All rights reserved for original fireflysun.com content or images, including and especially essays by Objectivist psychologists or clinicians. No part of any original fireflysun.com article may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author(s).

The Rot in America's Universities: Islands of Repression in a Sea of Freedom by Daniel Pipes "Academics work more invidiously, maintaining a veneer of civility while restricting free speech in such quiet ways as punishing dissenters with poor grades, rejecting them for faculty positions, and not inviting them to campus appearances. Even they, however, sometimes reveal their true face of intolerance of hatred."

Higher Education in Decline by Walter Williams "That strong campus leftist bias goes a long way to explain mindless university courses like: "Canine Cultural Studies" (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), "I Like Ike, But I Love Lucy" (Harvard), "History of Electronic Dance Music" (UCLA), "Rock and Roll" (University of Massachusetts) and "Hip-Hop: Beats, Rhyme and Culture" (George Mason University). There are many other examples documented by Accuracy in Academia (academia.org)."

America's Academic Tyrants by Walter Williams  "Vanderbilt, Stanford University, the University of California, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania are among those that offer separate graduation ceremonies and separate "celebratory events" for black, Hispanic and Asian-American students. University administrators not only condone segregated ceremonies but racially segregated student housing, as well."

"Academic Freedom" by Thomas Sowell "There is nothing in specialized academic expertise which makes professors' opinions on issues outside their specialty any better than anyone else's opinions. In no other institution -- religious or secular, military or civilian -- are people who make decisions that shape the institution unable to be fired when those decisions lead to bad results."

Choosing a College by Thomas Sowell "Selecting a college for a young man or young woman to attend is more than a matter of looking up the rankings and seeing where the chances of admission look good. How the atmosphere of the college matches the personality of the individual can mean far more than anything in the college catalogue or the pretty brochures."

College Admissions Voodoo by Thomas Sowell "The cold fact is that objective admissions standards are seldom decisive at most colleges. The admissions process is so shot through with fads and unsubstantiated assumptions that it is more like voodoo than anything else."

Special report: Are professors too liberal? “Increasingly, the fight over academic freedom is cropping up in state legislatures around the country.”

*    *    *

Professional Development Requirements Increasingly Inconsistent with the Requirements for Maturity, Individuation, and Progress by J. Wyatt Ehrenfels "The self-indulgent ruminations and readings of the classic scholar and the exploratory research of the detective are treated as a lamentable dalliance and a shunning of obligations that are considered socially productive. Is it any wonder a university mantra like 'the pursuit of truth' could be abandoned in favor of 'commitment to excellence,' measured in degrees of compliance with policies and procedures?"

Evolution or D-Volution by J. Wyatt Ehrenfels "The congenitally saturated university labor market spells death for a diversity of ideas and sets in motion an evolutionary course on which unique values and skills are systematically weeded out of an academic genome. The product of this social evolution...a race of serviceable standard bearers. Quite capable of policing themselves so they can hardly be faulted for what they do wrong but sure as hell can be faulted for what they fail to do right. A race of conflict-phobic and career-driven clerks who have managed to achieve a form of perfection at the expense of progress."

Student Ethics & Evaluation: How Psychology Professors Wear Students Down, Weed Students Out of Graduate School by J. Wyatt Ehrenfels "Psychology faculty – I’m told like faculty in most academic departments – meet at the end of each academic term to assess the progress of its graduate students. Actually, in a much more accurate sense, they meet to identify the problematic students for their version of a government watch list."

Psychology's Dream Science Fails Both Science and Dreams by J. Wyatt Ehrenfels "Psychological researchers' arbitrary and superfluous policies and procedures, their imitation of cosmetic features of other sciences, and their excessively, gratuitously, and precipitously formal approach to research are easily diagnosed where they are most counterproductive and out-of-place...in the study of dreams. While dream researchers are busy ministering to pretenses of focus, control, and confirmation, dreaming eludes them."

Shhh! Hidden Odds & Obstacles to Graduate Admission by J. Wyatt Ehrenfels "Psychology professors are reluctant to divulge any information that may reveal biases or short-cuts that would raise questions about their objectivity and validity. The process of deciding which 5, among the 80 to 800 applicants, to admit to their doctoral program, is fraught with hidden criteria, some of which are tragically necessary and some of which smack of empire-building and pest control."

Psychology a 'Bloated Minor' by J. Wyatt Ehrenfels "Our departments of Psychology have evolved into trade/vocational schools rather than traditional bastions of 'higher' education. Psychology majors leave the table hungry."

Is Psychology Prejudiced against the Psyche? by J. Wyatt Ehrenfels "It is my contention that the goal of the psychological community is a racially and ethnically diverse community of likeminded professors. Their fetishistic rhapsodizing about multiculturalism and diversity conceals their hatred for a diversity of ideas and interests (their hatred for individual talent and freedom)."