AKA Review - 07.25.2025

From Time

America’s Founders Valued Higher Education

By Bradford Vivian

Higher education shaped our nation from its start. The Declaration of Independence is built on Enlightenment ideas and then-revolutionary theories of empirical science, natural rights, and popular government that Jefferson and other university-educated founders eagerly studied. Post-founding, they advocated for universities to educate citizens in their rights and responsibilities. Defending higher ed from authoritarian measures today is thus an important way to safeguard not only academic freedom, but the legacy of 1776 as well. Read this article

From The Washington Post

Inside the powerful task force spearheading Trump’s assault on colleges, DEI

By Laura Meckler, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Susan Svrluga, Perry Stein, Emily Davies

Two key strategies characterize the White House’s attacks on higher ed. First is its Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, which is pursuing extralegal procedures and unpredictable enforcement to menace universities. Second is its use of antisemitism probes as a pretext for a broad, unrelated Right-wing vendetta against higher education and DEI. Many Jewish leaders fear that dismantling DEI as the root of antisemitism will further isolate Jews. “Jews will be blamed for [DEI’s] abolition. But antisemitism will not disappear from the campus.” Read this article

From The Atlantic

Why Do So Many People Think Trump Is Good?

By David Brooks

“How is it that half of America looks at Donald Trump and doesn’t find him morally repellent?” Of course they don’t, David Brooks observes. Trump is the kind of a narcissistic, fanatical, authoritarian leader modern society, with its hyper-individualism and moral relativism, was designed to create. In tracing the basis of morality from ancient times to the present, Brooks notes that we are left unschooled today in the virtues necessary for making moral judgments. He doesn’t ask, but we do: what role might higher education play in such moral education? Read this article

From Slow Boring

Gerontocracy is Everywhere

By Ben Krauss

The same forces that have created our political gerontocracy—medical advances enabling graceful aging combined with a generation unwilling to relinquish power—have also allowed the old to tighten their grip on other areas of American life. The author examines gerontocracy’s impacts across fields that include academia and scientific research and discusses probable future scenarios. To address these, such sector-specific solutions as tenure changes, NIH grants focused on younger scientists, and election reforms will likely be required. Read this article

From The New York Times

Superman's Real Superpower

By David French

“I…dislike the word assimilation. When we talk about immigration, the better word is adoption.” The author explains the difference with a look at the latest film adaptation of Superman (an interstellar immigrant) and the story of entering the country for the first time with his family and newly adopted Ethiopian daughter. If we ask immigrants to assimilate, he tells us, we must adopt them, love them, saying, “You are one of us.” With the simple story of his daughter and a U.S. immigration officer, he shows us how “a nation loves through its people.” Read this article