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Ellie Avishai
Quillette
Excerpt: On 8 November 2021, the founders of the University of Austin (UATX) announced the launch of their new project—a school where students would receive “an education rooted in the pursuit of truth.” Unlike Ivy League universities, where “illiberalism has become a pervasive feature of campus life,” the school’s founding president declared, this would be a place “where intellectual dissent is protected and fashionable opinions are scrutinized.” On a web page titled, Our Principles, UATX pledges that it will “renew the mission of the university, and serve as a model for institutions of higher education by safeguarding academic freedom and promoting intellectual pluralism.”
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