Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
J Oliver Conroy

Move over, gender studies: the conservative tide coming for US universities

students walk past a statue of a man kneeling and holding his chin on his fist on a pedestal on a college campus
Rodin’s The Thinker statue at Columbia University in New York City, circa 1940. Photograph: Lawrence Thornton/Getty Images

A small conservative revolution has swept the humanities at some US colleges and universities. Its vanguard are new programs, called centers or institutes, that have begun cropping up at schools in recent years. Often funded by outside donors or earmarks from state governments, the programs tend to bear names featuring words such as “civic”, “freedom” or “classical”.

These centers do credible teaching and research, and are usually not explicitly political. But their goal, to counter what conservatives see as hegemonically leftwing teaching, arguably is.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.