Higher Education - Quillette

The Christopher Wren Building at the College of William & Mary is an old building, at the end of an avenue of trees. .

Universities Are Worth Saving

Those seeking to address the crisis on America’s campuses should resist the tendency toward nihilism—the temptation to conclude that we need to just (metaphorically) burn it all down.

Jonathan Rauch

18 Feb 2025 · 14 min read

Podcast #270: ‘The Politics of the Academy Have Been Defeated’

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Yale English professor-turned-essayist William Deresiewicz, who argues that Americans—many Democrats included—are fed up with campus-style progressive radicalism.

Quillette / William Deresiewicz

1 Feb 2025 · 9 min read

Katherine Franke is middle-aged. She is wearing a shirt and glasses, sitting in front of a backdrop of New York City.

The Decline and Fall of Katherine Franke

Anti-Zionist falsehoods, malicious absurdities, and self-serving martyrdom at Columbia.

Cary Nelson / Joe Lockard

20 Jan 2025 · 12 min read

6 pictures, 5 of professors, 1 of a crowd clapping.

Agitprop at the AHA

If the American Historical Association formally adopts a resolution accusing Israel of “scholasticide,” it could destroy the organisation’s reputation for serious scholarship.

Jeffrey Herf

15 Jan 2025 · 15 min read

Protestors with placards. A young Asian woman holds a sign saying Harvard Stop Asian Quota.

How Trump Can Lead Higher-Education Reform

Universities should operate for the benefit of students and society-at-large—not the well-paid administrators and senior academics who serve as their gatekeepers.

James Miller

6 Jan 2025 · 4 min read

Identity and Conflicts of Interest

It is always the lecturer’s responsibility to ensure that students know that they can speak freely.

Holly Lawford-Smith

18 Dec 2024 · 10 min read

Architectural drawing showing a very modern looking structure against a sunset sky.

Lessons from a Teachers-College Battle Over Free Speech and ‘Decolonization’

University of Western Ontario instructors spent months denouncing an outspoken education student who’d asked awkward questions about Indigenous reconciliation—until a UWO tribunal concluded they’d violated her rights.

Jonathan Kay

29 Nov 2024 · 24 min read

David is a white man in his 60s or 70s with glasses

Trump and the Academic Cocoon

A New York Times op-ed by a Yale historian tries to see universities from the vantage point of an outsider. Instead, it unwittingly illustrates why universities will not self-correct without external intervention.

Heather Mac Donald

28 Nov 2024 · 12 min read

A balance of scales in which the female symbol is favoured over the male.

Reverse Sexism in Australian Research

Grant applications should be assessed on their scientific merits—not on the sex or political leanings of the applicant.

Andrew Glover

11 Oct 2024 · 6 min read

Amy Wax at a podium. She is a grey-haired lady with glasses in a dark blue jacket and white T-shirt.

The Amy Wax Affair

A tenured scholar has paid a high price for bluntly expressing uncomfortable truths.

Charles Murray

2 Oct 2024 · 7 min read

Podcast #251: Tracing the Rise of Radicalised Anti-Zionism on American Campuses

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with author Paul Berman about the lingering influence of ‘Black Power’ advocate Stokely Carmichael, who once infamously claimed that ‘the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist.’

Jonathan Kay

16 Sep 2024 · 29 min read

Composite image of Stokely Carmichael speaking; background is a Gaza solidarity encampment at a university

A Stupid Cartoon and the University Ideology

Frantz Fanon, Stokely Carmichael, and the roots of the uproar over Zionism.

Paul Berman

9 Sep 2024 · 41 min read

Podcast #249: The (Other) Scandal at Oberlin College

Jonathan Kay speaks with Roya Hakakian about the rise and fall of Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, a former Iranian official who’d presented himself to Oberlin as an agent of peace and ‘forgiveness.’

Quillette

29 Aug 2024 · 23 min read