In 1975 Jerald Bachman, of the University of Michigan, revealed results of a four-year study that suggested that high-school dropouts do not suffer financially or emotionally by quitting school before graduating.

Rutgers University sociologist Peter Berger said in a 1972 keynote address to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities that "counter culture values" among upper-middle-class students had turned some of the most prestigious universities into "vast identity workshops" where "intellectual rot" replaced a valid curriculum.

In 1972, after a Brooklyn teacher was assaulted in front of his class by the older brother of a pupil he had corrected, New York state representative John Bingham urged that the New York Board of Education provide every teacher with a silent electronic alarm device for protection.

In 1972 Harvard president Derek Bok defended special-admissions policies for minority candidates on NBC's Meet the Press.

In 1977 Catherine Burke became...