There’s no denying political climate change. The past 18 months have seen an enormous swing in the Washington power balance, a shift that has heightened the polarization that has characterized our public life for more than a decade now. How has this divisive political climate influenced public opinion on education […] Read more »
Republicans are increasingly antagonistic toward experts. Here’s why that matters.
Since 2015, according to a new Pew Research Center poll, Republicans’ attitudes toward colleges and universities have become much more negative. The poll found that the number of Republicans who believe colleges have a “positive impact on the way things are going in the country” dropped from 54 percent in […] Read more »
The Policies of White Resentment
White resentment put Donald Trump in the White House. And there is every indication that it will keep him there, especially as he continues to transform that seething, irrational fear about an increasingly diverse America into policies that feed his supporters’ worst racial anxieties. … The guiding principle in Mr. […] Read more »
Affirmative Action Is an Example of How Polls Can Mislead
Trump administration officials are preparing to challenge admissions policies they deem to be discriminatory against white students. Unsurprisingly, analysts and commentators have dredged up old poll numbers to try to figure out how it will play politically. The polls don’t tell a clear story. Some polls show that affirmative action […] Read more »
Discrimination against whites was a core concern of Trump’s base
The Justice Department’s plan to investigate and sue universities over affirmative action admissions policies they determine discriminate against white students represents a shift in the department’s civil rights division. But the move also addresses a central concern for voters who fueled President Trump’s victory last year: that whites are losing […] Read more »
Sharp Partisan Divisions in Views of National Institutions
Republicans and Democrats offer starkly different assessments of the impact of several of the nation’s leading institutions – including the news media, colleges and universities and churches and religious organizations – and in some cases, the gap in these views is significantly wider today than it was just a year […] Read more »