Ms. Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American human rights activist, best-selling author, and former member of the Dutch Parliament. She has advocated for the rights of Muslim women and has called upon the Islamic world to embrace democratic values of freedom and self-determination from which human flourishing can arise. As campuses explode with virulent antisemitic support for Hamas terrorism, Ayaan’s message, based on her personal escape under harrowing circumstances from radical Islam, is urgently important.

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Moderator: Douglas Sprei, Vice President of Multimedia & Campus Partnerships, ACTA.

Panelists: Ilana Redstone, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Faculty Director of the Mill Institute at the University of Austin; Pamela Paresky, Senior Research Fellow, Network Contagion Research Institute; and Molly Brigid McGrath, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption University.

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The focus of this panel is the Enlightenment, a historical period that saw the birth of modern science, the creation of free markets, and the Founding of the United States of America. Our panelists will consider what made this flowering of intellectual freedom and progress possible, how it influences us today, and whether we are losing the Enlightenment values that gave rise to the modern world.

Moderator: Bradley Jackson, Vice President of Policy, ACTA.

Panelists: Alan Charles Kors, Henry Charles Lea Professor Emeritus of European History, University of Pennsylvania; Thomas Merrill, Associate Professor in the Department of Government, American University; and Peter McNamara, Professor of Practice, School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, Arizona State University.

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Tributes to Dr. Kors were be given by Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, professor of politics, and director of the James Madison Program at Princeton University; C. Bradley Thompson, professor in the Department of Political Science at Clemson University and executive director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism; and Allen C. Guelzo, American historian who serves as senior research scholar in the Council of the Humanities and director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program at Princeton University.

The post Still Waiting…. appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

In spite of this horrific experience, Professor Hooven has provided eloquent defenses of scientific accuracy and academic freedom, including an article in the Archives of Sexual Behavior entitled, “Academic Freedom Is Social Justice: Sex, Gender, and Cancel Culture on Campus.” She has demonstrated a sincere commitment to respecting students’ preferences while advocating that the biological differences between males and females do not infringe on the dignity of either sex. Her courage to stand up for scientific truth and free expression has earned her the much-deserved title of Hero of Intellectual Freedom.

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Featured Panels

Speaker Highlights

For those interested in seeing the full event, click the link here to see the full broadcast.

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The post Ten Minutes to Midnight: ACTA in the Breach appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

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The American Council of Trustees and Alumni hosted a webinar on August 9, 2023, exploring free expression and intellectual diversity in American higher education. Dr. Steven McGuire, ACTA’s Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom, moderated the event. Panelists included Marty Kotis, trustee of the University of North Carolina (UNC)–Chapel Hill and former member of the UNC Board of Governors; Dr. Erec Smith, associate professor of rhetoric and composition at York College of Pennsylvania and co-founder of Free Black Thought; Karrin Taylor Robson, founder and president of Arizona Strategies and former member of the Arizona Board of Regents; and Dr. Abigail Thompson, distinguished professor of mathematics at the University of California–Davis and co-founder and secretary of the Association for Mathematical Research. They examined the necessity of free expression and intellectual diversity, threats to these ideals in today’s activist climate, and ways to protect and promote them on campus.

This webinar is part of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s Institute for Effective Governance®.

The post Defending Free Expression and Intellectual Diversity: What Trustees Need to Know appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

In May 2022, the Princeton University Board of Trustees fired Katz following the recommendation of Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber. The termination is the culmination of nearly 18 months of a campaign to upend the career of this distinguished scholar and teacher in retaliation for a statement concerning campus politics.

Although the university now claims that its action has nothing to do with Dr. Katz’s opposition to a popular campaign to purge Princeton of “anti-Black racism” that supporters claimed to thrive on the campus, the evidence reveals Princeton’s words to be disingenuous. Princeton’s president immediately denounced Dr. Katz for his July 8, 2020, article in Quillette. The student newspaper launched a six-month investigation to find events in the professor’s past that could be used against him, and an official Princeton website vilified Dr. Katz.

ACTA honored Dr. Katz as a Hero of Intellectual Freedom in July 2020 and welcomed him to our Council of Scholars in October 2022.

The post Dr. Joshua Katz: Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Former Classics Professor at Princeton University appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.