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I don't need someone to hold my hand.

What makes you think programmers are better able to negotiate the labor market than physicians (AMA), lawyers (ABA), or other "knowledge workers" (AAUP)? Those groups - especially AMA and ABA - have done an exceptional job of legislating protection for native practitioners. In many cases, a lawyer isn't even allowed to practice across state lines, nevermind international boundaries. And the hoops for a foreign-trained physician? Even a US citizen trained outside the country (say, at SGU) faces extra regulatory scrutiny returning to the US. When the AMA started, any hack with a sharp knife could do surgery; now they're among the most protected classes of workers.

A lone wolf may be a fine programmer, but the market is a big game of prisoner's dilemma: the isolated, self-interest strategy loses.

You seem to be under some illusions about the working conditions of University professors. Most of your professors are adjuncts, working part time for less than minimum wage.

You're upset because your professor didn't contact you way before the first class to tell you what the expectations were? Guess what? The University probably hadn't even gotten around to hiring her yet. And even if they had, they reserved the right to say "just kidding" and cancel it at the last minute.

You want someone to blame for the poor quality of your education? It's not your professors. It's the "dooshbags" they are working for.

I am sorry to hear that you are out an extra $50 for the cost of a new textbook. Your professor, who makes about $20,000 a year by working at three different schools with no benefits, no job security and no support from their employer, knows what that feels like.

So she's a social justice warrior troll doing this for attention? Called it earlier.

Expect her to have a Patreon account up within a few days, as well as a campaign started explaining why Linus is problematic and needs to be removed from Linux development soon, or how Linux needs a safe space special interest group so feminist coders can submit their commits without being threatened by people pointing out their code sucks. Because remember kids, criticism is "Cyber Violence."

As an aside, she's a blockbot user, so yes, she most definitely is a SJW or a SJW ally:
https://twitter.com/sarahsharp

(If you're blocked and have never even spoken with her, congratulations, you're a member of Randy Harper's blacklist, an list of white men, gamers, nerds, conservatives, KFC, President Obama, and other people Randy Harper and her radical feminist friends consider too "problematic" to be allowed to communicate with people in the tech industry.)

Actually... Yuuuup, 5 seconds of research later:
http://sarah.thesharps.us/tag/...

Third Wave (Professional Victim) Feminist, with posts pushing the lie about the gender gap (there are more women than men getting STEM degrees now), and a post about the "Donglegate" lynch mob, wherein a professional outrage mob was directed by professional victim and gender identity con artist Adria Richards to shame and destroy the lives of two men making a joke about forking and dongles, suggesting that hearing a joke you disagree with is equivalent to being physically attacked.

In short: She might be a gifted programmer, but she's a weak willed human being, and her having a professional freakout about Linus making a joke about being intimidating isn't surprising -- it's a calculated maneuver. Expect something else to come up soon -- as mentioned, Linus will be deemed too problematic to be allowed to remain in Linux, or the Professional Victims will demand special treatment for Women in Linux Development.

Care to list girls dominated STEM fields?

Women are a majority of Bachelor's degree earners in Psychology (by far), Social Sciences, and Biology. They are close to even in Math and Statistics (45.9%), behind in Physical Sciences, Geo-Sciences, and really behind in Engineering (20.5%) and Computer Science (25.1%).

Overall though, across all Science and Engineering fields, women are 50.4% of Bachelor's degree holders.

source

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, the Higher Learning Commission

The current version of this commissionâ(TM)s Handbook of Accreditation includes shared governance under the first of its five âoeCriteria for Accreditation,â specifically, under core component 1d, which states that âoethe organizationâ(TM)s governance and administrative structures promote effective leadership and support collaborative processes that enable the organization to fulfill its mission.â The explanatory paragraphs that follow describe shared governance (without defining it) as âoea long-standing attribute of most colleges and universities in the United States,â adding the qualification, âoewhatever the governance and administrative structures, they need to enhance the organizationâ(TM)s capacity to fulfill its mission.â Among the âoeexamples of evidenceâ that might indicate compliance with this core component is this: âoeFaculty and other academic leaders share responsibility for the coherence of the curriculum and the integrity of academic processes.â Under criterion 2a (âoeThe organization realistically prepares for a future shaped by multiple societal and economic trendsâ) explanatory paragraphs describe shared governance as serving âoeas a check and balance to ensure academic integrity.â

While the North Central commissionâ(TM)s handbook does not employ the phrase âoeacademic freedomâ under criterion 4a (âoeThe organization demonstrates, through the actions of its board, administrators, students, faculty, and staff, that it values a life of learningâ), it does include the following âoeexample of evidenceâ relevant to this bedrock concept: âoeThe board has approved and disseminated statements supporting freedom of inquiry for the organizationâ(TM)s students, faculty, and staff, and honors those statements in its practices.â

Only in academia would faculty feel entitled to freely criticize their employer while expecting their employer to turn a blind eye. In any other field you would be canned on the spot for doing something like this.

There are principles at play here that don't exist in other employment situations; for instance, academic employees have this thing called "academic freedom" which, for decades, has meant that "[c]ollege and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline..." and that "a faculty member’s expression of opinion as a citizen cannot constitute grounds for dismissal unless it clearly demonstrates the faculty member’s unfitness for his or her position. Extramural utterances rarely bear upon the faculty member’s fitness for the position."

TFA has a bit of cherry-picked data. While full professors at R1 (Doctoral) institutions do indeed make ~135k/year, at other classes of institutions, the salary is significantly lower (Master's & Bachelor's full professors make ~92k): http://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/2013%20Salary%20Survey%20Tables%20and%20Figures/Table%204.pdf

Sort of. The bar is being lowered in high school and middle school. Then they give the bar to universities. Universities have to keep it roughly where it is because it's never been their mission to teach students basic skills and they are still ill prepared to do so. Please see this bit of writing: a href=http://www.aaup.org/article/warnings-trenches#.UR6B5DU-tpR
This is what happens when standardized tests are the focus of education. There are much more effective ways to measure student performance and increase it, but we don't want to pay for them. Cutting costs in the short term will bankrupt our country.
Also see the article quoted in the previous link: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_of_the_year/2010/01/teachers_should_be_seen_and_no.html
Universities are forced to hold students to a low standard, and professors are typically subject specialists--not the teachers students require to help them learn how to write, read, and think critically.
You can attribute a lot of this to the mindset that schools should be run like businesses. It inevitably leads to lowering standards when success is defined as passing students who can do the bare minimum (high school) or graduation rates (college & university). Schools are much more important than businesses. Students are the product, and you can't cancel a product line that doesn't perform well or market it into relevance.

the first tangible move toward making federal legislative data available to the public in bulk

And then isn't the reverse true? Won't it make it easier to collect a lot more information about who is pulling what data? I'm not saying it's happened in the past (I don't know if that suit ever went anywhere) but it is certainly possible.

I would not dispute in many cases that in order to get things done, a large organization needs to be diplomatic and cannot take a stand on every issue of principle. But in this case, the large organization is a university, and the principle at stake is free and open access to information. Academic freedon is absolutely core to their mission. It is the one place, above all others, where a university should make a principled stand.

And what I proposed is not "a direct attack on Bush." I do not think they should have complied at all; but if they did, my suggestion was that they simply inform people, directly and openly, that the database is being censored and by whom.

Universities "making money" for the general fund through sports programs is a myth. Check these guys (second review) for the dirt. Of those, Duderstadt's book is probly the best, since he's tactful, respectful, and the former president of the Big House. It boils down to: the beneficial football team is a myth. College football and men's basketball may make more money than they spend, but what little "profit" is then passed to the (more worthy) other collegiate programs. I say (more worthy) because collegiate sports' influence on academics is really twofold in Division I programs. There's football and basketball, where BS majors (and by that, I do not mean Bachelor of Science) are invented, and men who have no interest or business in university of study are exploited for the Greater Good of Fandom. Then there are the other sports, where the athletes actually perform higher than the average for the student body.

Having done my time as a grad student TA at a Big Ten school, I must say there's some overlap. Non-"semipro" sports athletes ranked right up there with the folks starred "GI Bill" on the attendance roster as people I wanted in the classroom, in general (there were exceptions). Among the "semipro" players there were some genuinely engaged students -- and when an athlete gets engaged, the competitive spirit comes alive, and it's my lardass opinion that even if those guys earn C+s (which happens), they kicked a hell of a lot of ass to get there --, but there were a lot of slobs who had no business being there. I once sent "upstream" an F for the coach's son. Never did find out if he failed. Somehow I doubt it. Force Majeure

Just a thought, and yes, I am aware that NASA as it presently exists is hardly a perfect example of an organization selflessly pursuing knowledge for its own sake.

For some perspective, take a look at the American Association of University Professors report, Developments Relating to Censure by the Association

For some perspective, take a look at the American Association of University Professors report, Developments Relating to Censure by the Association