by Alexandra Orbuch
Princeton University celebrated Constitution Day in mid-September with an event featuring a panel of academics who spent 90 minutes deriding the country’s founding document as "a tool of geopolitical gaslighting" that "furthers a racial crisis and a democratic crisis."
The event, titled "Citizenship and Its Discontents in Our Evolving Democratic Republic," was billed as "a public occasion to consider the Constitution and its lived implications throughout United States history"—almost all of which, according to the panelists assembled, have been negative.
Cathy Young
The Bulwark
Excerpt: Last month's annual conference of the Heterodox Academy, a group founded ten years ago by psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt to support intellectual diversity in academia, had to confront a cultural and political landscape drastically changed from previous years. “HxA,” as the group styles itself, is known for taking on threats to academic freedom and intellectual openness from the progressive (or, if you will, “woke”) left. But this is 2025, not 2015. Not only is Donald Trump in the White House again, but his second administration is waging an aggressive attack on the universities in a crusade against academic “wokeness.”
Samuel A. Church and Cam N. Srivastava
Harvard Crimson
Excerpt: At an information session with more than 500 attendees, Harvard staff told international students to expect tight screening at Boston Logan International Airport and keep a careful handle on their internet presence, which could be vetted for pro-Palestine posts.
Grace Little
Cavalier Daily
Excerpt: The Board of Visitors will soon begin the process of selecting an interim president and conducting a national search for a new president in the wake of former University President Jim Ryan’s resignation which came under pressure from the Department of Justice. As the Board searches for a new president, viewpoint diversity is likely to be a topic on their mind.