Essays & Commentaries

Links

Trump’s Anti-DEI Directives Trample on Freedom

Chronicle Review, March 5, 2025

Stop Treating Students Like Babies

Chronicle Review, November 8, 2024

Campus Protests Don’t Undermine the College Mission

Education Next, June 21, 2024

Student Activism Is Integral to the Mission of Academe

Chronicle Review, April 2, 2024

Colleges Are Cracking Down on Free Speech in the Name of ‘Inclusion’

Daily Beast, February 17, 2024

Why We Wrote an Amicus Brief to Contest the Stop WOKE Act

Washington Monthly, July 12, 2023

Amicus Brief in support of Plaintiffs Against the Stop WOKE Act

Submitted to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, June 23, 2023

Conservative Attacks on Higher Ed Are Attacks on Democracy

Chronicle Review, April 13, 2023

DEI Goals Are Worthy. Campus DEI Bureaucracies Fail Them.

Chronicle Review, March 15, 2023

The Point of Education is Not to Reduce Harm

Chronicle Review, February 23, 2023

Dark Times for Academic Freedom in the Sunshine State

Persuasion, February 10, 2023

Yes, DEI Can Erode Academic Freedom

Chronicle Review, February 6, 2023

Is Academic Freedom a Human Right?

Chronicle Review, January 11, 2023

Education and Indoctrination

The Point, September 1, 2022

Cancel Culture: It's real and on the rise, on the left and the right

Banished blog, July 24, 2022

The Truth and Nothing but the Truth?

Chronicle Review, February 25, 2022

When DEI Measures Crush Free Speech

Chronicle Review, February 22, 2022

The Purpose of a University Isn't Truth. It's Inquiry.

Chronicle Review, February 10, 2022

Conservatives are the new "discomfort" police

Star Tribune, January 31, 2022

Why Americans Don't Know Enough About Black History

Washington Monthly, December 10, 2021

Political Litmus Tests Are Bad for Higher Education

Chronicle Review, November 8, 2021

The Data Is In--Trigger Warnings Don't Work

Chronicle Review, September 15, 2021

How to Fix Diversity and Equity: Ritualized regimes of political expression must be rejected

Chronicle Review, May 27, 2021

Does the Term "Latinx" Advance Social Justice?

Washington Monthly, May 1, 2021

Don't Mistake Training for Education

Inside Higher Ed, April 29, 2021

Why Ibram Kendi's Antiracism is So Flawed

Heterodox Academy, February 23, 2021

Poverty of the Imagination: #DisruptTexts and the problem with teaching literature for social justice

Arc Digital, January 12, 2021

Can I Get a Witness? Until recently, Black testimony about racism had to be validated by whites. That’s changing

Public Seminar, November 19, 2020

Is This Thing On? Classroom Recordings, "Reasonable Accommodations" and Academic Freedom

Inside Higher Ed, October 14, 2020

Why diversity training on campus is likely to disappoint

The Conversation, August 5, 2020

Sure, Get Rid of College Admissions Tests but Not Because They're Biased

Inside Higher Ed, July 7, 2020

Higher Education in the Age of Coronavirus

Boston Review, April 30, 2020

Activists want a San Francisco high school mural removed. Should its impact today overshadow the artist’s intentions?

CNN, June 10, 2019

Not a False Alarm: Partisan Politics Prevents the Left from Seeing Threats to Campus Free Expression

Inside Higher Ed, January 23, 2019

Not a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: Why Left-Leaning Faculty Should Care About Threats to Free Expression on Campus

FIRE 2018 Faculty Conference Papers

White nationalists have tried to weaponize free speech. Here's why it's still worth defending.

Washington Post, November 16, 2018

Bias Incidents on Campus

Academic Minute, November 6, 2018

The Staying Power of Black History Month

American Prospect, February 8, 2018

Fear of Contagion and the Rage to Censor

Salmagundi, Winter/Spring 2018

Free Speech? Now, That's Offensive!

Inside Higher Education, September 1, 2016

What is Education For? (Forum)

Boston Review, May/June 2016

The Rise of "Bias Response Teams" on Campus

New Republic, March 30, 2016

Social Justice is Not the Most Compelling Reason to Teach Race

Education Week, December 2, 2015

Teaching Kids "Grit" is All the Rage: Here's What's Wrong With It

New Republic, May 6, 2014

The King Memorial Fails to Capture the Spirit of the Man and the Movement

History News Network, October 20, 2011

The Paradox of Race: Lessons from the Smithsonian

Teachers College Record, October 7, 2011