| Megan McArdle is imagining a future for the University of Austin. Well, really, she's imagining a past. You may have seen this upstart school in the news over the past few days. It's a new project from a group of semi-famous thinkers who oppose what they see as higher education's stifling of certain kinds of discourse. Their solution, as our columnist puts it, is to "start their own damn university." But can a new college committed to an old way of being really make it? When McArdle went to school, free inquiry was de rigueur, and credentialism was not the beast it is today. Now, she contends, a new orthodoxy has crystallized, and a college education is all about the brand name. She's rooting for UATX to overcome these hurdles, though, and attract "brilliant iconoclasts who … become walking advertisements for the benefits of liberal education" — because the alternative is dire. Unable to recruit beyond the feverishly anti-woke crowd, the institution simply becomes a "funhouse-mirror-image of its worst opponents." The outcome all depends on the viability of old-school school. And McArdle wonders whether that wasn't "merely a lucky windfall, recklessly squandered and now irretrievably lost."  (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post) Yes, the Great Awokening has done a number on free inquiry. But that's not the only force a new university will have to contend with. By Megan McArdle ● Read more » | | | | I believe the vaccines are safe, but requiring them as a condition of employment is dangerously misguided. By Alex Villanueva ● Read more » | | | | With 900,000 elementary-age kids vaccinated this week, hesitant parents can be assured that by mid-February we'll know of any side effects. By Rachel M. Pearson ● Read more » | | | | "What kind of city regulates ice cream stores more strictly than drug dealers?" asks author Michael Shellenberger. Good question. By George F. Will ● Read more » | | | | Here's why the former president should lose the records fight. By Ruth Marcus ● Read more » | | | | Does Josh Hawley have standing to hoist the flag on behalf of men? By Kathleen Parker ● Read more » | | | | If so, the policy ramifications are enormous. By Henry Olsen ● Read more » | | | | Did the former British intelligence officer really have an impressive network of sources? By Erik Wemple ● Read more » | | | | Even the GOPers not directly promoting violence as a political tool hope to benefit from their supporters' most savage impulses. By Paul Waldman ● Read more » | | | |
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