Alice Dreger

2 days ago | heterodoxacademy.substack.com | Alice Dreger

Two questions – what counts as activism in academia and what (if anything) should be done about it – formed the core of our lively webinar last Wednesday as I spoke with the University of Wyoming’s Martha McCaughey and the University of Chicago’s Tom Ginsburg and took questions from Heterodox Academy members. The idea for this conversation arose from the contributions of Tom and Martha to inquisitive, a new quarterly periodical I manage at Heterodox Academy.

1 week ago | heterodoxacademy.substack.com | Alice Dreger

While we definitely saw the kind of constructive disagreement you’d expect at any conference cosponsored by Heterodox Academy, participants at Thursday’s special May Day Conference on Free Inquiry at the University of California, Berkeley, seemed to all agree on one thing: American universities need to rebuild trust with the public.

2 weeks ago | heterodoxacademy.substack.com | Alice Dreger

Want to effectively and sustainably help combat antisemitism on American college campuses? Don’t attempt to force a particular definition of antisemitism, but do require antisemetic harassment to be taken seriously. Also require institutions of higher education to adopt policies that prevent disruptions to classes and campus events, preserve libraries as places for study, and protect the physical safety of those on campus.

3 weeks ago | heterodoxacademy.substack.com | Alice Dreger

Responding to a major threat to NIH-funded university research, Heterodox Academy sent a communication today to NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya asking him to rescind an order halting distribution of all promised NIH funds to institutions that have DEI programming.

3 weeks ago | heterodoxacademy.substack.com | Alice Dreger

Harvard University’s decision to sue the federal government over the freezing of $2.2 billion in federal funding – and the actions of the Trump administration on higher education to date – has lit a fire in the field, with numerous college and university presidents indicating support for pushing back.