Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Higher education faces unprecedented external pressure — a growing number of faculty believe the answer isn't to wait for government intervention, but to build the kinds of checks and balances that restore rigor, trust, and genuine intellectual diversity from within. A group of scholars and academics has done exactly that, developing a concrete, actionable proposal reviewed and vetted by faculty across the country.
Join Justin McBrayer, HxA's Director of University Partnerships, in conversation with Michael Jindra, cultural anthropologist at Boston University; Ashley Rubin, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa; Len Gutkin, writer and editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education; and David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English at Yale University. Building on their article last year in the Chronicle of Higher Education and drawing on the model of constitutional checks and balances, they'll outline concrete steps that departments and institutions can take to restore intellectual rigor, viewpoint diversity, and credibility to higher education.
Higher education faces unprecedented external pressure — a growing number of faculty believe the answer isn't to wait for government intervention, but to build the kinds of checks and balances that restore rigor, trust, and genuine intellectual diversity from within. A group of scholars and academics has done exactly that, developing a concrete, actionable proposal reviewed and vetted by faculty across the country.
Join Justin McBrayer, HxA's Director of University Partnerships, in conversation with Michael Jindra, cultural anthropologist at Boston University; Ashley Rubin, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa; Len Gutkin, writer and editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education; and David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English at Yale University. Building on their article last year in the Chronicle of Higher Education and drawing on the model of constitutional checks and balances, they'll outline concrete steps that departments and institutions can take to restore intellectual rigor, viewpoint diversity, and credibility to higher education.
