Education Archives - Public Seminar

Activism

Should Universities Just Leave?

How can institutions fostering open inquiry survive authoritarian assaults?

October 23, 2025 • by Anastasija Mladenovska

Over the past year, I have tracked the journeys of five universities caught in the crosshairs of authoritarian pressure: Central European University (CEU) in Hungary; the Higher School of Economics (HSE) and the European University at St. Petersburg (EUSP) in Russia; Nazarbayev University (NU) in Kazakhstan; and the American University ...

Education

Intellectual Violence

The militarization of education in Russia

October 22, 2025 • by Andrei Kolesnikov

In the age of mature Putinism, violence and control, accompanied by a new morality based on so-called “traditional values,” have become crucial instruments for managing Russian society. The use of the education system and cultural institutions to indoctrinate the population—above all young people—is a form of violence, only intellectual rather ...

Psyche

“Masc Only”

When gender conformity is enforced everywhere from laws to dating apps, opacity becomes a site of resistance

September 30, 2025 • by Yann Phesans

A gay man lowers his voice in the boardroom. A trans woman is detained at border control when her appearance does not match her passport photo. A nonbinary teenager avoids mirrors. A butch lesbian is asked to leave the women’s changing room for “making others uncomfortable.” These are not moments of ...

Artificial Intelligence

What If Using AI Isn’t Cheating?

Meghan O’Rourke’s essay about technology’s uses and abuses makes me wonder if students can help us reinvent the humanities

September 22, 2025 • by Claire Potter

In the last 18 months, publicly available artificial intelligence (AI) programs have turned conversations about the humanities on college campuses into conversations about cheating. Do you remember when life was easy, and all you had to detect was whether a student had purchased a paper or plagiarized portions of it? I ...

Education

The Evangelical Capture of the Republican Party and Its Implications for Academia

On evangelical anti-intellectualism in the Republican Party

August 28, 2025 • by David A. Hollinger

For the first time in American history, a major political party has a vested interest in a low-education electorate. This astonishing fact has inspired remarkably little discussion. Religion has a lot do with it. The Republican Party courted evangelical Protestants for decades, but the client eventually captured the patron. The party ...

The Evangelical Capture of the Republican Party and Its Implications for Academia

Higher Ed

Paying for College Was Already Stressful. Then Came Trump and DOGE.

A Q and A on today’s higher ed money worries

April 16, 2025 • by Center for New York City Affairs and Kim Nauer

Urban Matters: Kim, there’s certainly a lot of confusion about the future of the US Department of Education right now. I know you were in Washington earlier this month looking for some answers. But first: For those who haven’t gone through the process—or who have blissfully forgotten what it can be ...

Paying for College Was Already Stressful. Then Came Trump and DOGE.

Podcast

Black Children, White Schools

Episode 71: A conversation with historian Noliwe Rooks about democracy, education, and her new book Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children

April 9, 2025 • by Claire Potter

On November 14, 1960, 6-year-old Tessie Prevost woke up and put on one of her prettiest dresses. Like Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, and Ruby Bridges, Tessie was a very special little girl. Along with hundreds of other Black children, the New Orleans Four, as they would forever be known, had taken ...

Education

What’s Higher Education For?

That’s exactly the question

February 13, 2025 • by Peter Schmidt

At the turn of last year, The Economist published an alarming statistic: In 2024, half of Harvard College’s graduating seniors left campus for jobs in finance, consulting, and technology. For anyone who believes in the values of a liberal arts education, this is cause for concern. If we accept in good ...

Education

Schools Are for Children, Not Soldiers

Global scholasticide is getting worse

December 3, 2024 • by Charles Bradley

The fact that you can read this article makes it likely that you, like 7.2 billion people worldwide who completed primary education, remember spending much of your childhood at school. Learning is, by definition, challenging, and those of us reminiscing about childhood may also remember the stresses of grappling with math ...

Education

All IU Faculty, Staff, and Students Are “Safe,” but Some Are Safer Than Others

The discursive stylings of an authoritarian campus administration

October 24, 2024 • by Jessica Storey-Nagy

Instead of grading papers and preparing final exams last April, I was at Dunn Meadow, a public gathering space on Indiana University (IU) Bloomington’s campus. My aim, and that of my colleagues, was to protect student protesters from the violence sanctioned by IU’s top administrators, another possible intrusion by the ...

All IU Faculty, Staff, and Students Are “Safe,” but Some Are Safer Than Others

Activism

Economists Should Take a Page From Student Activism

Metrics help us explain the world—and ignore our own accountability

October 22, 2024 • by Govind Srivastav

I have always loved spring in Chicago. The Loop buzzes with music and awe-struck architecture fans, while the lake fills up with swimmers braving the sun-soaked but icy water. In the evening, the air is just crisp enough for a jacket. But spring nights in 2024 were special. There was ...

Economists Should Take a Page From Student Activism

Education

Ukrainian Studies Struggle Against Imperial Heritage

Preserving identity

September 26, 2024 • by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed

In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the international community rallied behind Ukrainians’ determination to defend their country. Vital financial aid was accompanied by efforts to better understand a nation that did not surrender in the face of the Russian military forces that overwhelmingly surpassed the ...