Eugene Volokh

A very interesting exchange in the Autumn 2024 Sapir Journal; a short excerpt, just to give a flavor of the whole thing:

We’ve seen the same data, and I’ve been very concerned about the drop in approval and trust in higher education. The decline has been larger among people on the conservative side of the political spectrum, but it’s across the board, from the Left and the Right. My sense is that it comes from two concerns. From the progressive side, the concern is that highly selective universities are perpetuating inequality. And the concern from the Right is that we’re woke factories….

The question of the politicization of higher education has come into stark relief after what we’ve seen last year: the conflict in the Middle East and the drama on campus. These developments have elevated into the public consciousness concerns that have been present for years. They now are front and center, much more serious, and they require a course correction by many universities….

If you look back, there were three pillars of how a university thought about its role in society.

If you look at the University of Chicago, one pillar was this commitment to free speech that goes back to the founding and then through a whole variety of presidents, reaffirmed, most recently, by the 2015 report, often referred to as the Chicago Principles. Universities need to be places for open debate.

related – Ben Wikler:

In Wisconsin, we run a permanent campaign. We organize and communicate year-round, in every community—and it works. We’ve ended GOP control and unrigged our state.