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Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed
On paper, freshly hired University of Virginia president Scott C. Beardsley appears to have all the bona fides of a qualified higher ed leader: multiple advanced degrees and more than a decade of experience leading a top business school. But that has not stymied outrage about his selection.
Last month the Virginia Board of Visitors voted to elevate him from business school dean to the top job, filling a vacancy left by former president James Ryan, who resigned under pressure as board leadership negotiated an agreement with the Department of Justice to close investigations into alleged civil rights infractions. Ryan has since accused the board of being complicit in his ouster.
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I recently listened to Ross Douthat’s interview with the philosopher Jennifer Frey. She is a serious thinker and an unusually courageous academic entrepreneur. What she built at the University of Tulsa before it was dismantled is exactly the sort of thing more universities should be attempting. Yet almost every argument she offered for the humanities is, I think, completely unpersuasive to anyone not already on our side of the table.
This report presents findings from a national survey of 1,959 law school faculty at 192 American Bar Association (ABA) approved law schools in the United States, conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). As one of the largest surveys of law faculty on free expression and professional norms, the data reveal a profession that strongly endorses free speech principles while struggling to live them out in practice.
I just returned from the University of Wyoming, where I debated the President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Todd Wolfson over the need for colleges and universities to maintain institutional neutrality. The debate was organized by the Steamboat Institute and was live-streamed.
The formal question presented for debate was: “Is institutional neutrality necessary to preserve the university as a forum for open inquiry rather than an actor in political disputes?” I spoke in favor of institutional neutrality while Wolfson argued against it as a necessary component to higher education.
