Penn in the News

Paul Robinson of the Law School comments on the post-incarceration effects of solitary confinement.

Williams College’s president took “the extraordinary step” this week of canceling the speech of an author who had been invited to bring provocative ideas to campus, saying his ideas cross the line into hate speech. John Derbyshire, a mathematician who used to write for the National Review until he wrote a piece for a blog which was widely decried as racist, had been invited by a student group to speak about immigration and national identity.

The authorities in western New York are investigating whether fraternity hazing played a role in the death of a 21-year-old Buffalo State College student from Brooklyn, the college said on Friday. The student, Bradley Doyley, died on Thursday night in a Buffalo hospital, the college’s president, Katherine S. Conway-Turner, said in a statement. The authorities did not disclose the nature of Mr. Doyley’s death, but The Buffalo News reported that he had been hospitalized after falling ill in January while he was trying to join the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

In a packed auditorium Wednesday, several students at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities interrupted ultradivisive conservative writer and speaker Milo Yiannopoulos with blaring air horns. Outside, more student protesters held signs reading “End rape culture” and “Rape culture is not a myth.” At another event several days earlier, students at Rutgers University smeared faux blood on their faces while Yiannopoulos spoke, shouting, “This man represents hatred.” And those were the events Yiannopoulos (at right) made it to.

Jacques deLisle of the Law School comments on how new Chinese laws on the online content of foreign films is a way to “restrict the influence of foreign or western ideas.”

Shaun Harper of the Graduate School of Education shares his thoughts on the best way for college leaders to handle the campus climate after a racial incident occurs.

A lawsuit filed by a Harvard graduate who said she was sexually assaulted by a fellow student and then forced by the university to live in the same dorm as her attacker accuses the institution of failing to protect her and of creating a culture of silence about sexual violence. The lawsuit filed by the former student, Alyssa Leader, on Tuesday in United States District Court in Massachusetts seeks a jury trial for unspecified damages. Ms.

The Education Department is standing by its controversial guidance to colleges on sexual harassment and sexual assault in response to questions raised by a prominent Senate critic. Catherine E. Lhamon, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, defended her agency’s actions in a letter on Wednesday to Sen. James Lankford, who, as head of the Senate’s subcommittee on regulatory affairs and federal management, had accused the department of overreach in pressuring colleges to fight sexual discrimination to comply with the gender-equity law known as Title IX.

The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has set off a debate at the Georgetown University law school about the appearance of institutional endorsements and intellectual diversity. Some professors are criticizing the law school for a statement on Justice Scalia's death that they say ignores parts of his record with which many disagree. These professors shared their views in emails to all students and faculty members.

They seem simple enough requests amid the many details that college applicants divulge: Check here if you’ve ever faced disciplinary action at school. Check here if you’ve been convicted of a crime. But there’s actually nothing simple about it, student activists and civil rights groups say. These boxes, they say, end up turning unfair disciplinary and judicial practices into roadblocks to college for far too many students of color.