AKA Review - 07.11.2025

From The New York Times

‘Are We Past Peak Harvard?’: 3 Writers Mull Higher Education’s Woes

By Frank Bruni, Ross Douthat, and Lawrence H. Summers

Two Times columnists and former Harvard President Lawrence Summers discuss the current state of higher ed and whether elite universities are past their peak prestige. “No,” they conclude; universities’ roles as economic engines and their nascent efforts at viewpoint diversity will carry the day. “The right broad strategy is resist and reform.” They must reorient toward the pursuit of truth rather than social justice and toward viewpoint diversity rather than identity politics even as they stand up against encroaching tyranny. Read this article

From Boston Review

The Right to Be Hostile

By Alex Gourevitch

Universities and the White House have suppressed the right to protest on campus based on specious rationales, the author contends. What is needed is an absolute defense of the right to protest—one that protects the right to engage in public, disruptive acts, even at the cost of some people feeling intense discomfort. He critiques the definition of hostile environment that colleges have adopted before concluding, “It cannot be that there is a right to protest just so long as protesters avoid saying or doing anything that someone finds uncomfortable.” Read this article

From The Atlantic

Chinese Students Feel a Familiar Chill in America

By Lavender Au

Chinese students are familiar with government surveillance and scrutiny in their own country. They just didn’t expect it from the U.S. government. In interviews, Chinese nationals at U.S. universities describe being caught in a guessing game about the limits to their discourse, studies, and activities. Their frustrations threaten the spirit of engagement that once made America the destination for 370,000 Chinese students. Now with nationalist rhetoric and sweeping state-security justifications, the U.S. is mirroring the very system it has long denounced. Read this article

From The New Yorker

AI is Homogenizing Our Thoughts

By Kyle Chayka

Recent studies demonstrate the “cognitive cost” of relying on A.I. for tasks usually done manually and reveal A.I.’s homogenizing effect—texts with common, often clichéd, words and ideas. The author explores the impact of this on how people write and think and its longer-term effect: a loss of creativity and intellect in society. More perniciously, “averageness is not necessarily anodyne.…the mediocrity of A.I. texts gives them an illusion of safety and being harmless. What’s actually happening is a reinforcing of cultural hegemony.” Read this article

From Liberal Education

College Radio Is Not Dead

By Ken Budd

With streaming services, podcasts, and YouTube omnipresent, college radio stations can seem like floppy disks; people are surprised they still exist. Yet despite funding challenges, nearly 420 U.S. stations remain alive and vital—authentic, non-algorithmic outlets of free expression for students, alumni, and the community. As social media increasingly isolates people, we need institutions like college radio that serve as small yet heartwarming tools, "where you can just be human and you can feel connected and heard and understood.”Read this article