John Tomasi
Free the Inquiry, Heterodox Academy
The chancellors of Vanderbilt and WashU recently charged a national committee of disciplinary experts to assess the state of scholarship in the humanities. The committee’s Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences found that humanistic disciplines have become increasingly politicized, with some whole fields substituting political criteria for scholarly ones.
The Report, and the follow-up disciplinary reports now being issued, raise uncomfortable questions for professors and for university leaders alike. Are there limits to professors’ freedom to conduct research and teach courses however they think best? Do university leaders dare intervene if scholarship becomes excessively politicized?
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