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by Joshua Katz, National Review
Last week, I was supposed to be in Greece. When, almost exactly a year ago, I was invited to speak at a four-day international conference in Athens on “The ‘Future of the Past’: Why Classical Studies Still Matter,” I accepted happily. Finally, after years of turmoil, I was going to have the chance to sit down with colleagues and help chart a workable course forward for our embattled subject. In the end, however, the fact that my wife is pregnant made me decide to participate instead over Zoom. This turned out to be a blessing, since had I gone in person, I would have had to spend Thanksgiving with some loathsome people.
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I recently listened to Ross Douthat’s interview with the philosopher Jennifer Frey. She is a serious thinker and an unusually courageous academic entrepreneur. What she built at the University of Tulsa before it was dismantled is exactly the sort of thing more universities should be attempting. Yet almost every argument she offered for the humanities is, I think, completely unpersuasive to anyone not already on our side of the table.
This report presents findings from a national survey of 1,959 law school faculty at 192 American Bar Association (ABA) approved law schools in the United States, conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). As one of the largest surveys of law faculty on free expression and professional norms, the data reveal a profession that strongly endorses free speech principles while struggling to live them out in practice.
I just returned from the University of Wyoming, where I debated the President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Todd Wolfson over the need for colleges and universities to maintain institutional neutrality. The debate was organized by the Steamboat Institute and was live-streamed.
The formal question presented for debate was: “Is institutional neutrality necessary to preserve the university as a forum for open inquiry rather than an actor in political disputes?” I spoke in favor of institutional neutrality while Wolfson argued against it as a necessary component to higher education.
