Academia - Quillette (Page 2)

Philosophy’s No-Go Zone

An MIT professor describes the outraged reaction from fellow philosophers when he argued that a woman is an adult human female.

Alex Byrne

17 Apr 2023 · 19 min read

The Real Reasons Why the English Department Died

Most professors would rather watch it die than reform.

Adam Ellwanger

5 Apr 2023 · 9 min read

Is There Such a Thing as a Good Academic-Activist?

The problem isn’t that some academics are activists. It’s that some academics do activism badly.

Holly Lawford-Smith

20 Mar 2023 · 10 min read

Gender Equity When It Suits

Organisations should apply the principle evenhandedly.

Anthony Jorm

13 Mar 2023 · 6 min read

The Overregulation of Science

Overly burdensome rules dampen enthusiasm for research and delay scientific progress.

Evan D Morris

24 Feb 2023 · 11 min read

Stuck in the Middle (of Academia)

Academia is a mess, but there is still hope.

Christopher J. Ferguson

1 Jan 2023 · 12 min read

In the World of Astrophysics, One Failed Cancel Campaign Led to Another

When Hakeem Oluseyi exposed false claims about former NASA director James Webb, anti-Webb activists tried to take Oluseyi down as well.

Jonathan Kay

25 Dec 2022 · 9 min read

Bloated College Administration Is Making Education Unaffordable

Our campuses are stuffed with non-academic office workers. If elected to Harvard’s Board of Overseers, I‘ll propose firing most of them.

Harvey Silverglate

2 Nov 2022 · 4 min read

Child Welfare Is Becoming a Joke

The field is mired in risible theory and impenetrable jargon, and increasingly divorced from concern with the welfare of children.

Naomi Schaefer Riley

16 Sep 2022 · 6 min read

Why I Left Academia (Since You're Wondering)

I didn’t have a choice. Thousands of people are driven out of the profession each year.

William Deresiewicz

17 Aug 2022 · 16 min read

Critical Race Theory Wasn’t Always Like This

The version of CRT that I studied in the 1990s offered a useful critique of American institutions—rather than a moral condemnation of American souls.

Jonathan Kay

20 Jun 2022 · 6 min read

When Disagreement Becomes Trauma

How does one deal with those who claim that debate itself represents an agony beyond human endurance?

Jonathan Kay

8 May 2022 · 8 min read

I Signed Up to Study Journalism. What They Taught Me Was Activism

Even by the hyper-progressive standards of the Canadian education sector, Ryerson University in Toronto has distinguished itself as being unusually energetic in its social justice messaging. Last spring, Indigenous activists destroyed the statue of the university’s namesake, Egerton Ryerson, on the basis that he helped design Canada’s system

Jonathan Bradley

5 Mar 2022 · 11 min read

Herbert Marcuse and the Left’s Endless Campaign Against Western ‘Repression’

The Frankfurt School of social theory began about a century ago, in the Weimar Republic. It consisted in the main of a group of rather anti-capitalist, Marxist-light gentlemen who embraced oikophobia (the hatred or dislike of one’s own cultural home), and who were understandably disillusioned by the carnage of

Benedict Beckeld

2 Mar 2022 · 8 min read

The Problem of Sex Discrimination in Indigenous Archaeology

In January, as reporters were celebrating the first woman—and also the first transgender person—to win more than a million dollars on Jeopardy!, I was reading up on the discrimination still faced by biological women who toil away in my own fields of endeavor: anthropology and archaeology. This discrimination

Elizabeth Weiss

16 Feb 2022 · 8 min read