Talk:Hillsdale College

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Charter schools controversy

Glancing through Google News today and finding this [1] article dated 9/29/22 concerning Hillsdale-affiliated charter schools in Tennessee, with the lede "American Classical Education — a group set up to create a network of charter schools affiliated with Hillsdale College across Tennessee — has withdrawn its applications to open schools in Madison, Montgomery and Rutherford counties", I find no mention of American Classical Education at Wikipedia, nor of any charter schools being affiliated with Hillsdale College.

Now looking at the link provided in the previous "Education=plague" section to Deadline Detroit of 7/3/22 which states "Hillsdale is using Tennessee tax dollars to set up at least 50 charter schools", and also mentions controversy concerning other affiliated schools in Fort Lauderdale, it's clear that this present article on Hillsdale College entirely omits important unflattering information. The article is neither unbiased nor WP:NPOV, and appears to be basically a puff piece. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:42, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Is it your contention that because there is no mention of the aforementioned news article that the entire article is biased? There are over 130 different references from different sources like the New York Times and other news outlets. That doesn't seem to hint at bias toward one source or point of view. There's a section for the schools charter school initiative and if you have a reference, perhaps you could add the missing information there? If there is other missing information, you can add it. Dbroer (talk) 15:06, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Bias or not, it's a very significant aspect of Hillside's history and current activity and it does need more article text from the increasing body of RS discussion of this charter school initiative. SPECIFICO talk 16:08, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I have no problem and agree that there should be more text about the charter schools. My apologies if I made it sound like it shouldn't be included because it was biased. The OP (@Milkunderwood) implied that because it was missing that the entire article was biased and a puff piece. I was just questioning that contention. If someone wants to add more about charter schools and add sources, go for it. Dbroer (talk) 18:43, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Using editorials as a RS for a statement of fact

In the 21st Century section there is a sentence "In November 2021, Hillsdale purchased land in Placer County, California for nearly $6M with plans for a new campus.". There are three sources cited for this statement of fact, one of which is an editorial from the Sacramento Bee. At the top of the editorial it states "Jan. 23—OPINION AND COMMENTARY" (emphasis provided by the publisher). According to the Wikipedia RS standard, it states:

Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (invited op-eds and letters to the editor from notable figures) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact.

Given that the reference is an editorial and clearly an opinion piece trying to support a statement of fact, this source should not be used by policy/standard. Further, there are two other sources supporting the statement of fact so this third source is extraneous.

I believe there needs to be a second sentence or section for reaction to the move which could include that opinion piece as a RS for the reaction but by policy, the editorial should not be a reference for the statement of fact. I've removed the source to follow the policy but other editors reversed my edit so I'd like some feedback from more than one editor on using editorials for sources of statements of fact and the need for a second sentence for local reaction to the announcement (which I support). Thoughts? Dbroer (talk) 14:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Please state what content you think is inappropriately verified solely by the Bee source, and please present and alternative proposal for the article text based on the Bee source. Your selective interpretation of policy is contrary to widespread Wikipedia practice on thousands of article pages. SPECIFICO talk 15:14, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I've already stated what content I feel is inappropriately verified by the editorial. I've also stated that it can be a source for local reaction. Do you not agree that the Bee editorial is labelled as "OPINION AND COMMENTARY"? Do you not agree that the RS standard states that editorial commentary and opinion pieces should rarely be used as RS? Both of those statements are true. I am not interpreting anything by going by the stated policy word for word and what those words mean.

Having said that, how about we add a sentence about local reaction as I have been suggesting instead of using the editorial as a RS for a statement of fact?

"In November 2021, Hillsdale purchased land in Placer County, California for nearly $6M with plans for a new campus. Local reaction to the announcement was mixed.

That would separate the two, provide local reaction and not use an editorial to support a statement of fact. Dbroer (talk) 15:52, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

What fact do you think is verified only by the analysis article? It is not an editorial, which would refer to a statement that the publication itself takes a position on some issue. SPECIFICO talk 17:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Please state where are you seeing that it's an analysis article. It's labeled as opinion and commentary, not analysis. In fact, they put that in capital letters for emphasis. The very definition of editorial is an opinion which is what the article is titled with. Where are you seeing that it was written an analysis article as opposed to what it is labeled as? Dbroer (talk) 18:02, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Dbroer. If we're keeping the article text as is, we should remove the Bee source. It's there to support statements of fact, but it's unreliable and unnecessary. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Dbroer has refused to state what fact is being asserted solely on the analysis reference. If they do, we can have a reasoned discussion. They've also declined to offer additional article text that would reflect the analysis in the Bee piece. And denigrating the analysis of a competent professional journalist as "opinion" is really not helpful. Our articles are full of such sources, from fact-checkers to cheerleaders to critics. SPECIFICO talk 18:43, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

"They've also declined to offer additional article text that would reflect the analysis in the Bee piece."

Really? Because two replies ago I suggested the following:

"In November 2021, Hillsdale purchased land in Placer County, California for nearly $6M with plans for a new campus. Local reaction to the announcement was mixed."

"denigrating the analysis of a competent professional journalist as "opinion" is really not helpful."

How am I denigrating anything when the author themselves labelled their content as opinion and did so in capital letters?

All I have stated is that the reference is placed in the wrong spot. You started by undoing my edit and stated that "It is OK to also have a reaction piece from a respected local paper" to which I agreed and suggested a separate sentence and use that Bee editorial as a source. Further, I'm just trying to follow the standards that have been laid out. Just because something was used elsewhere doesn't mean that it should be allowed. What is wrong with having a separate sentence about local reaction? Dbroer (talk) 19:12, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Moreover, the glaring fault of this page is its parroting of a load of primary-sourced, self-promoting description of Hilldale and its lack of coverage on the significant initiatives into Charter Schools and its rising national profile among the thought leaders of the 21st Century conservative movement. I'd like to see some energy directed that way instead of repetitious nitpicking over a possibly redundant or possibly underutilized RS citation. SPECIFICO talk 18:48, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

That is a separate discussion and beyond the scope of my request for feedback for the inclusion of an editorial as a source for a statement of fact. Dbroer (talk) 19:15, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I've removed a personal attack by an IP. I have to agree that the article uses Hillsdale as a source far to much. It needs to be edited to remove some self-sourced trivia. Doug Weller talk 09:07, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

The page arguably contains more text than all serious academic papers from Hillsdale. No ranking information. No demographics. Avocats (talk) 07:24, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Policies section

Is it just me or is this a bit difficult to read, especially as it starts with the statement that Hillsdale doesn't discriminate and then goes on to cast doubt upon that claim. Doug Weller talk 09:08, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I've combined the leading sentence of the section with the rest of the paragraph, and edited it to read "Hillsdale's charter prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, or sex, but in the early 1980s, a controversy regarding its practices threatened federal student loans to 200 Hillsdale students." Does that help? Just as an aside, I had a client a few years ago who was a big supporter of Hillsdale. He was every bit as monstrous as one might expect.;-) Carlstak (talk) 14:49, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@Carlstak Thanks, although I think I'd break that into two sentences and remove "but" and maybe add "relating to discrimination"? See MOS:EDITORIAL. Doesn't sound pleasant to have a client like that. Doug Weller talk 15:32, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I agree about breaking it into two sentences and removing "but". I changed it to "Concerning such discrimination", if that's all right with you. Feel free to change it, or if someone else has another suggestion... I also broke the long paragraph into two, as you can see. Seemed a little easier to read that way. Carlstak (talk) 18:00, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@Carlstak That’s fine. Doug Weller talk 19:19, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Free will Baptist

The word "fundamentalist" has been removed, presumably due to that word being missing from our article page on that sect, even though there is extensive discussion of their fundamentalist beliefs. At any rate, here are a couple of RS links on the FWB's. [2] and [3] . They appear to differentiate themselves from the mainstream southern evangelicals in that the latter believe that once born again, you are saved whereas the FWB's believe you can stray and cancel your salvation at any time. SPECIFICO talk 18:20, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I removed the term "fundamentalist sect" because the Free Will Baptist article doesn't call them a fundamentalist sect. You had previously removed the descriptor "abolitionist" did not exist in the article. However, the group themselves describes themselves as abolitionists:

"Prior to the Civil War, the Free Will Baptists in the North were staunch abolitionists"

Source: https://fwbhistory.com/?p=2709

Additionally, they go on to acknowledge that it was Free Will Baptists that founded the college:

"Most of us were already aware that Hillsdale was founded by the northern branch of our denomination, which merged with the Northern Baptists in 1910-11. The article observed that the first graduating class at Hillsdale, five students, included a woman and a Black."

Source: https://fwbhistory.com/?p=818

Given that, I think there's more precedence to support the original text of "It was founded in 1844 by abolitionists known as Free Will Baptists" rather than "It was founded in 1844 by members of a fundamentalist sect known as Free Will Baptists."

If we're going by your original premise that "abolitionist" was not a descriptor in the Free Will Baptist article and should not be included, why would we add a descriptor from a third party source if "fundamental sect" is not part of that same article? Personally, I don't see anything wrong with the original text as it is supported by other sources than Wikipedia itself and could be easily added. Thoughts? Dbroer (talk) 19:09, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Well the "abolitionist" thing appears to be self-serving spin by the highly spin-prone Hillsdale, possibly to offset the widespread impression that they have been a bit too clever to opt out of Federal anti-discrimination regulations. I don't see widespread discussion of them as abolitionist as a key descriptor. There are mentions of them as being a Northern fundamentalist sect in opposition to the Puritan and other Northern US Christian branches of the mid 1800's. But in the North by the time Hillsdale was founded, most folks were anti-slavery. If they had been anti-slavery in 1800, that would be a different matter. I'm not an expert on shades of fundamentalism, but it's clear to me from all available sources that they are evangelical fundamentalists akin to the founders of Liberty University, e.g. with a twist. Let's see whether anyone else has thoughts? SPECIFICO talk 20:20, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Do we need a descriptor? Can't we just say that it founded by Free Will Baptists? Why do we have to describe them? Let that Free Will Baptist article speak for itself. No spin by anyone. We have sources (I mentioned one above) that support that but it seems like either descriptor is unnecessary in the end. e.g. "It was founded in 1844 by Free Will Baptists." Dbroer (talk) 22:02, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

That seems OK. The other article could stand some improvement, but that's not relevant to this one. More important is trimming the copious primary-sourced content on this page. I think there is also available sourcing to include more about Hillsdale's charter school initiative across the US. SPECIFICO talk 22:20, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

World War I

User:SPECIFICO removed:

Hillsdale continued to operate during the war, but had limited enrollment because so many young men went to war. Half of Hillsdale's students who enlisted became officers, as was typical for men with some college education; five became lieutenant colonels, four received the Medal of Honor, and three became generals. Sixty students died in the war.

FloridaArmy (talk) 23:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Content removals and inappropriate additions

The same editor also removed the radio station from the entry.

The same editor also removed the 1968 historical marker incsription "The inscription reads: A marker designating the college as a Michigan Historic Site was erected by the Michigan Historical Commission in 1968.

In 1844 a group of Freewill Baptists organized Michigan Central College at Spring Arbor. This college was the first in Michigan to grant degrees to women. Moved to Hillsdale in 1853 and chartered by the legislature in 1855, the school was renamed Hillsdale College under an independent board of trustees, its only controlling organization. The charter opened the institution "to all persons ... irrespective of nationality, color, or sex."

" with an edit summary noting the school's current political stance.

The same editor also added undue and unwarranted details about the suicide of a former president's family member.

Not good. FloridaArmy (talk) 23:48, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Wordy

"Roche resigned in late 1999, following the scandal surrounding the suicide of his son's wife, Lissa Jackson Roche, who was found shot dead in the college arboretum. Ms. Roche had stated that she and her father-in-law had been engaged in a 19 year long sexual affair. On October 17, 1999, she said that she had engaged in a 19-year on-and-off sexual affair with him. She fatally shot herself at the Slayton Arboretum on campus with a .38-caliber handgun from her husband's gun cabinet. Married to Roche's son, known as Roche IV, Jackson Roche was employed by Hillsdale as the Managing Editor of Imprimis and Hillsdale College Press." This is repetitive. 2600:6C67:1C00:5F7E:AC39:F311:DC1E:D05F (talk) 14:50, 19 March 2023 (UTC)