The Glenn Show John McWhorter – Glenn and John Live at Brown University
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com
Video Links
0:00 Intro
00:31 Prefatory remarks
4:15 Glenn: The Trump administration’s defunding of the universities is mischievous in the extreme
9:06 Ground News ad
11:01 Doesn’t maintaining the preeminence of American universities require diversity of thought?
18:47 John McWhorter has entered the building
20:25 How did higher ed lose the general public’s support?
23:05 The university’s role in public discourse
26:26 Was affirmative action a success or a failure?
31:36 The partisan balance in education funding
42:21 The costs and benefits of tenure
50:09 Can education preserve democracy if students aren’t doing the reading?
1:01:59 Are we irrevocably polarized as a nation?
1:07:28 Q&A: You don’t seem as excited by Trump as you once were. What is disappointing you?
1:11:40 Q&A: If higher ed serves society, why do so many elite grads use their degrees to get rich?
1:16:01 Q&A: How do you teach diversity to students who’ve never spent time around people different from them?
1:19:15 Q&A: What’s the difference between contrarianism and provocation?
1:21:23 Q&A: Should fewer people go to college?
Recorded April 22, 2025
Links and Readings
Michael Sandel’s book, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?
John Stuart Mill’s book, On Liberty
Alan Bloom’s book, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students
John’s new book, Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words
Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, Crime and Punishment
Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov
Leo Tolsty’s novel, War and Peace
Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina
Plato’s dialogue, The Republic
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe