If Bari U ever exists, it will be a grim indoctrination mill

I know parody is dead, but could the deceased be treated with a little more dignity than this?

The extraordinary sense of grievance and entitlement from people with extremely well-compensated and cushy jobs is something else. It’s scary to think what these people would be like if they ever faced any actual professional adversity (as opposed to being made fun of on Twitter.)

We all know where this is going:

It’s precisely that intellectual turbulence that Kanelos, Weiss, and their comrades seek to escape, much as Jerry Falwell did in the 1970s. Falwell was no outlier. The right has long dreamed of alternatives to traditional higher education. The televangelist Pat Robertson founded Regent University for similar reasons. Michael Farris, the founder of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, founded Patrick Henry College in 2000 to shelter homeschool graduates and funnel them into Republican politics. Hillsdale College has assumed a sharply right-wing political identity over time, and rejects federal funding “as a matter of principle.” (A Hillsdale professor sits on the University of Austin’s board of advisers.) These schools exist as laboratories for right-wing thought; they are committed not to free expression but to indoctrination. The University of Austin will be no different.

Consider the parties involved. As a student at Columbia University, Weiss developed a censorious reputation of her own. A campus organization Weiss co-founded “did demand that the administration change the department’s curriculum and make it easier to file complaints against professors, measures that would have affected certain scholars’ responsibilities and duties, as well as their future job prospects,” the writers Mari Cohen and Joshua Leifer observed in Jewish Currents. Weiss and her fellow activists targeted Arab professors for speech they deemed hostile to Israel, efforts she’s since downplayed to better portray herself as a campaigner for free expression. A University of Austin “founding faculty fellow” Ayaan Hirsi Ali, has called Islam “a nihilstic cult of death” and has claimed that violence is inherent to the religion, which bodes ill for any Muslim who might wish to attend the new university. The new university’s positions on sex and gender aren’t hard to guess, either. Another fellow, the anti-trans academic Kathleen Stock, voluntarily resigned her position at the University of Sussex, claiming that student protests curtailed her own academic freedom. Put another way, Stock found free expression a bit too lively to tolerate.

Others linked to the university stand accused of crossing professional lines with female students. One, Joshua Katz, received a year-long suspension from Princeton University over an inappropriate relationship with an undergraduate woman. Another, Joe Lonsdale, has been accused of raping a woman he mentored, an allegation he vehemently denies. Lonsdale’s nonprofit, Cicero Research, is “fiscally sponsoring” the new institution.

So what rights will a University of Austin student actually possess? They can’t count on a right to free expression, that much is clear. The presence of Lonsdale and Katz raises further questions about the university’s position on due process for survivors of sexual misconduct. Students won’t even benefit from an intellectually diverse faculty. Survey the school’s website, and you won’t find a single leftist scholar. Nor should we expect to find one. Lonsdale’s nonprofit, Cicero, says it’s committed to “free-market based solutions to public policy issues.” And as a private institution, the University of Austin will retain the broad freedom to censor students and faculty as it sees fit — as does Liberty and my alma mater. What we’ve got, then, is a Bible college for libertarians. Those disturbed by progress will find shelter on campus. Pledging freedom from wokeness, the University of Austin actually seeks freedom from free exchange. There is a soupçon of social liberalism, which extends no further than equality for LGB people and not to trans people and which is too inadequate to greatly distinguish the school from other conservative institutions. In this university, Falwell would see kindred minds. There’s nothing new here.

Yup, this is Liberty for Libertarians. Although, hey, maybe it will allow parody to make a comeback:

We are thrilled to announce this bold course on free speech and ancient comedy. pic.twitter.com/ZZLli5db2W— University of Austin Classics (UATX) (@uaustinclassics) November 9, 2021