Supporting Students Free Expression

Joan W. Scott
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The vice president of campus advocacy of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Alex Morey, has recently launched an unprecedented attack on the American Association of University Professors. She was quoted in Inside Higher Ed on Nov. 8 effectively offering an obituary for the organization in response to AAUP president Todd Wolfson’s expression of “disappointment” at the election of Donald Trump: “Faculty who’ve long relied on the AAUP for its principled academic freedom advice should look elsewhere,” Morey said.

Sophia Damian
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

Excerpt: Duke College Republicans (DCR), founded in 1965, was an active organization on the Durham campus for 55 years before its sudden dissolution during the 2020 election season. After four years of dormancy, the group was revived on October 14, 2024, by junior Zander Pitrus. Amidst challenges posed by administrators and disgruntled student Democrats, Duke College Republicans seeks to facilitate civil discourse on campus by creating a community of like-minded and differently minded students, bringing in political speakers and pushing back against campus censorship.  

A week before the 2024 presidential election, the Martin Center spoke to Pitrus, now DCR president, to get his perspective on the organization and his experiences as a Republican on Duke’s campus.

Andreas Bikfalvi MD PhD
Substack, Heterodox STEM

Excerpt: I define Ideology-Based Investigations (IBIs) as inquiries that are not grounded in a rigorous scientific theoretical framework, where hypotheses can be tested. Instead, they rely on philosophical or legal scholarship that presents a veneer of scientific credibility. When these investigations originate from the left, they are rooted in post-modern or critical theory scholarship. Conversely, when they come from the right, they are associated with a mythological interpretation of past and present history. The American philosopher Michael Huemer [1], has referred to these as “progressive myths” when propagated by the left, but we should also recognize the concept of “reactionary myths” for those promoted by the right.

David Brooks
The Atlantic

Excerpt: Every coherent society has a social ideal—an image of what the superior person looks like. In America, from the late 19th century until sometime in the 1950s, the superior person was the Well-Bred Man. Such a man was born into one of the old WASP families that dominated the elite social circles on Fifth Avenue, in New York City; the Main Line, outside Philadelphia; Beacon Hill, in Boston. He was molded at a prep school like Groton or Choate, and came of age at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. In those days, you didn’t have to be brilliant or hardworking to get into Harvard, but it really helped if you were “clubbable”—good-looking, athletic, graceful, casually elegant, Episcopalian, and white.

And then a small group of college administrators decided to blow it all up.

Campus Reform

Excerpt: Hours after the Student Advisory Committee president of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics declared that the organization should no longer be nonpartisan, the director reaffirmed the institute’s commitment to remaining nonpartisan.

Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley’s Blog

Excerpt: As academics, we are dealing with the election on campuses across America. After the election, I had some valuable discussions with students who supported Harris and some who supported Trump. I wish there would be more interaction between the two groups. That is why this story stood out for me. I do not believe that further separation or isolation will help this country or these individuals.