The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg Save Our Universities! | Interview: William Inboden
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Nov 12, 2025 
William Inboden, Executive Vice President and Provost at the University of Texas at Austin, dives into the crisis in higher education with Jonah Goldberg. They explore the decline of public trust in universities, the challenges of free speech, and the skewed political landscape within academia. Inboden highlights the risks of Chinese influence and the urgent need for reform in civic education, underscoring the vital balance between research excellence and universities' responsibility to foster informed citizens.
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The University Social Contract Is Fraying
- The modern US university social contract ties public funding and autonomy to producing useful research and citizen formation.
- That contract created technological leadership but is now strained by political controversies and loss of public trust.
Research Benefits Argue For Preservation
- Universities deliver enormous public goods like GPS, MRI, and cancer therapies through federally funded research.
- Those benefits argue against dismantling higher education despite its cultural and governance failures.
Freedom Requires Internal Responsibility
- Academic freedom includes institutional autonomy plus individual faculty rights, but autonomy requires internal policing.
- Failures of self-governance on issues like antisemitism accelerated public loss of confidence.
