California Gov. Gavin Newsom has set out to “Trump-proof” California, but in one sense he’s too late. According to NBC News, 38.3 percent of Californians voted for Trump, by some accounts 40 percent, so as people across the country should know, Newsom’s crusade…
John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Ford Motor Company, and other major corporations are backtracking on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and returning to hiring based on merit. Make no mistake. A work environment featuring diverse ideas and opinions is highly conducive…
This week at Thales College, my students encountered T. S. Eliot’s broken epic of social, spiritual, and intellectual fragmentation, The Waste Land. I asked them to imagine the aftermath, in Europe, of that “war to end all wars,” which saw…
My brother is currently a sophomore in college, and he hasn’t read a single book in the entirety of his time there. He has taken courses that include English, history, religion, psychology, and other humanities. You would be right to…
Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me: Debunking the False Narratives Defining America’s School Curricula By Wilfred Reilly (Broadside Books, 272 pages, $25) Ronald Reagan once quipped, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that…
This semester at Thales College, I am teaching a survey course focusing on literature, most of it English poetry, from the Renaissance to the 20th century. I have two auditors in the class. One of them is still in high…
Institutional Neutrality and the Truth I have noted in recent days that several American colleges have declared themselves “institutionally neutral,” meaning that they will no longer, as institutions, take positions on contested social and political questions. They rightly note that…
Every year when the school season starts I remember that I was a lousy student in school until I got to college and was finally able to study what I wanted. The fundamental reason was disinterest and my youthful eagerness…
One of the most striking things about higher education is that many of the world’s greatest geniuses never had much, if any. Johann Sebastian Bach was 18 years old and never went to school again; his five years in a…
