Author: jplucas

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia barred the Defense Department from withholding funds from colleges that deny access to military recruiters. The court ruled 2-1 that a federal law known as the Solomon Amendment infringes on the free-speech rights of schools that have restricted on-campus recruiting because of the military’s ban on lesbians and gay men. Ruling in a lawsuit brought by students and professors at New Jersey law schools, the panel said that by threatening to withdraw federal funds from schools, the government is compelling them to take part in speech they do not agree with. Similar lawsuits have been filed elsewhere, but Monday’s ruling represented the first time a court blocked enforcement of the law.

The notion that community college students arrive fresh out of high school, study for two years and move up to a four-year college is quietly dissolving, a survey suggests. Instead, the experience for millions of students now involves spending four or more years piecing together an education at several colleges, and many never even earn an associate’s degree.

Congress has given the U.S. Education Department the green light to make changes in a student-aid formula that could disqualify tens of thousands of students from receiving federal financial assistance. The go-ahead came in the vast spending bill that Congress approved on Saturday (see a related article). (Subscription required.)

People here grow, smoke, and die from tobacco at record rates. H. Maelor Davies is trying to breed a tobacco plant that can save lives. (Subscription required.)

The owners of more than 60 percent of PeopleSoft’s stock indicated on Friday that they would sell their shares to the Oracle Corporation, bringing Oracle another step closer to taking over its software rival. PeopleSoft makes a number of products used widely in higher education. (Subscription required.)

A Paralympic basketball gold medalist who has campaigned to improve access for the disabled in the developing world and a scientist-turned-political philosopher who worked on ways to control the invasive kudzu plant were among the 32 Americans selected Sunday as Rhodes Scholars for 2005.

College students supported Sen. John Kerry over President Bush by a much wider margin than did the total number of voters ages 18 to 29, according to an analysis of election data by The Chronicle and a survey of voters released this week by Declare Yourself, a nonpartisan group that encourages young people to vote. (Subscription required.)

In a move that some scholars see as a boon for research and others say could help make libraries obsolete, Google on Thursday unveiled a search engine that focuses on academic materials. (Subscription required.)

There are more Democrats than Republicans among professors at American colleges, according to a pair of studies released this week by the National Association of Scholars. (Subscription required.)