Rape, Frats and Rage at Cornell

Colleges across the country are cutting programs and slashing budgets on a grand scale. What began as a slow trickle from some seemingly unlikely places, like Princeton and MIT, has become a sector-wide deluge. Wealthy private colleges, major public research universities, and lower-resourced institutions alike are eliminating courses of study, laying off staff, and cutting some faculty jobs. How bad is it out there, really? And how will these cuts define the next era of higher education?

For weeks, the world has been reeling over allegations that multiple Cornell University students raped a woman at a fraternity house. The lurid case has renewed calls for banning fraternities, but pushback from alumni and fears of the groups going underground tend to scuttle these efforts. Fraternities, it seems, are a proverbial third rail in higher education. Not unlike big-spending athletics programs, Greek Life is supported by powerful people whom college leaders are loath to confront. What are higher education’s other third-rail issues? And why are they so challenging to take on?

Nearly four years after the introduction of ChatGPT, colleges and universities have propagated plenty of rules related to students’ use of AI. But what about administrators and faculty? Can they live by the same standards they’ve handed down? Should they? As more faculty and even some college leaders admit to using AI in their writing, charges of hypocrisy abound. News last week that Dartmouth College will investigate its provost for his use of AI has further intensified concerns that even the nation’s top institutions lack clear guidelines in this area. It’s also brought urgency to a deeper question: If everyone is using AI to write, what constitutes an original work?

University of Texas at Austin football fans have good reason to be happy right now. After narrowly defeating the Ohio State University Buckeyes earlier this month, the Longhorns are sitting pretty at No. 1 in the college football rankings. But all is not well in Austin. The morning after the Longhorns’ big win, a Republican political candidate posted an inflammatory message on X, expressing dismay at a photo of students of South Asian descent celebrating in the stands. Bo French, who is running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, has stirred a tempest, suggesting that students of color have overrun the flagship university and “displaced” more deserving “Americans.” The controversy has ratcheted up tensions over immigration, diversity, and admissions in a state where some students from immigrant families say they feel unwelcome. It’s also shed light on the power of football fandom to shape a culture and define a community.

Jodi Kantor, whose reporting for The New York Times helped expose years of sexual-misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein, has been thinking a lot lately about the next generation. What will a fulfilling career look like a decade from now? How worried should college graduates be about AI gobbling up entry-level jobs? And how can employers, including universities, do a better job of stopping workplace harassment, which can derail careers before they even start? Kantor doesn’t have all the answers, of course, but she’s using her platform to start a more focused conversation about the future of work for college-educated people.