shades fills you in

In early October, The NYT reported on some higher education drama: NYU fired respected organic chemistry professor Maitland Jones Jr. after 82 students signed a petition saying his class was too hard and did not offer enough support. Jones said the students deserved what they got. People took sides

The Washington Square News (NYU’s student paper) didn’t like the NYT story: “These students aren’t whiny snowflakes. They had valid concerns here”

This Globe and Mail Op also defends: Maybe he just wasn’t that great at his job? And, after all, these students’ bachelor’s degrees cost a quarter of a million dollars

This CNN Op says that’s exactly what’s wrong here: Education becomes a “consumer product rather than a public good”. The real bad guy is NYU, not Jones or his students

But The NY Post is freaked. Orgo should be hard, and these whiny kids want to become your doctors? No thank you. And, by the way, this is the problem with diversity, equity, and inclusion

Fox News agrees, and says the problem starts all the way in elementary school. We’re constantly lowering the bar to the point that they’re incompetent and unprepared

This LA Times Op doesn’t think Jones’ students are unqualified -- but college kids do need to work hard and be challenged. Failure is uncomfortable but important

But we shouldn’t want students to fail just for the “learning experience”, says an Inside-Higher-Ed Op. “Weed-out” courses like Dr. Jones’ orgo class are messed up because they set students up for failure on purpose

This whole thing is being framed as a generational cancel culture thing, but really it’s just higher ed bureaucracy, argues this NYT Op. This is NYU deciding that firing Jones would be easier for them

And Science.org says all this finger-pointing at whiny students and harsh professors completely misses the point. Students need more support, professors need more job protection, and the administration needs to step up