The venture, called the University of Austin and headquartered in the eponymous city, was officially unveiled on Monday by co-founder Pano Kanelos, who supposedly left his job as president of St. John's College in Annapolis in order to help launch the . A system that so brazenly extracts so much from so many without delivering on its basic promises is overdue for a reckoning. Though Cicero's filings reveal virtually nothing about itsfinances, the entity's reported leadershipincludes Lonsdale and his wife Tayler, alongwith Clay Spence, who is described as"Philosopher-in-Residence" at 8VC, Lonsdale's current venture capital firm. Columbia University recently released a video stating that "intentionally misgendering someone" is against the Ivy League university's nondiscrimination policy, which could lead to an employee being dismissed. But as Zimmer and others have pointed out, the universitys project as constituted today rests on an inherently political critique of schools as they are. As the school's website admits, UATX is unaccredited and is currently, to operate as a private post-secondary institution in the state of Texas. In 2018, for instance, Ferguson, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, from his leadership role on a university speaker series after it was revealed that he had asked conservative students to conduct opposition research on a left-wing student activist. Now, after three years of spreading their contrarian gospel, several members of the IDW(alongwith ideological fellow travelers) have announced an ambitious effort to begin sewing the fabric of society back together. Kiev is set to receive American Patriot missile batteries. We are therefore also reconceiving the relationship between a liberal education and the demands of our dynamic and fluid professional world. Whether thats a tenable avenue remains to be seen. Light. For some people, like the architects of the University of Austin, the mere stickiness of that idea in our intellectual life isnt enough. "But we know that there are enough of us who still believe in the core purpose of higher education, the pursuit of truth. 912 S Capital of Texas Hwy, Suite 180 Lonsdale, a technology entrepreneur and investor who founded the Peter Thiel-backed data analytics firmPalantir Technologies, has also sparked considerable controversy. In practice, the rational-minded independence it champions might be less a reachable condition than just that: a practice, and an aspirational one at that. And there are administrators and professors who will feel threatened by any disruption to the system. Tristan Snell, a managing partner of MainStreet.Law, which prosecuted the case against Trump University, casting doubtonthe university's legal and organizational integrity. Federal Judge Tells Ron DeSantis to Sit Down and STFU, The judge blocked Florida from enforcing its anti-free speech law restricting conversations about race, calling it positively dystopian., Youll Never Believe It but Hillary Clinton Did Not, in Fact, Spy On Trumps White House. All rights reserved. "Is the University of Austin licensed as a school in the State of Texas? He declined to comment further. This core purposethe intrepid pursuit of truthhas been at the heart of education since Plato founded his Academy in 387 B.C. Its not just that we are failing students as individuals; we are failing the nation. sanctioningthe HLC, but ultimately chose not to. "While not accredited yet, UATX will seek accreditation and try to enroll its first master's students next fall,"Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University, wrote in The Washington Post. Kanelos, a former St. Johns College president, announced its launch on the Substack of Bari Weiss, another founding fellow who is not an academic, but a journalist who specializes in lancing the liberal consensus. ", "We are alarmed by the illiberalism and censoriousness prevalent in America's most prestigious universities and what it augurs for the country," the school's, reads. "The reality is that many universities no longer have an incentive to create an environment where intellectual dissent is protected and fashionable opinions are scrutinized. "These are soaring words. (In fact, Keynes can better be described as bisexual, and had a long and apparently happy marriage with former ballerina Lydia Lopokova the sort of historical fact Ferguson ought to know.). Students will come to see such open inquiry as a lifetime activity that demands of them a brave, sometimes discomfiting, search for enduring truths. But it turns out that fear can become endemic in a free society. Harvard proclaims:Veritas. Joe Lonsdale is one of our leading benefactors and we are honored to have his support. Announced on Twitter Monday, journalist and former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss is helping to create the University of Austin. means emancipation. Do we honestly believe that the crucial means to that endfreedom of inquiry and civil discourseprevail when illiberalism has become a pervasive feature of campus life? Cicero's description of its mission andservices includes a pledge to "create and distribute non-partisan documents recommending free-market based solutions to public policy issues.". You will find all three at our new university in Austin. Legal Statement. It includes a playwright (the Trump-supporting David Mamet) and a geophysicist (Dorian Abbot, who co-wrote an op-ed criticizing affirmative action policies and was disinvited from a prestigious MIT lecture for his troubles). The priority at most other institutions is simply to avoid financial collapse. University of Austin (UATX) is a proposed American private liberal arts college. "And might I just say good luck to the nonexistent admissions staff that will have to gin up that process this late in the game!". of engaging in inappropriate conduct with three of his past female students. And skeptics believe that building a physical campus is more than a logistical hurdleits a false flag. Some experts in education, lawand leadership ethics are dubious that the school's ambitious academic plans can possibly jibe with its ill-defined path toward accreditation. More recently,Republican operatives,religious leaders and wealthy conservative donors have bankrolled such schoolsas George Mason University and Liberty University. But in claiming to be outside it, UATX and its boosters set an almost impossibly high bar for their project. Market data provided by Factset. Our rigorous curriculum will be the first designed in partnership not only with great teachers but also societys great doersfounders of daring ventures, dissidents who have stood up to authoritarianism, pioneers in tech, and the leading lights in engineering and the natural sciences. Pano Kanelos February 9, 2022 . Many deemed Weiss university a scam right out of the box, including Eoin Higgins, who declared it was PragerU for the upscale bigot set. PragerU serves up right-wing viewpoints in bite-sized YouTube lessons, but its content is available for free. T he University of Austin (UATX) was announced to great fanfare on Monday, November 8, on the popular Substack of former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss. Thank you! W hen the brand-new president of the "University of Austin . There are networks of donors, foundations, and activists that uphold and promote the status quo. The fact that there have been universities for nearly a thousand yearsdespite all the extraordinary changes in the nature of knowledge and communications technology in that timetells us something important. Yales motto is Lux et Veritas, light and truth. Five years earlier, Ferguson, at a conference that 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes lacked concern for the future because he was gay and had no children. The figures and motivations behind the UATXs establishment do appear to hold a genuine desire for open discourse. Based on its current intellectual coterie, the universitys self-proclaimed independence looks a lot like an attempt to re-assert the dominance of its participants own values. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. Two figureheads have parted ways with the University of Austin barely a week after its foundingand more growing pains are likely ahead. Our democracy is faltering, in significant part, because our educational system has become illiberal and is producing citizens and leaders who are incapable and unwilling to participate in the core activity of democratic governance.". Biden's new democracy summit seems like a bad joke. Kanelos feels most institutions prioritize avoiding "financial collapse" over anything else and 40% of students who pursue a college degree dont obtain one. The warped incentives of higher educationprestige or survivalmean that an increasing proportion of tuition dollars are spent on administration rather than instruction. For critics, the most charitable view might be that the universitys founding trustees fear progressive censoriousness as too much of a threat or hindrance to include (see: Karl Poppers paradox of tolerance). . For all the bile that Ferguson mustered in his Bloomberg op-ed, theres the circumspectness of someone like Cowen; for the oak-paneled gravitas that a figure like Gordon Gee brings, theres the bare-knuckled punditry of Andrew Sullivan. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. There is a gaping chasm between the promise and the reality of higher education. As Glenn Greenwald has documented thoroughly, despite her current status as a warrior for diverse thought, as an undergraduate student at Columbia, Weiss dedicated a considerable amount of time tocallingprofessors critical of the Israeli government racist or antisemitic.. Weiss tenure at The New York Times may have been a lifetime ago as far as the internet is concerned, but a quick glance through her cohorts at the university raises doubts as to whether her disdain for the dissident right has changed with her new-found appreciation for diversity of thought. The University of Austins website lays out a timeline for the college, indicating it plans to launch a graduate program in entrepreneurship and leadership in 2022, graduate programs in politics, applied history, education and public service in 2023 and establish the undergraduate college in 2024. Harvards Pinker has kept quiet about why hes ending his affiliation, but the University of Chicago chancellor Zimmer made it clear: Hes all for free expression, but not the direct attack on existing higher education that attended the universitys launch, saying in his statement that the new university made a number of statements about higher education in general, largely quite critical, that diverged very significantly from my own views. West Virginia University president Gordon Gee, another adviser, kept his affiliation but said even more directly: I do not agree other universities are no longer seeking the truth nor do I feel that higher education is irreparably broken., The discord reflects the inconvenient contradiction at the heart of an ambitious project: Despite the University of Austins claim to independence from the political minefield that is higher ed in 2021, its almost impossible to see the project as anything but political in its own right. But in these top schools, and in so many others, can we actually claim that the pursuit of truthonce the central purpose of a universityremains the highest virtue? Writer Bari Weiss has become a figurehead among the left-leaning intelligentsia who eschew modern wokeness in favor of classical liberalism. P.O. BARI WEISS. Because it's not just. We welcome all who share our mission to pursue a truly liberating educationand hope that other founders follow our example. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Learn more about the University of Austin. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. Lindsey Ellefson. ", Bari Weiss, a former New York Times columnist, famously quit the liberal paper in a scathing resignation letter that claimed she was bullied by colleagues in an "illiberal environment. Despite her alleged persecution, Weiss remains popular on social media and doesnt hesitate to institution-drop when her credibility is challenged, reminding others that she worked at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. But who would want to do that? It is time to restore the meaning to those old school mottos. Currently, the project is in its early stages and hopes to offer a summer program for students in 2021, but graduate programs are planned for launch in 2022 and 2023, with an undergraduate college to follow in 2024. This website uses cookies. The University of Austin, an unaccredited anti-cancel-culture academic project launched last week by former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss and a number of her intellectual compatriots, has already hit its first speed bump. In May 2018, Bari Weiss then an editor and writer at the New York Times published an op-ed that introduced an informal network of writers and thinkers hellbent on stamping out what they. An undergraduate college is supposed to launch in 2024. it really is amazing that bari weiss just publicly and without any shame @'s universities with suggestions that their professors are anti-semites to get them fired, and then makes a living writing articles about the evils of "cancel culture" and "woke censorship in academia" https://t.co/lk300RKbeE, Looking forward to your support of the establishment of the college's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Im concentrating on Rationality (the book) and Think With Pinker (the BBC radio & podcast series) & wont be speaking on this further, he added. None of this has gone unnoticed by commentators on the left, who over the course of the past week have launched a stream of satire, vitriol and more serious accusations at the newly-born institution. On our quads, faculty are being treated like thought criminals. Many conservatives may view Weiss condemnation of the woke left as a tacit embrace of right-wing thought, but as recently as 2018, that is far from the case. [Im] wishing them well. Following that, she was called a self-styled free speech martyr by the Financial Times, and is reported to have even compared herself to Galileo Galilei, who was forced by the Catholic Church to renounce his scientific views, lest he be burned at the stake. According to the school's website, UATX is seeking nonprofit status, which prevents it from directly taking non-taxable donations from benefactors. "We got sick of. or redistributed. In a brief email to Salon, Lonsdale attempted to assuageconcerns about UATX's financing, saying that "there are several hundred funders at this point and a lot of major donors have stepped up alongside me both before this announcement and more after already." But its not a critic from the left: it is Sohrab Ahmari, the arch-conservative Catholic and self-described post-liberal. In an essay for The American Conservative, Ahmari wrote that they welcomed the prospect of a traditionalist internal dissident with a seat at the table I think its just about time that we orthodox believers returned the favor to liberal institutions and to treat our presence within them as a test of their liberality, according to their own principles.. The university as we know it today is an institution that originated in 11th-century Europe. Snell, . The entrepreneur found himself canceled after commenting that men who require six months of paternity leave are losers, but partially retracted his statement after the internet rained down digital fire and brimstone on his head. But to deploy Occams Razor, its much easier to imagine that no one on the left especially in the cutthroat world of higher education, where reputation is currency might have been willing to sign on to a project that their peers would inevitably write off as a reactionary sop to anti-political-correctness dinosaurs. Kathleen Stock, a professor at University of Sussex, just resigned after mobs threatened her over her research on sex and gender. ", Tristan Snell, a managing partner of MainStreet.Law, which prosecuted the case against Trump University,posteda series of tweets casting doubtonthe university's legal and organizational integrity. For a group that seems to lament the exclusion of right-wing thought from academia, the team at the University of Austin have so far done little to remedy it. Wait, American universities are right-wing institutions? Higher education fails 4 in 10 of its students. Accreditation can take severalyears, depending on the entities involved, but the UATX site, that "conversations with our accredited partners lead us to believe that we'll have a much shorter time frame than that. The good people at UATX, where I'm proud to be on the board, are not waiting for the broken status quo to change. Does Teen Vogue publish facts or fairy tales? Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. "So what [UATX] will have to do is say, 'You'll start taking classes, and then when we get accredited, you'll get your credits for them.' "But . But the launch of UATX, and the vociferous reaction it has inspired, already serve as a cautionary tale about the notion of objectivity in modern American life how seductive the claim to neutral ground can be, and how powerful, but perilous, a tool its become in the culture-war toolbox. . And to what end? (In fact, Keynes can better be described as bisexual, and had a long and apparently happy marriage with former ballerina Lydia Lopokova the sort of historical fact Ferguson ought to know. ", Kanelos then pointed to data, including that "nearly a quarter of American academics in the social sciences or humanities endorse ousting a colleague for having a wrong opinion about hot-button issues such as immigration or gender differences" and "over a third of conservative academics and PhD students say they had been threatened with disciplinary action for their views.". Many on social media were quick to jump on Weiss for exactly that, mocking her claims that she was bullied - rather than the individual doing the bullying. We offer you the possibility to receive RT's news highlights every Monday, Wednesday and Friday by email. Follow him on Twitter @derek_j_rob. The wind of freedom. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! But who would want to do that? By Josh Feldman Nov 15th, 2021, 10:20 pm. Other figures involved include enlightened liberals such as Steven Pinker and Jonathan Haidt.
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