Controversies in Academic Freedom

Today, Yascha Mounk and Christopher Rufo debate the origins of DEI and the right way to fight the illiberal orthodoxy that has consumed our schools and institutions.

Christopher is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a board member at New College of Florida, and maybe the country’s most influential conservative activist. He thinks that using the power of the law to stop DEI is essential. 

Yascha is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an international affairs professor at Johns Hopkins University. He thinks that while DEI—and woke ideology more broadly—is concerning, he doesn’t think the answer to its illiberalism should come in the form of bans and legislation.

They both recently published books that investigate the changing cultural trends of the American left. Yascha is the author of The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. And Christopher’s book is America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.

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