Examining the Evolution of Campus Discourse: From Political Correctness to Woke Culture

In 1994, a movie called PCU opened in theaters to little fanfare. But three decades on, the cult classic feels like an on-the-nose satire of the kinds of identity politics, liberal extremism, and right-wing intolerance that fuel many of today’s hottest disputes in higher education. In a conversation with The Chronicle’s Jack Stripling, Zak Penn, a co-writer of PCU, talks about how the film looks in 2024. Later, Chronicle staff share their impressions of the movie.

Related Reading:

• A Decade of Ideological Transformation Comes Undone: What the congressional antisemitism hearing really means. 
• What Does ‘Woke’ Mean Anyway?
• The Oral History of PCU, the Culture Wars Cult Classic 

Guest: Zak Penn, a co-writer of PCU

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.