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Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein
Persuasion
Excerpt: On May 5, Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent Harvard University a letter declaring that the school “should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided,” effectively rendering Harvard ineligible for government funding for any new research. It was the latest volley in what has been a contentious battle between Harvard and the Trump administration.
Harvard has absolutely earned everyone’s scorn. For years, our organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), has been criticizing Harvard for creating an ideological monoculture, cultivating an environment hostile to viewpoint diversity, and failing to address the problem of anti-Semitism on its campus. However, the administration’s actions towards Harvard pose a far greater threat to higher education and the principles of academic freedom than any of the sins committed by Harvard itself.
Tyler Austin Harper
The Atlantic
Excerpt: Since the release of ChatGPT, in 2022, colleges and universities have been engaged in an experiment to discover whether artificially intelligent chatbots and the liberal-arts tradition can coexist. Notwithstanding a few exceptions, by now the answer is clear: They cannot. AI-enabled cheating is pretty much everywhere. As a May New York magazine essay put it, “students at large state schools, the Ivies, liberal-arts schools in New England, universities abroad, professional schools, and community colleges are relying on AI to ease their way through every facet of their education.”
Miriam Elman and Mark G. Yudof
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: In sports competitions, someone has to draft the rules and make critical judgments about their enforcement. Was the runner out or safe at home? Did a defensive player trip the dribbling guard? Should the tush push be banned? So too for the professions: lawyers, physicians, accountants and others. In higher education, the American Association of University Professors for many decades has been the gold standard for impartiality. No more.
In a recent disturbing interview published in Inside Higher Ed, the AAUP’s president, Todd Wolfson, made it unmistakably clear where the organization stands at a time when antisemitism on college campuses is spiking—against both students and Jewish faculty, whom the AAUP purports to represent.
Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression
Excerpt: Charlie Kirk was shot during an event at Utah Valley University today. Details of the incident are still unfolding.
Political violence is never an acceptable response to speech. Free speech allows us to settle our differences peacefully and is essential to a free and democratic society.
Our thoughts are with Charlie Kirk and his family.
