Weekly Roundup
Reading, watching, & listening list
The Broken Promise of Academic Freedom
For FAIR’s Substack, Sasha Rozenberg writes about how ideology eroded trust and what it will take to rebuild it.
But viewpoint diversity can't be imposed from the outside. Efforts to impose viewpoint diversity externally through political pressure can be a cure worse than the disease. Healthy academic debate can’t be manufactured by policy memos or enforced by bureaucrats. If universities become battlegrounds for every political cycle, academic integrity will collapse in the crossfire. The solution has to come from within—through new norms, incentives, and leadership willing to prize intellectual courage over ideological conformity.
How Universities Betray the Truth | Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Cornel West & Robert George
FAIR Advisor Robert P. George and Cornel West speak with John McWhorter and Glenn Loury about their most recent co-authored book, Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division.
Teaching in the Age of School Choice
For The Next 30 Years, FAIR Advisor Robert Pondiscio offers a condensed version of his keynote presentation at event titled “New Pathways for Teachers in the Age of School Choice.” The full presentation and subsequent conversation are available here.
I know I probably sound more like a school choice critic than a proponent right now, so let me be clear: These challenges—teacher capacity, equitable access, and social cohesion—are not reasons to oppose school choice. I support choice because it empowers families and opens new opportunities for teachers, and dynamic new models of education.
But to sustain it, we must pair choice with quality: training teachers to be successful in news settings and in new models, ensuring equitable access, and taking curriculum seriously to drive academic and civic outcomes. We’re at a crossroads. If we address these potential pitfalls with urgency and wisdom, we can build an education system that delivers freedom, flexibility, equity, and excellence—not just for some, but for all.
Dr Erec Smith on DEI: Race is a Distraction, Using Black Kids as Marxist Foot Soliders
For the Open Therapy Podcast series, FAIR Advisor Erec Smith talks about about his work in clarifying DEI and promoting civil discourse.
HHS Releases Landmark Review on Youth Gender Medicine
For The Dispatch, Jesse Singal writes about the recently released HHS review of youth gender medicine and the surrounding conversations about it.
Too few people are willing to participate in that debate in good faith. As the report makes clear, this conversation has been dominated by overconfident advocates who have, for too long, pressured major institutions into prematurely accepting claims for the safety and efficacy of youth gender medicine. There have also been—and I say this from some personal experiences—ugly campaigns to denigrate anyone who treats this issue as the scientific controversy that it is. But the excesses of that movement have also brought out a cruelty and viciousness in some of its critics, who often seem to forget who it is they are trying to help: isolated, vulnerable children who are experiencing severe psychological distress, and parents who, by and large, are just trying to do the right thing.
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