November 9, 2022

Academic Freedom and the Future of Higher Ed

Attendees from across the political spectrum agree on one thing: higher ed is broken and desperately needs fixing.

Last weekend’s Academic Freedom Conference, sponsored by the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, attempted to tackle the major issues facing, even threatening, the future of higher education in America. College professors and administrators from across the political spectrum and across various academic disciplines and institutions gathered to discuss the problem and debate possible solutions.

Attendees at the invitation-only event agreed on at least one thing: Higher education is broken. A sustained attack on intellectual diversity and free speech has turned our colleges and universities into indoctrination centers, where the prevailing school of thought, dominated by the political Left, squelches any honest attempts at intellectual curiosity and exploratory thinking.

The debate through much of the conference was whether to try to fix the problem from within the institutions or to abandon traditional academia in search of alternatives.

University of Texas finance professor Richard Lowery took the view that fixing existing institutions is a lost cause. “The boards [of trustees] are a bunch of people who don’t know anything about universities who are the only ones who have the power to change anything. … What are the chances that your board is actually going to step up and do anything?”

Niall Ferguson, a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, spoke in favor of new institutional models, among them the University of Austin, which was founded in 2021. “The existing institutions will not fix themselves. Why would an institution 98 percent to the left vote to change itself? It’s not going to happen.”

John Rose of Duke University took the opposite approach: “I am in favor of fixing the existing institutions. If you want to create a culture of free speech on campus, it needs to start with the students in the classroom, not with faculty and administration. Students aren’t the problem; they are the solution.”

The argument over whether to fix what exists or start fresh with alternative schools wasn’t settled during the conference, but a robust to-do list was developed to give supporters of the conference some opportunities to take action. Among them:

  • Appoint vice presidents of academic freedom and free speech. Offices and VPs of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, also known as DEI (this is the Left’s acronym, not ours), are prevalent on most college campuses. Why not install some staff in the administration who are there to look out for everyone’s free speech rights?

  • Create a GED-like exam that allows brilliant young minds to test out of college. Every once in a while, a student comes along with the intellectual heft to go straight to graduate school without suffering through elective courses and pre-med, pre-law, or pre-science work. A special exam would allow such students to skip the first four years and get right to work on their passion.

  • Quantify and articulate the shortcomings of STEM. The higher education industry and many academics would have us believe that science, technology, engineering, and math are the be-all end-all of academics. However, in the rush to push STEM on incoming college students, there has been little accountability as to which courses and programs are worthwhile and which ones are faulty. Time to measure up.

The conference and its takeaways weren’t widely reported, and it’s hard to speculate as to its impact on the overall debate over academic freedom. The event and its attendees did, however, succeed in getting the message out that academics in America are under siege and that it’s up to everyone — left, right, and center — to do something about it. Either that, or future generations will continue to look elsewhere for opportunities away from higher education.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.