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Dear ACTA friend,
Since its founding, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has advocated for strengthening civic education at America’s colleges and universities. Our democratic republic depends on an educated citizenry—the rising generation must have a robust understanding of our nation’s history and system of government.
Our country is facing a civic knowledge crisis, and with it, a crisis of civic order. ACTA’s recent survey, Losing America’s Memory 2.0, has brought to light some startling findings about the state of civic literacy among college students. Most students are unable to identify the speaker of the House of Representatives, term lengths for members of Congress, or the branch of government with the power to declare war.
It is unconscionable that so many students graduate college today without understanding their own system of government, especially in an age of rising polarization, falling social trust, increasing political violence, and decreasing feelings of political efficacy.
Our survey has drawn national media attention. In an article covering our findings, the New York Post wrote, “[colleges and universities] have abdicated the responsibility to inculcate even the most basic knowledge required to be an informed and engaged citizen.” On July 17, ACTA’s Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom, Steven McGuire, was interviewed by Scripps News about the survey’s findings and the urgent need for universities to institute a required course in American history and government.
Over the next two years, leading up to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we are rolling out a series of programs to urge colleges and universities to strengthen civic education. I encourage you to explore our new webpage dedicated to civic literacy, which can be found here, and I look forward to updating you on our work.
Thank you for your support. Together, we can ensure that the next generation is equipped to carry forward the values that define our great nation.
Warm regards,
Michael Poliakoff
President
ACTA is an independent, non-profit organization committed to academic freedom, excellence, and accountability at America’s colleges and universities.
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The early nineteenth century was a formative era for American higher education, a time when colleges were fragile, small-scale institutions, often caught between their colonial legacies and populist hostility to privileged elites studying the liberal arts.
These tensions came to a head in the case Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, which helped to establish the independence of American higher education from governmental control. At issue was the very nature of a college. Is it a public utility, subject to the demands of the state? Or is it a self-governing institution whose autonomy deserves constitutional protection?
Daniel Diermeier has become one of the most visible college leaders. The chancellor of Vanderbilt University joined a panel Thursday in Washington, D.C., to make his case for rebuilding public trust — by taking politics out of research and the classroom, and restraining institutions from issuing statements on matters not directly related to their mission or operations.
After Thursday’s discussion at the Reagan Institute Summit on Education — an event that provided largely supportive views of his positions — Diermeier talked with The Chronicle about politicization in higher education, attempts to limit academic freedom, and why he’s publicly pushing so hard for reforms to higher education while working quietly behind the scenes with federal officials.
Being at Yale over the past two years gives me an interesting perch. From here I can watch the capitulation of a once-great institution in real time. It gives me an inside view of what must have gone down at the law firms, tech companies and the other universities that have bent the knee to the orange menace.
And things are doubleplusgood at Yale these days. Earlier this month, Yale College scheduled a mandatory lecture (officially, a “conversation”) for all first-year students, on the university and democracy. Let’s set aside the curious nature of insisting that all who have just arrived on Yale’s campus must get the “official” story about this place and its role in the world as it is in 2026, even before they’ve set foot in a classroom.
