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Renowned legal scholar and public intellectual Cass Sunstein joins John Tomasi to examine one of the most important and contentious questions in higher education today.
Drawing on his decades of experience at institutions including the University of Chicago and Harvard, Sunstein reflects on what universities get right, where they fall short, and why debates over viewpoint diversity have become so central to the future of academic life. Offering both philosophical reflection and practical insight, Sunstein explores the tensions between academic freedom and institutional accountability, the role of administrators in shaping intellectual culture, and why ideological homogeneity may pose risks even when everyone involved is acting in good faith.
The first time we knew there was something seriously afoul in the Princeton Department of Classics was when, in January 2018, the then-chair circulated to the faculty a draft of a mission statement emphasizing the historical complicity of classics in perpetuating race-, class-, and gender-based inequality and promising a new era of inclusivity.
The draft itself was not especially interesting—such things rarely are—but one of us (Joshua, then a professor in the department) was bothered by the absence of “academic excellence” from its stated goals. When he pointed this out to his colleagues in a mild email, his words were met with incredulity and derision.
As students, professors, and administrators get ready to return to campus for what events both in the United States and abroad suggest will be another tumultuous year, the American Association of University Professors has decided to add fuel to the fire by announcing that it no longer categorically opposes academic boycotts. The decision by the once-august and respected organization is not surprising. After all, the AAUP is now led by a professor of journalism and media studies who a week ago used his official platform to call J. D. Vance “a fascist” and to claim that America’s colleges and universities are not in fact “ideological indoctrination centers.”
Last week, a committee of scholars convened by Vanderbilt University released a report on the state of humanities and social sciences scholarship across the United States.
As one of the signers of the report, I am all too familiar with the fact that activist scholars sometimes play fast and loose with logic and evidence to justify conclusions dictated in advance by a political program. Those who dissent can risk serious damage to their careers. Journals have been forced to apologize for research they have published — not because of poor logic or manufactured evidence, but because the results were politically unacceptable.
You’ve heard the critique.
The humanities and social sciences have been corrupted by political aims, and their disciplines have tossed out rigorous research standards in favor of advancing social-justice causes favored by the political left. This has made for an impoverished scholarly landscape, filled with laughable claims and obscure jargon.
Over the past several months, a group of high-profile scholars convened privately to study whether this criticism holds water across several fields within the humanities and social sciences. “The first thing to say,” they concluded in a report published Friday, “is that we reject the complaint in this bald form.”
