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Michael Regnier
Free the Inquiry, Heterodox Academy
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.
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House Republicans have now formally backed President Donald Trump in fulfilling his campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education, voting Wednesday to advance 10 bills that would codify the White House’s efforts to disperse numerous education programs and offices to other federal agencies.
Florida’s war against woke indoctrination has hit a speedbump. On July 7, a panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s injunction against the Stop WOKE Act, the state’s attempt to ban public university employees from inculcating trendy beliefs about racial superiority and privilege.
Yale University is discussing a potential voluntary resolution with the Department of Justice over allegedly discriminatory admissions practices, President Maurie McInnis announced Monday.
