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By Pamela Paul
Wall Street Journal
Why are some people richer than others? What drives societal ills or ignites a social movement? Why aren’t people having more kids?
These are some of the most important questions facing the country today. The answers shape our lives, polarize our politics and supercharge our culture wars.
Sociology, the discipline tasked with pursuing the answers, would seem well poised to take these issues on. For decades, its analyses informed policy on issues ranging from criminal justice to immigration to urban development. It introduced groundbreaking concepts like “white-collar crime,” “gentrification,” “unintended consequences” and “cultural capital.” At various points, sociologists proposed and critiqued affirmative action, inspired and lambasted welfare reform, diagnosed and dismissed the breakdown of the nuclear family.
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Johns Hopkins University is undertaking an ambitious push toward ideological pluralism, most visibly through its new School of Government and Policy, opening in Washington, D.C. around 2027-28 under dean William Howell, who has recruited heterodox scholars like economist Peter Arcidiacono, whose empirical findings on affirmative action provided evidence in the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against Harvard.
One year after Columbia signed its resolution agreement, the university remains something of an example, for others in the sector and for the Trump administration. But what many have called Columbia’s capitulation hasn’t been a full win for either side.
If you’re looking for a reason to despair over the state of American education, there are many places you could start. Something that deserves more attention is damage to free expression—not in the classroom but in the public sphere of high school: the realms of student newspapers, student government, and other aspects of everyday life. School is meant to prepare students for the real world, but too many institutions are training kids to be silent.
