The problems — and politics — of academia have long been a cultural lightning rod. The right tends to see universities as a bastion of progressive elites; the left sees right wing attacks on higher education, particularly under President Donald Trump, as part of an authoritarian power grab. Now, Yale University has entered the controversy with its own report, requested by university president Maurie McInnis, by its Committee on Trust in Higher Education.

The report says that nationally, the share of Americans expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education dropped from 57% 10 years ago to just 36% in 2024, and discusses the causes of this drop in trust and ways to fix it. Some of the problems include lack of transparency in college admissions and uncertainty about the purpose and value of a college degree. But the report also singles out two areas with a lot of culture war relevance: free speech and intellectual pluralism.

The report notes that........

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