa.
At least Mr. Paterno earns more than he did when he became head coach 41 years ago, at an annual salary of $20,000. —Paul Fain
Minority Students Fuel Rise in Graduate Enrollments
Members of racial and ethnic minority groups made up 28 percent of the graduate-student enrollment in American colleges and universities in 2006, a 2-percent increase from the year before and the biggest jump in six years, says a report just issued by the Council of Graduate Schools. The statistics involve students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Native Americans’ enrollment rose the most, 9 percent, according to the report, “Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 1996-2006.” Enrollments of African-American, Asian, and Hispanic students were up by 3 percent each. No growth was reported in the number of nonminority graduate students.
Ten years ago, the proportion of minority students in graduate schools was 19 percent, said Debra W. Stewart, president of the council.
The increases in minority enrollment are “really the good news in this report,” she said. “I think we can really begin to take some heart that at least we’re continuing to see progress here.”
According to the most recent annual Survey of Earned Doctorates, members of minority groups also made up a record-high proportion of U.S. citizens who earned doctoral degrees from American universities in 2006.
The increase in minority students, along with growth in the number of women and international students, helped raise the overall enrollment in the nation’s graduate schools by 2 percent in 2006. First-time enrollments of non-U.S. citizens rose by 10 percent, while first-time enrollment of domestic students fell by 1 percent.
If the United States is going to remain a competitor in the global economy, Ms. Stewart said, “it’s important for us to continue to attract international students, but at the end of the day we have to do a better job of developing and cultivating the success of our domestic students across all fields.”
The report is based on a survey to which 680 institutions responded. They enroll 74 percent of all graduate students in the United States and award three-fourths of the master’s degrees and nearly 90 percent of doctorates. —Audrey Williams June
Advocates of Diversity Grasp for Ways to Drive Change in Legal Profession
Washington — As advocates of racial diversity in the legal profession discussed strategy at a gathering here today, they seemed better equipped to pressure law firms to diversify than they were to drive change in the nation’s law schools.
The liberal-leaning American Constitution Society had assembled the panel of advocates at the National Press Club in hopes of finding ways to get law schools, law students, and the companies that employ lawyers to work together to help more black and Hispanic people succeed in the legal profession.
But one panel member, John Nussbaumer, associate dean of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan, had bad news about law schools’ ability to contribute to the effort. He said that any pressure on law schools to diversify is being counterbalanced by pressures on such schools to take in students with high Law School Admission Test scores, to elevate their rankings in publications such as U.S. News & World Report.
Largely as a result of such ranking pressures, Mr. Nussbaumer said, 63 percent of black applicants to law schools are rejected by every institution to which they apply, leaving them substantially more likely to “never make it in the front door” than white applicants, who score higher on average on the LSAT and have a 35-percent rejection rate. He cited statistics from the American Bar Association showing a recent decline in the black share of the enrollment of the nation’s law schools, from 7.6 percent in the 1995-96 academic year to 6.8 percent in 2006-7.
Panel members were much more optimistic in discussing their efforts to promote diversity in law firms.
Andrew Bruck, a Stanford University law student who is co-president of Building a Better Legal Profession, said his organization — a fledging group of law students devoted to improving working conditions in their field — appears to be making waves by compiling rankings of law firms based on the number of minority and female lawyers they employ and elevate to partner. He said he had heard many students say they had chosen not to work at law firms with poor records in promoting diversity. His group plans in January to distribute its rankings to Fortune 500 companies, in hopes that those companies will put pressure to diversify on the law firms they hire.
Damon L. White, a staff attorney for General Motors, said his company was already doing just that. It has asked the law firms that it works with to match the amount of diversity on its own legal staff, which is 20 percent minority and 33 percent female, and has included language in its contracts with the firms that calls for them to be financially penalized for not having such diversity in their ranks. —Peter Schmidt
Leader of UMass Board Will Step Aside
The chairman of the University of Massachusetts system’s governing board said yesterday he would step down at the end of the year, according to The Boston Globe.
The state’s governor, Deval L. Patrick, a Democrat, has twice tried to oust Stephen P. Tocco, a former state official, who was appointed to the board by Mr. Patrick’s predecessor, Mitt Romney, now a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
Mr. Tocco, who will remain on the board, will reportedly be replaced by Robert J. Manning, its vice chairman. In a letter sent to fellow board members last night, Mr. Tocco said: “The ongoing discussion and related anxiety over the chairman question has been a distraction long enough.”
The board shake-up follows other recent signs of turbulence at the five-campus system. Most notably, a leadership tussle at the Amherst campus was followed by the July departure of John V. Lombardi, the outspoken chancellor at Amherst, who left to become president of the Louisiana State University system. —Paul Fain
Taking the Offensive: Newspaper Ad Stirs Up Emotions in Heated Football Rivalry
“You love her, but she’s an Auburn fan.” So began an innocent jewelry ad in The Birmingham News a few days before last weekend’s Auburn-Alabama football game, one of the most heated rivalries in college sports.
But then the ad described Auburn as “Cow College,” and mentioned something about Auburn grandmothers’ spitting tobacco and burping every bar of the school’s fight song, according to The Auburn Plainsman, the student newspaper.
The jewelry store, Bromberg’s, whose owner graduated from the University of Alabama, has taken a load of heat from Auburn fans.
“Pride cometh before the fall,” Celia Anthony, an Auburn alumna, told the newspaper, calling on fans to boycott the business.
The jewelry store issued an apology on its Web site, admitting that the ad “missed the mark.”
Auburn fans, meanwhile, could find some consolation on the scoreboard, as the Tigers beat the Crimson Tide, 17-10. —Brad Wolverton
Police Make Second Arrest in Killing at U. of Chicago
Prosecutors have charged a 17-year-old Chicago resident with three counts of armed robbery and one count of aggravated discharge of a firearm in a series of robberies near the University of Chicago last week, the Chicago Tribune reported today.
The attacks ended in the shooting death of Amadou Cisse, a graduate student, who was killed while walking to his off-campus apartment. The university drew criticism for its handling of the incidents.
The police believe that the suspect, Demetrius Warren, 17, was the gunman in the attacks. None of the charges, however, were directly related to Mr. Cisse’s slaying, which remains under investigation.
Earlier this week, prosecutors charged Eric Walker, 16, with first-degree murder, among other felonies. —Eric Hoover
National Research Council Again Delays Planned Rankings of Doctoral Programs
The National Research Council’s long-awaited assessment and rankings of doctoral programs has been postponed again.
The influential report is now slated for release late next spring, said Charlotte V. Kuh, the council’s deputy executive director of policy and global affairs and director of the project, in an interview this morning. “We are giving ourselves a little breathing time,” she said.
Members of the committee overseeing the project reviewed the assessment statistics this week, and, in aggregating the data, they found anomalies that they felt needed double-checking, she said.
“We are committed to publishing data that is as valid as we can possibly make it,” Ms. Kuh said. “When you see anomalous data, you have three choices. You can publish it as is, you can just say ‘n/a,’ or you can give the schools a chance to make sure they’ve got it right.” Her staff will be talking to colleges whose figures appear incorrect.
The committee also wants extra time to educate colleges about the study’s methodology, which is quite different from that of the council’s previous study, published in 1995, said Ms. Kuh.
Just last month the council was planning to release the rankings in February. While she would not commit to a specific date, Ms. Kuh said she expected the report to be out between mid-May and mid-June. —Jean Evangelauf
College President Wins Settlement in Racial-Bias Lawsuit
Real-estate agents and a property owner in Arizona have agreed to pay $55,000 for making discriminatory statements and refusing to rent a townhouse to the president of Glendale Community College and her husband, who are black.
Velvie Green, the president, and her husband, Herman Green Jr., made an offer for the Phoenix-area townhouse rental through a real-estate agent in June 2006. The owner, Stanislawa B. Ogorzaly, allegedly asked the agent “if the couple was black, made derogatory comments about black people, and stated that she did not want to rent the townhouse to black people,” said a statement from the Arizona attorney general’s office.
Ms. Ogorzaly refused the offer, upped the price, and asked for more information from the Greens, purportedly to check their credit. Although the couple agreed to the terms of the counteroffer and provided the requested information, they were rejected. They then filed a discrimination lawsuit.
The Greens will receive $30,000 from the real-estate agents and brokerage firm and $25,000 from Ms. Ogorzaly. The settlement does not include an admission of guilt. —Paul Fain
Petition Asks Cuban Government for Independent Colleges
Arguing that Cuba’s public universities are permeated with political indoctrination and devoid of academic freedom, thousands of petitioners plan to ask the country’s National Assembly to open independent and religious universities, the Chicago Tribune reported today.
More than 5,000 people, mostly college students, have signed the University Students Without Borders petition. Organizers say they want to get close to 10,000 names before submitting the request next year. They are asking the government to convert public schools or reopen closed school buildings.
Organizers told the Tribune that they expect the petition will be rejected and are mainly trying to raise awareness about the lack of academic freedom at Cuba’s universities.
“The universities here aren’t an altruistic activity,” said one political activist. “Sometimes they cancel classes just to have a political march.” —Beth McMurtrie
Panel Releases Report on Anthropologists' Work With the Military
Washington — After a year and a half of deliberation, a special committee of the American Anthropological Association released a 62-page report on Wednesday that analyzes the potential ethical pitfalls that confront anthropologists who work with military, intelligence, and national-security agencies.
The report does not propose any blanket bans on scholarly engagement with defense organizations. Instead, it sketches out principles that the committee members believe should guide such work.
“We have essentially two principles that are very important in doing anthropology,” said the committee’s chair, James L. Peacock, a professor of anthropology and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, during a news conference. “One of them is do not harm. Do no harm to those with whom one works or whom one studies. Secondly, be honest and be transparent. Say what you’re doing to all concerned. That means the people you’re working with, the people you’re studying, your colleagues, and the public.”
The committee’s report was released as the anthropological association opened its annual conference here. On Wednesday afternoon the association’s executive board formally received the report, but the board has not yet endorsed it.
The report urges the association to:
- Revise its code of ethics to discourage scholars from accepting jobs or assignments that require secrecy as a condition of funds, or that require that final work products be kept secret.
- Change the ethics code to emphasize the problem of gaining informed consent in “settings in which it may be compromised, undermined, or rendered impossible to obtain.”
- Offer counseling and advice to scholars who are considering work with military, intelligence, or other security agencies.
- Create a subcommittee to review job-recruitment advertisements that military, intelligence, and national-security agencies wish to place in the association’s newsletter. The report does not suggest banning such ads, but says that in some cases the ads should contain a notice that urges potential applicants to consult with the association’s ethics committee.
- Encourage civil discussion within the organization about these issues. “It is unacceptable,” the report reads, “to demonize people who have chosen career paths in the national-security community, simply because of their political viewpoints, choice of employer, or other affiliation.
The special committee was created two years ago amid a debate over whether the association should accept job advertisements from military and intelligence agencies. During the past six years, such agencies have sought out scholars with specialized knowledge about Afghanistan, Iraq, and other war zones. They have also asked social scientists for insights about how to manage social conflict and public opinion. (In a speech this week, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates praised anthropologists’ work with the military. In the new era, he said, military success “will be less a matter of imposing one’s will and more a function of shaping behavior — of friends, adversaries, and most importantly, the people in between.”)
In the eyes of skeptics, the Pentagon’s newfound interest in social science is broadly pernicious. Anthropologists should not help the military pacify — and, in some cases, kill — local populations, the critics argue. Other scholars, however, insist that anthropological insights can help reduce needless violence in war zones. Recently, that debate has fixated on a program known as the Human Terrain System, in which social scientists embed within military units in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In an interview on Wednesday, several members of the committee said they hoped to tone down that debate and to introduce more complexity. “Our goal is to shift the conversation to a more nuanced level,” said Robert Albro, who teaches international communication at American University’s School of International Service.
The report describes a broad variety of relationships between anthropologists and national-security agencies, most of which are less controversial than the human-terrain program. Those include teaching at military colleges, informally advising the Pentagon about regional conflicts, working for federally financed research organizations like the RAND Corporation, and conducting ethnographic research about the lives of soldiers and intelligence agents.
Two committee members themselves play such roles. Kerry B. Fosher is a staff social scientist at the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, where she offers advice about cultural concepts to military-intelligence officers. Laura A. McNamara is a cultural anthropologist at the Sandia National Laboratories, a unit of the U.S. Department of Energy. There she works with physicists and computer scientists on computational models of human behavior.
The committee members emphasized that, somewhat to their surprise, they developed close friendships despite their differences in approach. (Alongside Ms. Fosher and Ms. McNamara, the committee includes David H. Price, an associate professor of anthropology at St. Martin’s University who is one of the most prominent critics of the Human Terrain System.)
Working on the committee, Ms. McNamara said, “has helped me realize that I care passionately about anthropology as a discipline.”
“We didn’t pull punches with each other,” Mr. Price said. “If I made some strong claim, I would get called on it: Can you back that up? We didn’t just sit and stew.”
The question that originally gave rise to the committee — whether the association will accept job ads from the military or the CIA — will probably not be resolved quickly. Alan H. Goodman, the association’s president, said on Wednesday that he expected the executive board to continue to weigh that issue for another six to 12 months before establishing a final policy. —David Glenn
November 28, 2007
Bluffton U. Athletes and Coaches Seek Insurance Money From Deadly Bus Crash
Lawyers for the coaches and players on the Bluffton University baseball team who were involved in a deadly bus crash in March have asked a federal court to determine whether they are entitled to insurance money, the Associated Press reported.
A lawsuit filed last month in the U.S. District Court in Toledo, Ohio, says the bus driver and the bus company were insured under three policies issued to the university totaling $21-million. The insurance companies have argued that the driver and company were not covered, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit is necessary so the victims can clarify the amount of coverage before they file any individual claims, said a lawyer for the family of David Betts, one of the players who died.
Four students from the Division III institution in Bluffton, Ohio, were killed in the accident and a fifth died later of injuries suffered when a team bus plunged off an interstate overpass in Atlanta on the way to a spring-break tournament in Florida. The bus driver and his wife also were killed.
The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the accident. —Brad Wolverton
Might a Bush Friend Be Pressing Spellings on Nelnet?
Washington — The secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, has repeatedly defended her decision to let the National Education Loan Network, or Nelnet, a major for-profit student-loan provider based in Nebraska, keep some $300-million in disputed federal student-loan subsidies. But as others, including members of Congress, fight for Nelnet to repay the money, they may have a previously unknown ally.
In an award that attracted little notice at the time, the Education Department’s Office of Inspector General was presented in October with the Alexander Hamilton Award, the top federal award for an inspector general — for its work in the Nelnet case.
The inspector general reported in September 2006 that Nelnet had received an estimated $278-million in improper subsidies through a program that Congress intended to let expire — a figure later revised upward to $322-million — and suggested that Nelnet be required to repay the entire amount.
Secretary Spellings, however, after reviewing the matter, announced last January that Nelnet, and other lenders that had received higher-rate subsidies through the same program but on a smaller scale, would be allowed to keep the money, as long as they stopped billing for such subsidies in the future. The decision led to protests from members of Congress, who are demanding a full repayment.
The award to the department’s Office of Inspector General was presented by the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency and the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency, both of which are headed by Clay Johnson III, a former classmate, roommate, and fraternity brother of President Bush at Phillips Academy and Yale University. Mr. Johnson is also a deputy director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
“Given this recognition from the White House, perhaps the secretary will reconsider her earlier position regarding Nelnet” and the other lenders, said Thomas Culligan, a spokesman for Rep. Thomas E. Petri, a Wisconsin Republican and former vice chairman of the House education committee. —Paul Basken
U. of Washington Scientist Fabricated AIDS Research, Report Says
An AIDS researcher at the University of Washington altered images and falsified data, according to a 2003 report that recommended he be banned from ever working there again and that was disclosed only after The Seattle Times fought a legal battle to obtain the document.
The report, which was based on a 16-month investigation by the university, said that the scientist, Scott J. Brodie, a research assistant professor, had fabricated data in 15 instances, including manipulating an image of a single cell into “two distinct images presented as different types of cells” to support his paper’s findings. Some of his data were published in scientific journals.
Oddly enough, despite the fraud, other scientists have confirmed Mr. Brodie’s findings. But in 2002, a researcher reviewing the work discovered inconsistencies and reported them to the federal Office of Research Integrity, which, in turn, notified the university.
The report was not released until now because Mr. Brodie had sued both the university and the newspaper to block its disclosure. A judge ruled for The Seattle Times last week. Mr. Brodie, who resigned from the university in 2003, now lives and works on the East Coast, but the newspaper could reach neither him nor his lawyer for comment.
The university submitted the report’s findings to federal authorities, who are in the process of their own investigation. —Mary Andom
U. of Minnesota Endows Chair Honoring Professor Who Brought Costly Fame
Now that’s burying the hatchet.
More than a decade ago, the famed University of Minnesota transplant surgeon John S. Najarian was at the center of a federal criminal trial and research-misconduct controversy that ultimately cost the university $30-million and immeasurable damage to its reputation and its scientific enterprise. This week, the institution created a new endowed professorship for research on organ transplantation that will bear his name. Dr. Najarian’s colleagues, friends, and patients committed more than $1.5-million toward the chair, and the university will add $500,000, officials said.
“What happened in the past happened, and the chair is not about that,” Frank Cerra, the senior vice president who oversees the university’s academic health center, said, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Dr. Najarian, he said, had “saved thousands and thousands of lives by his contributions to clinical medicine. The chair celebrates those clinical contributions to humanity, and I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.”
The Najarian controversy surfaced in 1992, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration alleged the university’s surgery department had been inappropriately manufacturing and selling an anti-rejection drug called anti-lymphocyte globulin, or ALG, which had never received federal approval for mass production. Dr. Najarian, who was acquitted on federal charges, was later forced out of his position as chair of the surgery department but remained as a clinical professor.
In 1998 the university paid what was then the largest settlement of its kind — $32-million — to resolve charges of fraud and misuse of federal funds. —Goldie Blumenstyk
New Grants and Report Seek to Make State College Systems More Productive
A Lumina Foundation-financed project meant to make higher education more accessible and affordable today unveiled both a grant program and a report encouraging states to find cost-effective ways for their colleges to graduate more students.
Representatives of the project, called Making Opportunity Affordable, announced in Washington that it would be offering grants of up to $100,000 to up to 10 states to support their development of five-year plans to make their higher-education systems more productive. Up to five of the states will then be awarded grants and technical assistance — worth up to $500,000 annually for five years — to carry out their plans.
Ideas about the kinds of steps colleges might take were suggested today in a new report, paid for by Lumina and prepared by two prominent nonprofit higher-education advisory groups, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. The report, “Good Policy, Good Practice,” argues that the nation must produce many more college graduates if it is to remain economically competitive. The report outlines a long list of policies and practices that can help state higher-education systems serve more students in a cost-effective manner.
Among its key suggestions, the report says states need to do more to ensure that students graduate high school prepared for college-level work, streamline the educational process to encourage students to move through it quicker, and support institutions that focus on providing high-quality, cost-effective undergraduate education.
The report says states can help bring about such changes by linking appropriations to colleges’ productivity, overhauling tuition policies to discourage students from lingering in college, adopting student-aid policies that reward high-school students for taking college-preparatory courses, and publishing reports that hold colleges accountable for their performance.
Changes in higher-education governance should be regarded as a last resort, the report argues. —Peter Schmidt
Police Arrest Suspect in Murder of U. of Chicago Student
Illinois state prosecutors have charged a 16-year-old with murder in last week’s shooting death of Amadou Cisse, who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported today.
The alleged perpetrator, Eric Walker, was charged as an adult with first-degree murder and armed robbery, among other offenses. The police said he was involved in two other attacks on Chicago students and a staff member on the same night Mr. Cisse died. All three incidents occurred on or just off the campus, in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Charges against other suspects are pending, the police told the Tribune.
University officials, who have been criticized for waiting until the next morning to notify students of the crimes, have set up a new police substation on the campus, increased police patrols, and extended the hours of a van service for students and employees, the Tribune reported.
The institution is also reviewing its security and emergency-notification procedures. Many administrators at other colleges are doing the same, discussing how to issue alerts that are not only fast but also useful. —Sara Lipka
Penn State Plugs Leak in Nuclear Reactor
Pennsylvania State University resumed using its nuclear-research reactor last week after workers stopped a leak in the surrounding cooling pool.
Officials on the flagship campus, in University Park, shut down the Breazeale Nuclear Reactor in October, after staff members determined that the 71,000-gallon pool was losing about 10 gallons per hour. The water, which was flowing into the ground beneath the reactor building, contained slightly elevated levels of radioactivity and posed no health threat, university and state officials said.
Workers drained the pool and resurfaced its walls, which seemed to stop the leak, although no specific cause of the water loss was identified, the university said in a statement on Tuesday. During the repairs, the building remained open for classes and research unrelated to the reactor. —Jeffrey Brainard
Report Calls U. of California 'The Immigrant University'
About 54 percent of students in the University of California system — and about 63 percent of those at its prestigious Berkeley campus — have at least one parent who is an immigrant, according to a report released this month.
The report, by researchers at the Berkeley campus’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, is based on a 2006 survey of the University of California system’s undergraduates. Because only 38 percent of students responded, its numbers are not exact, even though the researchers involved regard them as close.
The report says “the startling number and range” of student backgrounds revealed through its survey “points to the need for an expanded notion of diversity beyond older racial and ethnic paradigms.”
Among its key findings, the report says that just 54 percent of undergraduates in the university system said that English was their sole first language.
At the Berkeley campus, 28 percent of undergraduates immigrated to the United States, and 72 percent of undergraduates have at least one immigrant grandparent. Throughout the university system, 95 percent of Asian-American students, 88 percent of Hispanic students, and 40 percent of white students reported that they or at least one parent or grandparent came from outside the United States.
The report says that first- or second-generation immigrant students tend to gravitate toward fields such as engineering and the sciences, and to be focused heavily on careers and professional prestige. Although some come from low-income backgrounds, most are more likely than other immigrants to come from families that are well educated. —Peter Schmidt
U.S. 4th Graders Trail Peers in Many Other Nations in Reading
An international study of reading literacy among fourth graders has found that students in the United States scored above the average for the 40 nations covered but trailed their counterparts in a dozen nations and several Canadian provinces.
The study, released this morning, also found that in all of the nations surveyed, girls outscored boys, and fewer children reported deriving enjoyment from reading than was the case when the international assessments were last given, five years earlier.
The study was conducted by researchers at Boston College on behalf of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Each of the 40 nations involved in the study evaluated about 4,000 students in 150 schools, with those in the Southern Hemisphere beginning their data collection in October 2005 and those in the Northern Hemisphere beginning in March 2006.
The highest scores were posted by Russia, followed by Hong Kong, the Canadian province of Alberta, and Singapore. The other nations posting substantially higher scores than the United States included Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, and Sweden.
The researchers examined various factors thought to influence reading achievement, extensively questioning parents and caregivers. They found that the strongest readers came from nations where reading was stressed in the home at an early age, and that those students who spent the most time in early-childhood education generally had the highest scores. —Peter Schmidt
November 27, 2007
North Carolina's Community Colleges Are Told to Admit Illegal Immigrants
All 58 campuses of North Carolina’s community-college system must admit illegal immigrants, a lawyer for the system has said, overturning a policy of allowing the campuses to decide individually whether to consider applicants’ immigration status, according to reports by the Associated Press, The Charlotte Observer, and other news outlets.
David Sullivan, the system’s general counsel, wrote in a memorandum this month that “colleges should immediately begin admitting undocumented individuals,” highlighting the phrase in bold type. State regulations require the colleges to admit undocumented applicants who meet the basic requirements of either having graduated from high school or being at least 18 years old, he said. More than 20 of the colleges now have written or unwritten policies barring admission to illegal immigrants.
Mr. Sullivan said his directive was based on a 1997 opinion by the state’s attorney general at the time — Michael F. Easley, a Democrat who is now governor — which said that the colleges could not impose nonacademic criteria for admission.
Arizona and a number of other states have wrestled in recent years with residency and financial issues related to educational benefits for illegal immigrants. —Charles Huckabee
Businessman Promises $70-Million to Oral Roberts U.
Oral Roberts University has been promised $70-million by an Oklahoma businessman, the Tulsa World reported, but most of the money is subject to a review of the university’s finances.
The announcement came as the university’s Board of Regents was wrapping up a two-day meeting in the wake of the resignation last week of Richard L. Roberts as president of the beleaguered institution, which had recently reported that it was $50-million in debt. Mr. Roberts has been at the center of a controversy over allegations about his spending practices and possible misuse of the tax-exempt institution’s resources for political purposes.
At this week’s meeting, the regents accepted Mr. Roberts’s resignation and unanimously decided to separate the university legally and financially from the larger Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, which Mr. Roberts still leads. The board’s chairman, George Pearsons, told the Tulsa newspaper that the university and the association would maintain a “spiritual” connection.
Mart Green, the businessman who pledged the $70-million gift, said that he would give the institution $8-million immediately, but that the university must demonstrate “good governance” practices before receiving the remaining $62-million. Mr. Green’s family started two retail chains, Hobby Lobby and Mardel Christian Educational and Supply.
The businessman told the Associated Press that he had no connection to the university and did not know the Roberts family. He said he had been following the university’s story in the news media in recent weeks and decided he wanted to help. —Charles Huckabee
Robert Cade, University Researcher Who Invented Gatorade, Is Dead at 80
J. Robert Cade, the University of Florida researcher who brought home a windfall to Gainesville by inventing the sports drink Gatorade, died today at the age of 80, the Associated Press reported.
Th invention, originally designed by Mr. Cade and other researchers to help the university’s football team, the Gators, started the vast sports-drink industry and has been one of the most lucrative technology-transfer products in higher-education history. Despite bouts of litigation, the drink has earned the university more than $150-million in royalties since 1973, the AP reported.
Mr. Cade said he never imagined in 1965 that the drink would develop a consumer market. “The financial success of this stuff really surprised us,” he said. —Andrew Mytelka
Canadian Government Draws Criticism at International-Education Conference
Ottawa — Canadian educators and the Iraqi government are increasingly frustrated over the Canadian government’s failure to respond to a request that it administer a scholarship program that would send 1,000 Iraqi students to Canadian universities.
“Iraq is putting up the money,” said Jim Fox, president of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, in an interview with The Chronicle here at the group’s annual conference. “However, they’re asking for assistance from Canada to provide support services, to manage scholarships. So far, Canada has not responded.”
Mr. Fox and his organization have been trying to work through the Canadian International Development Agency, a governmental arm that oversees education aid and development projects abroad.
The agency also drew criticism at the conference for failing to send a representative to sit on a panel this morning. That session featured officials from federal departments, such as foreign affairs and immigration, that deal with international-education programs. Canada is the only developed country without a federal office for education, which is regarded, under the Canadian Constitution, as a provincial responsibility. —Karen Birchard
Britain's Higher-Education Minister Wades Into Bitter Fight Over Campus Freedom
The British minister who oversees higher education used a speech this evening at the University of London’s Institute of Education to call on universities to uphold academic freedom while “ensuring that extremists can never stifle debate or impose their views.”
In the speech, which was sponsored by the left-of-center Fabian Society, Bill Rammell, Britain’s minister of state for lifelong learning, further and higher education, argued that “universities and academics have a responsibility to challenge those who advocate” extremism, and said that “universities can and must stand behind people who would challenge extremist views on campus. They must be ensured a platform.”
Mr. Rammell’s speech followed the controversy surrounding the appearance on Monday at the Oxford Union Debating Society of the historian David Irving, who has been convicted of denying the Holocaust, and Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British Nationalist Party. Protesters outraged that the two men had been provided such a prominent forum converged on the city of Oxford and delayed the start of the event by over an hour.
Britain’s main student organization, the National Union of Students, has adopted a “no platform” policy that excludes fascists from debate. In his speech, Mr. Rammell said that he opposes boycotts and no-platform policies. “I wouldn’t want to legislate against Nick Griffin and David Irving speaking at a university,” he said. “I find the views of both speakers utterly nauseating, but that’s not the same as saying that, as a matter of principle, they should be banned from speaking.”
The student union responded angrily to Mr. Rammell’s remarks, saying in a statement that he had “strayed off-subject and criticized students’ unions for choosing to adopt no-platform policies.” The union’s president, Gemma Tumelty, said the union “strongly supports the right of individuals to free speech, but Bill Rammell’s comments about no-platform policies amount to a red herring. Believing that everybody has the right to express an opinion is very different from proactively providing a high-profile platform to racists and fascists at an esteemed institution.”
Students at the University of East Anglia have rejected the union’s policy, saying that free debate is the only way to tackle extremism, The Guardian reported. —Aisha Labi
State-Required Prep Work Increases GED Pass Rates
Adults who take the General Educational Development Test, or GED, in states that require practice tests or other forms of preparation pass at higher rates than test takers in other states, according to a new report.
Of the 10 states posting the highest GED pass rates in 2006 — well above the national average of 68 percent — five required test takers to pass an official GED practice test before taking the exam, according to the “2006 GED Testing Program Statistical Report,” which was released today by the GED Testing Service.
Three of the 10 states required test takers to otherwise show that they were prepared for the test, offered free practice tests, or offered one-on-one test preparation, the report stated.
“When jurisdictions invest in an individual’s preparation for the GED tests, there’s a strong likelihood that they will realize a positive return in terms of improved completion and pass rates,” Sylvia E. Robinson, executive director of the testing service, said in a written statement.
GED tests certify the high-school-level academic achievement of adults who lack a high-school diploma. The tests are administered locally by each state and the District of Columbia, as well as in the Canadian provinces and in U.S. military and correctional facilities.
In 2006 more than 614,000 adults completed the battery of tests in writing, reading, social studies, science, and mathematics. —Libby Sander
2 U. of Virginia Students Are Charged With Kidnapping
Two University of Virginia students grabbed a man off a street corner in the Washington, D.C., area, tied him up in a motel, and demanded a $500,000 ransom, according to The Washington Post.
The police were able to locate and arrest the kidnappers after they placed a call on the victim’s cellphone. Guanyu Lu and Baichuan Shu, both 19, were charged with abduction with intent to extort money, the Post reported. They were arraigned on Monday and ordered held without bail.
The suspects are second-year engineering students at UVa and are Chinese nationals, as is the 20-year-old victim, according to the Post. The police believe that the three men knew at least one person in common and that the victim was not a random target. —Elyse Ashburn
New York Medical College Will Halt Use of Dogs in Labs
New York Medical College says it will no longer use live dogs in a physiology teaching lab, The Journal News reported today.
The institution had come under fire from students, animal-rights groups, and politicians for being the only medical college in the state to still use live animals in its teaching labs.
Beginning early next year, students will use simulators and echocardiography, or heart ultrasounds, in the first-year physiology lab, college officials announced on Monday.
Only 11 allopathic medical schools still use live animals in teaching, according to John J. Pippin, a cardiologist in Dallas who works with a group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Karl Adler, president of the college, said high-tech substitutes now make it possible to teach students skills that they had been learning by opening a dog’s heart and watching it beat. “The reason why the dogs were used in the past is that the students could actually see a beating heart, and understand the physiology of how the heart works,” he said. “It’s the only internal organ where there’s actually movement that you can understand the physiology of.”
Beginning in 2008, students will use simulators that mimic cardiac arrest or the effects of a drug, and portable machines that allow them to attach electrodes to a student’s chest and watch the heart’s activity on a video monitor. —Katherine Mangan
November 26, 2007
Protesters Delay but Fail to Derail Holocaust Denier's Appearance
Protesters forced the Oxford Union to briefly delay a controversial free-speech debate tonight that featured the British historian David Irving, who served a prison sentence in Austria on charges of denying the Holocaust, and the leader of Britain’s far-right British National Party, Nick Griffin.
According to reports from the Associated Press and BBC News, 20 to 30 demonstrators pushed their way into the debating chamber to protest the inclusion of the two men, forcing the event to begin more than an hour after its scheduled 8:30 p.m. start.
Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered in the City of Oxford before the debate, The Guardian reported, and many students with tickets to the controversial event were blocked from entering the building by chanting protesters.
There had been speculation that Mr. Irving would pull out of the debate, but hours before it took place he told The Guardian that he would go ahead. “I thought the traditional enemies would have been doing enough to silence me at Oxford,” he said. “But I have the balls — you’ll see what I mean.” Mr. Irving arrived at the debate carrying a ball and chain.
The University of Oxford was at pains today to distance itself from the event. A statement posted on the university’s Web site emphasized that the union “is an independent debating society” and that “the university does not have jurisdiction over its events.” —Aisha Labi
In Agreement, U. of Wisconsin to Reduce Use of Coal
The University of Wisconsin at Madison will reduce its use of coal in a heating plant by 15 percent in response to a U.S. District Court ruling that the university was violating the Clean Air Act.
The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club. The environmental organization contended that the university had not installed pollution controls during recent construction work on the 48-year-old plant.
According to The Capital Times, a newspaper in Madison, the reduction is equal to about 30,000 tons of coal, enough to fill 225 rail cars. Replacing that coal with renewable energy will cost the university $1-million to $3-million a year.
In a statement on the university’s Web site, Alan Fish, associate vice chancellor for facilities, said the agreement had “helped solve what has been a difficult problem and has set us on a course to achieve our goals of energy reliability and continued environmental stewardship.” —Scott Carlson
Linking Social Anxiety and Alcohol Abuse
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have developed an intervention program for students who turn to drinking to relieve social anxiety, a predictor of alcohol dependence among adolescents.
The program uses “motivational interviewing” and behavioral therapy to help students, says a report posted on the university’s Web site. Participating students attended three sessions, of 90 minutes each, to talk about the link between social anxiety and drinking problems, as well as strategies for dealing with both more effectively.
In follow-up sessions, students reported a decline in the number of drinks they had consumed; less fear of being judged negatively by their peers; and more confidence about turning down a drink.
The findings were presented this month at the annual conference of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, in Philadelphia. —Eric Hoover
Where Is Your College Doing Business?
The Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking comments from college endowments and other investors about its attempts to identify companies that do business in countries identified as state sponsors of terrorism.
The federal agency added a feature to its Web site last summer pointing out companies that had disclosed business ties in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan,and Syria. The feature was suspended indefinitely less than a month later, however, amid concerns that the information was outdated, and, stripped of its context, could have a negative effect on listed companies.
An entry in Friday’s Federal Register asks for comments about the Web feature and whether it should be restarted, or whether there might be other ways that companies doing business in those nations could be more easily and fairly identified. —Martin Van Der Werf
Transgender Student Elected Homecoming King Is Almost Denied His Throne
A transgender student elected homecoming king at Pasadena City College was nearly denied his throne because of …
His earrings.
Andrew Gomez, a 24-year-old transitioning from female to male, ran for homecoming king to set an example for other gay, lesbian, and transgender students, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. He was surprised when he won, and apparently so was the college’s homecoming committee. It ruled that Mr. Gomez could not serve as king because of his pierced ears.
When students lodged charges of discrimination, however, the committee reversed its decision. And Mr. Gomez got to be king for a day after all. —Elyse Ashburn
Aboriginal Canadians Make Progress in Getting University Degrees, Report Says
Ottawa — Canada will be a big loser if immediate steps are not taken to increase the graduation rates of its aboriginal students, according to a report released this morning by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards, a nonprofit research group. The report, based on a study of census data, says the education gap between aboriginal Canadians and other Canadians is most significant at the university level. The proportion of aboriginal Canadians with degrees increased from 7.8 percent to 8.9 percent between 1996 and 2001. Over the same period, the proportion of nonaboriginal Canadians with degrees increased from 20.0 percent to 21.8 percent. So while more aboriginal Canadians were completing their university degrees, the gap between the two groups was actually widening. —Karen Birchard
Penn Professor Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter
A University of Pennsylvania economics professor accused of bludgeoning his wife to death last December pleaded guilty this morning to voluntary manslaughter, The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported.
The professor, Rafael Robb, was arrested in January and charged with first- and third-degree murder after his wife, Ellen, was found beaten beyond recognition in the kitchen of their Upper Merion home on December 22. Mr. Robb originally denied any involvement in the murder of his wife, who was seeking a divorce at the time of her death.
His trial, at the Montgomery County Court in Pennsylvania, was to begin today. Mr. Robb, a game-theory specialist, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. —Paula Wasley
November 25, 2007
U. of Oxford Group Stands By Invitation to Holocaust Denier
The University of Oxford is girding for protests following the announcement that members of the Oxford Union Debating Society have upheld invitations to two controversial right-wing figures to take part in a free-speech event on Monday evening, according to a report in a British newspaper, The Guardian.
In a vote on Saturday organized in response to pressure to deny the speakers a forum, union members decided by a ratio of two-to-one to affirm the invitations to David Irving, a British historian who has served prison time in Austria for denying the Holocaust, and Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right British National Party, who has also been convicted of incitement to racial hatred on charges related to denying the Holocaust.
In a statement posted last month on the debating society’s site, the Oxford Union’s president, Luke Tryl, responded to the avalanche of criticism directed at the organization for considering invitations to such controversial figures. “These people are not being given a platform to extol their views, but are coming to talk about the limits of free speech,” Mr. Tryl wrote. “What is more, they will be speaking in the context of a forum in which there will be other speakers to challenge and attack their views in a head to head manner and with the opportunity for students to challenge them from the floor.” He insisted it was “patronizing to suggest that Oxford students aren’t intelligent enough to debate with these people.”
The American historian Deborah E. Lipstadt, who was cleared of libel accusations in 2000 after a protracted legal battle with Mr. Irving, called Mr. Tryl’s statement “a clear example of really muddled thinking” in a posting on her blog. “Challenging someone such as David Irving has little to do with intelligence, it has to do with knowing how he is lying and distorting the facts,” she wrote. “And as smart as Oxford students may think they are, just because they are at Oxford does not mean they have the knowledge — Mr. Tryl does not seem to recognize the difference between intelligence and knowledge — to catch a liar who distorts and falsifies.”
Trevor Phillips, chairman of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission and a former president of the main national student union, agreed that the invitations were a mistake. The Associated Press quoted Mr. Phillips calling the union’s move “an absolute disgrace” on the BBC. “As a former president of the National Union of Students, I’m ashamed that this has happened,” he said. “This is not a question of freedo