E62: re:joinder - The University of the Cancelled

Last month, former New York Times columnist and current Substacker Bari Weiss took to Twitter to announce “a new university dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth”: the University of Austin (UATX). Not to be confused with the University of Texas at Austin, UATX is thus far only a university concept–a pitch for a “new” kind of higher education institution–but the details are murky, it is not accredited, and by its own website’s admission, there are no concrete plans for undergraduate degrees until 2024 at the earliest. More than anything, this “University” appears to be an ideological project of social media and op-ed columns, in which its conservative culture warrior backers rail vaguely and haphazardly at existing universities for various tangled, often contradictory sins. Even more oddly, they are proposing a fairly standard liberal arts education, with few obvious “fixes” to traditional models beyond a vague insinuation that their discourses will be “freer” and their students will not be “coddled.”

On today’s show, Alex and Calvin are joined for the first time by co-producer Mike Laudenbach. Together we unpack two key texts from the University of Austin’s public announcement: “We Can't Wait for Universities to Fix Themselves. So We're Starting a New One.” by Pano Kanelos (a UATX founding trustee) and “I'm Helping to Start a New College Because Higher Ed Is Broken” by Niall Ferguson (another trustee and a legendary cheerleader for the British and American empires). As is typical of our re:joinder episodes, we have lots of laughs taking apart these articles’ unsupported, illogical, and downright bizarre claims about the industry we all know so well: academia. But we also do our best to earnestly and fairly engage with key questions that these writers raise (but don’t really address), such as:

To what extent is higher ed broken, how is it broken, and–perhaps most importantly–who or what broke it?
Are there social and intellectual taboos within universities, and if so, which ones bear most significantly on academics’ lives and livelihoods?
What is the current state of free speech on campuses, and how does it fit into a historical context dating back to the red scares of the Cold War, student protest movements that began in the 1960s and ‘70s, and political correctness debates of the ‘80s-90’s?

Along the way, we draw on our experiences and knowledge as students, researchers, and faculty, and we propose an innovative institution of our own: re:verb University (RVU). GO VERBIES! Stay tuned, as applications for our august academy will open soon–once we succeed in getting cancelled for truth.

Texts Analyzed in this Episode

Ferguson, N. (2021, Nov. 8). I'm Helping to Start a New College Because Higher Ed Is Broken. Bloomberg.

Kanelos, P. (2021, Nov. 8). We Can't Wait for Universities to Fix Themselves. So We're Starting a New One. Common Sense (Bari Weiss’s Substack).

Works and Concepts Cited

Mishra, P. (2011, Nov. 3). Watch this man. London Review of Books. [Article critiquing Niall Ferguson’s apologetic writing about imperialism. Below the article, its author Pankaj Mishra and its subject Niall Ferguson exchange a series of letters debating Ferguson’s scholarship.]

Nichols, A. (2018, Apr. 2). So-called ‘intellectuals’ can’t let go of “The Bell Curve.” The Outline. [Article explaining how Andrew Sullivan and other conservative intellectuals continue to circulate modern race science ideas originally espoused in Charles Murray’s 1994 The Bell Curve.]

Sohege, D. (2021, Apr. 25). In fairness @epkaufm's resistance to academic institutions maintaining their right of academic freedom to call out poor work, and his views on "political minorities", are understandable when placed In the context of his own apparent lack of academic rigor. Twitter. [Tweet highlighting shoddy scholarship in the CSPI study “Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship.”]