Right about now, US News and World report is surveying “presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions” at the colleges and universities that it ranks, asking them to rate other schools on “reputation”. This is a big deal, and makes up a large part of the college ranking score, even if it’s wildly unscientific.
Going to college just got more dangerous in a lot of places. A miscarriage could land someone in jail, or get them killed due to denial of medical care. Under some planned laws, a student could land in jail for an abortion while they were home on break, or for driving a friend to a state where it’s legal.
If you know someone who you think might be a recipient of this survey, please contact them and ask that they consider student safety when they are ranking colleges in this new post-Roe world. Particular states which have strict abortion bans and educational institutions that might care about ranking include Texas, Missouri, and Ohio; other states with good schools which will probably join them in the next few days or weeks, include Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana.
The thing is, what red America calls the “elite” is really “the folks who get work done around here”. You know, study hard, go to work, things like that — that’s why Biden-voting counties are responsible for 71% of this country’s GDP. But red America wants a free ride on our work, and one of the ways that we provide that is by supporting their institutions of higher education. We need to stop that, now.
I emailed my provost and asked him to consider student safety when he returns his survey. If you know someone who might get this survey, I would urge you to contact them — remember that the kid who suffers or dies from these laws might have ended up in that state precisely *because* of a school ranking, a ranking that the person returning the survey was partially responsible for. I reminded him of that. (yeah, I have tenure. Staff, pre-tenure and non-tenure-track faculty — don’t do this, please, just stick with your social contacts)
If you know more about the whole ranking process and have thoughts on how to go about this better, please get in touch or leave a comment — e.g. there must be a way to get a physical mailing list for all these folks, as all the colleges spam each other with marketing material. If it’s too late for this year’s survey, let me know, too — I don’t know any of the details of this process.