Timothy Messer-Kruse
Chronicle of Higher Education
The rapid expansion of funding for “civics institutes,” along with the spreading of state mandates that civics be taught as a core subject in colleges, has ignited much controversy. Debates focus on whether civics should be prioritized above other vital subjects, whether civics education should be concentrated in autonomous centers on campus, and whether states should dictate how it should be taught.
Ironically, the impetus to make civics a discipline came from progressive scholars nearly 20 years ago, not the conservatives now founding civics institutes across the country.
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Violating the First Amendment will cost you. Universities and other public institutions are learning this lesson the hard way as the dust settles on a series of lawsuits brought by university faculty and staff who were punished for their comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder last September.
If Johns Hopkins University wanted to signal its seriousness about creating an alternative to the left-leaning orthodoxy that permeates higher education, it couldn’t have done better than the recent hire of economist Peter Arcidiacono.
House Republicans have now formally backed President Donald Trump in fulfilling his campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education, voting Wednesday to advance 10 bills that would codify the White House’s efforts to disperse numerous education programs and offices to other federal agencies.