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It’s now widely (though not universally) conceded that improving viewpoint diversity on campus would improve university teaching and research. Faculty on American campuses are overwhelmingly cut from the same ideological cloth, and this homogeneity has harmful effects on all aspects of the professoriate, including teaching, research, and service.
But suppose you had the opportunity to fix this. You could wave a magic wand and improve viewpoint diversity in any part of campus. Where should you work your magic? Where does viewpoint diversity matter the most?
Last week I recorded a FedSoc forum with Professor Jesse Merriam at Patrick Henry College. The topic was "No Enemies to the Right? Antisemitism and the Big Tent." Usually, when I do one of these events, I am talking about something newsworthy. But this forum was a bit more personal, as I was the newsworthy event. I discuss my resignation from Heritage, and provide some updates of what has happened since.
Colleges and universities face a moment of crisis, with their missions, funding, and operations under threat. At the same time, US public opinion surveys show that support for higher education is at historic lows. The Trust Agenda outlines a response to these challenges that can build public trust, make campuses more trustworthy, and enable colleges and universities to defend their missions successfully.
The report’s recommendations include a combination of internal reforms, external communications, and collaborative defense strategies. The unifying theme of The Trust Agenda is a need for increased and meaningful connection in higher education—between campuses and their communities; among faculty, staff, students, and administrators; across institutions; and with society as a whole.
A House Democrat who serves on the education committee plans to launch an effort to impeach Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon said Wednesday that McMahon violated her oath of office as well as federal law by transferring dozens of programs at the Education Department to other federal agencies without Congress’s consent. Bonamici’s announcement comes after the Trump administration said Tuesday it was shifting civil rights enforcement to the Justice Department and management of special education programs to the Health and Human Services Department.
There is widespread agreement that higher education is politicized, but there is disagreement over who is to blame. The left argues President Trump and various red states enacting policies are injecting conservative dogma into teaching and research. The right argues that the left politicized academia over the past several decades, and that the new policies are merely trying to reverse the current politicization. There is some truth to both stories.
Fortunately, there is a solution to depoliticize universities – establish heterodox centers, or colleges within the existing university, that would add missing perspectives and compete with the traditional departments.
Imagine if, at a certain university, the Astronomy Department gradually morphed into the Astrology Department. Hard evidence was replaced by unfalsifiable speculation. Telescopes were traded for horoscopes. How, exactly, could the university’s leaders — responsible for excellence but not themselves trained astronomers — recognize the change? What signs could they have spotted earlier, before all trust was lost?
This is part of the provocative framing of the Vanderbilt-WashU “State of Scholarship” report that has drawn intense debate this week. Commissioned by the chancellors of the two universities, the report was written by a distinguished committee of scholars charged with assessing the state of scholarship in the humanities and humanistic social science fields. All is not well, the report says. The pursuit of knowledge in humanistic fields is, not always but too often, distorted by politicization — skewed by a priori commitments to certain results and muddled by selective skepticism about knowledge itself.
