Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2025

Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2025

Anti-Defamation League  May 07, 2026 1 min read

Incidents decreased most significantly on college and university campuses, by 66% (from 1,694 to 583).

The most significant factor contributing to the decrease in incidents on college campuses in 2025 was the decline of the anti-Israel encampment movement that drove the spike in incidents on campuses in the spring of 2024. Antisemitic incidents related to anti-Israel protests, including encampments, decreased by 83% on college campuses in 2025 compared to the year before. But the threat of antisemitism on college campuses is far from gone. Incidents on college campuses remained almost three times higher in 2025 than in 2021.

Read More
DOJ: UCLA Medical School Discriminated Based on Race in Admissions

DOJ: UCLA Medical School Discriminated Based on Race in Admissions

Katherine Knott and Johanna Alonso May 07, 2026 1 min read

The medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles, allegedly gave preference to Black and Hispanic applicants over the last three admissions cycles, in violation of federal law and a 2023 Supreme Court ruling, the Justice Department said Wednesday as it released the results of a yearlong investigation into the institution.

The findings, outlined in a seven-page letter, mark the first time that the Justice Department has publicly claimed that a university discriminated based on race during the admissions process.

Read More

Harvard’s ‘Annoying Socratic Gadfly’ Takes a Victory Lap

Harvard’s ‘Annoying Socratic Gadfly’ Takes a Victory Lap

Evan Goldstein and Len Gutkin May 07, 2026 1 min read

Harvey C. Mansfield, who enrolled at Harvard in 1949, joined the faculty in 1962, and retired in 2023, has been called many things: “great dissenter,” “prophet,” “racist, homophobic and misogynist,” “sophist,” “slipshod.” Mansfield prefers “annoying Socratic gadfly.” A dean once advised that he’d be more persuasive if he argued less. Mansfield says he tried, but it didn’t work. “Retirement seems to strengthen my voice.”

Mansfield spoke to us over zoom from his house in Ipswich, Mass., where he now spends the bulk of his time. Dressed in a suit and red tie, he discussed affirmative action for conservative professors, why the academy needs bipartisanship more than nonpartisanship, and whether old professors stick around too long. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Read More
Principles, Not Politics: West Coast Scholars Gather at Berkeley to Talk Reform

Principles, Not Politics: West Coast Scholars Gather at Berkeley to Talk Reform

Nicole Barbaro Simovski, Ph.D May 06, 2026 1 min read

The 80+ scholars who gathered at UC Berkeley for HxA’s West Coast Regional Conference didn’t come to vent or to mourn a lost university. They came to get organized and lead their campuses in reform. Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier set the tone from the first minutes of his keynote about what must be done for change in the academy to occur.

“There used to be times when it took just a letter to get a speaker disinvited,” he said. “This is not the case right now.” Institutional neutrality is gaining ground. Diverse speakers are being welcomed on campuses where they once weren’t. On these things, “we look back and things are moving in the right direction.” But Diermeier was clear that acknowledging progress is not the same as declaring victory. Much work remains.

Read More

The Self-Defeating Condescension of an Anti-Racist Education

The Self-Defeating Condescension of an Anti-Racist Education

Steven F. Wilson  April 28, 2026 1 min read

Some 15 years after the No Child Left Behind Act promised to close the racial achievement gap, it looked as if charter schools were making real progress toward that goal. Using data from 2015 to 2019, Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes reported that more than 200 charter networks were closing or even reversing racial disparities in reading, math, or both.

Then, just as the charter sector was posting striking results, many school networks strayed from their commitment to academic excellence. Staff-led demands for social justice convulsed the schools. “Anti-racism” and “equity” displaced effective instruction as their top priority.

Read More
Can you measure the politics of social science?

Can you measure the politics of social science?

Justin McBrayer April 28, 2026 1 min read

In March 2026, the journal Theory and Society published a sweeping analysis of academic social science research spanning 1960 to 2024. The paper, “The ideological orientation of academic social science research 1960-2024,” ran over 600,000 article abstracts through a large language model to map the ideological orientation of an entire field across six decades.

James Manzi, a DPhil (PhD) student in sociology at the University of Oxford, unleashed a wide-ranging discussion across social media with the publication of his paper. In the conversation below, Manzi walks us through the paper’s central findings, responds to questions about methodology, and sketches next steps.

Read More