AKA Review - 06.20.2025

From The American Prospect

Why Are Republicans Planning to Tax University Endowments More Heavily Than Other Forms of Private Wealth?
By Paul Starr

The White House has been explicit that, by sharply increasing the tax on university endowments, it wishes to punish institutions for their viewpoints (directly contravening the First Amendment). But other than to inflame class resentment, institutional wealth was never the point. “The endowments of the wealthy universities are a target of Trump precisely because [they] put those institutions in the strongest position to resist the political demands that Trump is making of all higher education.” Read this article

From The Wall Street Journal

How Scientific Journals Became MAGA’s Latest Target

By Pamela Paul

The White House’s attacks on scientific institutions have also homed in on the specialized world of science and medical journals, alleging “fraud,” “political bias,” and “censorship.” The author looks at how these attacks exploited recognized weaknesses—a proliferation of for-profit journals, increased errors and retractions, publication of opinion pieces, bias in peer review, and political endorsements—that fueled growing mistrust of these historic gatekeepers of rigorous science and helped advanced Trump’s political priorities. Read this article

From The Atlantic

A New Concept for Fighting Climate Change

By Elizabeth Rush

Climate activists in the Rights of Nature movement have taken up—as rallying cry and legal strategy—the idea that nature is alive. Scientific tradition views much of nature as inanimate. Yet with climate change, things we have long been taught to think of as inert are springing into action—wildfires, floods, ice sheets. To slow our planetary cataclysm, we need narratives that foreground such nonhuman actors. “The current environmental catastrophe is a problem not only of missed emissions targets but also of the human imagination.” Read this article

From Harvard Kennedy School

50th Harvard Youth Poll Finds a Generation on Edge

The Kennedy School’s national biannual poll of 18-to-29-year-olds examines in detail their political views, life goals, personal and financial wellbeing, and sense of community. Data-based rather than anecdotal, it spotlights a generation disconnected from social and political institutions, anxious about the future, and skeptical that current leaders work in their interest. Their apprehensions, “unimaginable just a few short years ago,…are a stark reality check” to which “leaders across the country would be wise to pay close attention." Read this article

From The New York Times

Can Embracing Punk Save Gen Z — and Our Flailing Country?

By John Cameron Mitchell and Carl Swanson

Writer, director, and “punk, queer grandpa,” John Cameron Mitchell recounts his talks with Gen Z students on college campuses. Addressing their embrace of cancel culture and subsequent fearful retreat from public discourse, he urges them to adopt the transgressiveness of Punk that gave us both The Sex Pistols and successful AIDS activism. His stories will resonate with anyone who longs for the days when young people saw debate, disruption, and wrestling with disturbing ideas as essential preparation for effective roles in society. Read this article