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George F. Will
The Washington Post
High school seniors completing college applications confront a smorgasbord of choices. Herewith, eight suggestions:
Arizona State University, because of its School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. University of Florida, because of its Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. Florida State University because of its Institute for Governance and Civics. The University of Texas, because of its School of Civic Leadership, and Civitas Institute. The University of Tennessee, because of its Institute of American Civics. The University of North Carolina because of its School of Civic Life and Leadership. The University of Mississippi because of its Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom.
And The Ohio State University, because of its new Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society. These eight, with similar programs gestating in other states, are reviving universities’ civic seriousness, that is reinvigorating the humanities, inspiring students eager to grapple with big questions, and reversing academia’s forfeiture of its prestige.
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Oversized inflatable beach balls get bounced out on college campuses by student organizations that invite everyone to write on the “speech ball.” Students scrawl political slogans, insults, and provocative symbols. On some campuses, it might be a speech wall or a boulder. In all these cases, the idea, we’re told, is to exercise free expression. But what actually happens is a spectacle of empty rhetoric, where showboating and shock masquerade as meaningful discourse and campuses become stages for provocative performances rather than spaces for genuine intellectual exchange.
Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to cap “A” grades in undergraduate courses at roughly 20 percent of enrollment beginning in fall 2027. Nearly 70 percent of voting faculty backed the measure. It’s one of the most aggressive reversals of grade inflation in modern American higher education.
The signaling argument is correct as far as it goes. But it misses the more important consequence of capping “A’s,” the one that should matter most to anyone concerned about the intellectual culture of American higher education.
Virginia Tech governing board member John Rocovich has refused to resign after Gov. Abigail Spanberger removed him last week after 16 years. Rocovich stated in a four-page letter addressed to the Secretary of the Commonwealth that he will not resign before his term ends on June 30, 2027. There was no sign of him at the board’s committee meetings on Monday in Blacksburg.
Spanberger’s decision is the latest effort by her administration to shake up governing boards at Virginia’s colleges and universities, amid concerns within the higher education community about the politicization of public university governing bodies. She recently appointed four new members to Tech’s governing board.
