CounterCurrent: Week of 12/23/24
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, CounterCurrent readers! I hope I haven’t caught you checking your phone between the hurry to wrap gifts and escape the family curmudgeon.
This newsletter has a particular affection for optimism. Since we began writing CounterCurrent in 2019, every week since, we’ve covered the many drastic ways higher education has changed—for the better and worse. This year has been nothing different, yet there appears to be more light than darkness peaking through the curtains, even on these short winter days.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression reports that 29 educational institutions have adopted institutional neutrality. Such policies were anathema just a few short years ago—remember kids, ‘silence is violence!’
Some institutions have gone even further. As Dartmouth president Sian Leah Beilock writes in the Wall Street Journal this week,
Ending political statements by presidents isn’t enough. Dartmouth’s Principles of Institutional Restraint … spell out clear guidelines on restraint for academic departments and institutes that choose to speak as a unit.
These changes are essential in the absence of better policies. They will, I hope, breathe new life into the educational enterprise and return it to “discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge,” as the 1967 Kalvin Report encourages. But, of course, simply adopting policies favoring institutional neutrality will not square this circle.
As Peter W. Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), argued earlier this year, colleges and universities “ought to stand for clearly stated values and defend them forthrightly against whatever pressures arise from students, faculty, trustees, politicians, foreign powers, or the general public.” College presidents can hide behind a policy of institutional neutrality when they should stand behind important principles, such as free speech.
This brings me to another light emerging on campus—Campus Freedom Centers. These institutions offer an affirmative understanding of education and American life. Specifically, these serve as a place for students to “explore American civic values with the full freedom of expression, intellectual diversity, and open inquiry that such studies require.”
These new centers have sprouted from legislative proposals in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arizona. More states are considering creating similar programs and expanding requirements for general education credits in government, history, and civics.
Of course, I can’t conclude without mentioning the elephant in the room—a new administration intent on reforming education. We’ve covered many of these policies previously, so I’ll only mention two reforms: accreditation and Title IX.
Accreditors have taken their monopoly for granted. NAS has long argued that accreditors have overstepped their original intent by imposing ideological standards on colleges and universities and specific programs. (For a good briefer on accreditation and why reform is necessary, read this excellent article on Minding the Campus.) President-elect Trump and his nominee for education secretary, Linda McMahon, have encouraged broad accreditation reform. Some states have already begun to reverse the damage done by accreditors.
Title IX has long been a problem within higher education. The Biden administration has made it worse by gutting due process and imposing gender ideology. The incoming Trump administration has promised to return to a Title IX rule as propagated by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. That rule was celebrated by NAS and ensured due process for students accused of sexual misconduct.
Let us look forward to the new year and all the opportunities it can bring. In the meantime, a reminder to be nice to your crazy uncle. After all, as my colleague Jared Gould argues, you might learn something.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah from all of us at the National Association of Scholars!
Until next week.
CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, written by the NAS Staff. To subscribe, update your email preferences here.
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