Penn in the News

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center is quoted about the large number of Republican candidates still running for president.

The Wall Street Journal couldn't have been much more excited about what Mitch Daniels said Wednesday about the protests at Yale University and the University of Missouri. "We’ve been wondering all week what happened to the grown-ups on American university campuses, and it appears we have a sighting. Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University, spoke up Wednesday about the children’s revolt at Yale and Missouri," said the Journal in an editorial. While many conservatives joined in praising Daniels, his comments angered many black students at Purdue and some critics elsewhere.

The veracity of one of this year’s most talked about documentaries, “The Hunting Ground,” has been attacked by 19 Harvard Law School professors, who say the film’s portrayal of rape on college campus is distorted, specifically when it comes to their school’s handling of one particular case. Directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Amy Ziering, whose previous team efforts include the Oscar-nominated “The Invisible War” (2012), about sexual assault in the military, “The Hunting Ground” interviews victims of sexual assault at colleges around the country.

Shaun Harper of the Graduate School of Education talks about the “semantic substitutes” used to described racism on college campuses.

David Asch of the Perelman School of Medicine is cited for leading a study on using financial incentives in health-care settings.

Lauren Sallan of the School of Arts & Sciences is highlighted for her research and paper, “Body-size reduction in vertebrates following the end-Devonian mass extinction.”

USC junior Vanessa Diaz was raised in Dallas. But at a party two years ago, she was asked if she could speak English. When Diaz became offended, the other student tried to pass off the question as a joke. But it did not amuse her, any more than the idea of Mexican-themed parties on Greek Row featuring students in sombreros and fake mustaches. "Because of the society we live in, it's not OK to be overtly racist," Diaz said. "But that doesn't mean everything is OK."

The Missouri state university system on Thursday named as interim president an African-American who said he understood the complexity and nuance of the recent racially charged campus clashes, adding that while some people will hold his race against him, it probably also played a role in his getting the job. The interim leader, Michael A. Middleton, was an undergraduate and law school student, and later a law professor, and then an administrator at the University of Missouri, the flagship of the system.

Cindy Otto of the School of Veterinary Medicine is mentioned for leading a tour of the Working Dog Center for two senators.

Tim Wolfe’s speech announcing his resignation as president of the University of Missouri System this week was instructive to anyone following closely. “We stopped listening to each other, we didn't respond and react, we got frustrated with each other,” he said, announcing he was stepping down amid calls from students that he’d failed to address urgent concerns about racism on their campuses. Among those watching the events unfold at Mizzou were administrators a few hours to the west, at the University of Kansas.