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.
“Project Hail Mary’s” Success: A Story You Can Believe In
The film features a weak, defeated man who turns from a coward to a hero, from selfishness to sacrifice, and from loneliness to friendship.
Is America Good Enough for Wendell Berry?
Genuine traditions and stories can prevent their inheritors from recklessly chasing the future simply because it’s the next thing.
Rediscovering History as the Story of Liberty
History can be a way to center ourselves today and renew the institutions and beliefs that are central to that history and its legacy.
James Q. Wilson and the Crisis of Our Time
"When we profess to believe in deterrence and to value justice, but refuse to spend the energy and money required to produce either, we are sending a clear signal that we think that safe streets, unlike all other great public goods, can be had on the cheap."
