Stanford’s Graduate Student Union Tries to Stifle Dissent
The university may fire me because I won’t pay dues to a labor organization whose views I find repugnant.
I’m working as a teaching assistant while studying for a doctorate in economics at Stanford, but a campus union is trying to get me fired. The Stanford Graduate Workers Union wants my head on a plate because I refused to sign a membership form and pay dues. I won’t fund an organization whose values and tactics I don’t support.
Similar unions across the country are using their bargaining power not to improve working conditions but to coerce ideological conformity. This isn’t solidarity; it’s suppression. Shame on Stanford for going along with it.
In June, the union began seeking to bar graduate students who refuse to pay dues or agency fees from working as teaching or research assistants. That threat is now a reality. The university has told me and several other teaching assistants that we will be fired unless we pay up.
Pursuit of Happiness
The Rise of Latino America
In The Rise of Latino America, Hernandez & Kotkin argue that Latinos, who are projected to become America’s largest ethnic group, are a dynamic force shaping the nation’s demographic, economic, and cultural future. Far from being a marginalized group defined by oppression, Latinos are integral to America’s story. They drive economic growth, cultural evolution, and workforce vitality. Challenges, however, including poverty, educational disparities, and restrictive policies, threaten their upward mobility. Policymakers who wish to harness Latino potential to ensure national prosperity and resilience should adopt policies that prioritize affordability, safety, and economic opportunity over ideological constraints.
The Quintessential American: Ben Franklin, Man of All Ages
Franklin’s prudence is as welcome 320 years on as his legendary serenity.
The Moral Case for America in a Nutshell
America’s proponents now have no choice but to articulate their own simple and effective moral case for our way of life.
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The Wealth of Nations at 250: Adam Smith’s Blueprint for the American Economy
Ideas of few books have shaped the economic logic of the American experiment more profoundly than The Wealth of Nations, even when Americans have not always realized it as an agent that promotes prosperity and reduces poverty.
