Video: Global Warming Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit ...

Article: Global Warming Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit ...

Article: Global Warming Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit ...

Entry: Global Warming Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit ...

Video: Global Warming Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit ...

This is the preface to the author’s new book, “Reclaiming Liberal Education in America,” which will be published on Sept. 29 by RealClear Publishing.

This book features 40 RealClearPolitics columns that I wrote between 2014 and 2025. Each chapter provides a snapshot of the plight of liberal education in America. Together, they form a short history of liberal education’s decline and provide a concise case for, and sketch measures essential to, reclaiming it.*

The essays clarify liberal education’s aims, structure and content, and spirit by reporting on and assessing events and ideas. They illuminate the stakes for freedom and democratic self-government in America, placing contemporary controversies, especially at the nation’s most selective colleges and universities, in their larger intellectual and political context. And they propose reforms for returning colleges and universities to a mission that best serves the public interest, which is to educate young men and women for the rights and responsibilities of freedom.

American campuses suffer from a variety of dysfunctions. A few of the essays in this book examine colleges’ and universities’ curtailment of due process for those accused of sexual misconduct. A number explore colleges’ and universities’ attacks on free speech and their invidious and unlawful allocation of benefits to students and faculty based on race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, and gender. Several deal with colleges’ and universities’ politicization and hollowing of the curriculum. Many of the most recent essays revolve around the surge of antisemitism on campus following Iran-backed Hamas’ October 2023 massacre in southern Israel. These examine the ensuing public reckoning with the sorry condition of American higher education. And they delve into the Trump administration’s clashes with Columbia, Harvard, and other universities over antisemitism; diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; and free speech and intellectual diversity.

The mounting dysfunction at America’s colleges and universities has created a bizarre situation. The nation’s elite institutions of higher education have gone well beyond leaving many students ignorant of the nation’s founding principles and sustaining political institutions. For some time now, numerous classes, academic writings, and even fields of study have disposed students to despise those principles and institutions.

To begin to reclaim liberal education in America, it is useful to recall basic terms and concepts.

Start with “education.” The English word derives from two Latin words, one (educare)........

© RealClearPolitics