Hear from Newsweek deputy opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle, and University of Maryland professor Jason Nichols. This event was co-sponsored by the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at ASU.
From the very beginning, the history and study of the American Revolution has been bound up with the national identity of the United States, and thus with the country’s present needs. In recent years, the competing imperatives of activists and journalists at both edges of our ideological spectrum have produced warring narratives of the American founding: slavery versus liberty, original sin versus germinal gift, a conclave of villains versus garden of heroes. Both of these approaches owe more to politics than to history.
In the kickoff event of the 2022-23 Civic Discourse Project lecture series, Eric Kaufmann - Professor and Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange and Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London - discussed ideological conformity on campus and what he refers to as "cultural socialism" as a dominant in western higher education and in elite culture.
For over a thousand years, the traditional purpose of a university has been the pursuit of truth, and universities have focused on the discovery and dissemination of knowledge. But in recent decades, as academic institutions became more inclusive, many universities seem to have adopted a different mission: the achievement of social justice. Which goal should universities pursue and how do these two different purposes relate to each other?
Why is our discourse so fraught with fear? Why do so many choose silence as the path of least resistance? And why are the core concepts of a liberal society under attack? For journalist and media pioneer Andrew Sullivan, it boils down to this observation: What matters most of all in these colleges will quickly be what matters in society.
Ever since the emergence of the abolitionist movement there has been great controversy over just how supportive of slavery the Constitution of the United States was. Neither side, Zuckert argues, was approaching the constitution in the way most revealing of the truth about slavery and the Constitution, a way Zuckert calls neo-Madisonian after the constitution’s chief architect, James Madison.
Shelby Steele is the Robert J. and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He specializes in the study of race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. He was appointed a Hoover fellow in 1994. Steele has written widely on race in American society and the consequences of contemporary social programs on race relations. In 2006, Steele received the Bradley Prize for his contributions to the study of race in America. In 2004, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal.
On November 16, 2020, Lucas Morel virtually joined the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University for an important discussion to explore how Lincoln dealt with the role that race and slavery played in the development of self-government in antebellum America.
In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education essay, Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy poses the question: “How Racist Are Universities, Really?” In it, he argues that in these volatile times, “hyperbolic accusations” can “do more harm than good.” Are universities systemically racist? Will recent university policies designed to address claims of racial bias on campus inhibit academic freedom?