Nadine Strossen is the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School, and served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. ACTA has long admired her tireless advocacy and devotion to free speech and is proud to have featured her as a keynote speaker and panelist at many of our conferences. In October 2023, Nadine authored her latest book on free speech for Oxford University Press’s What Everyone Needs to Know® series. In this episode, she sits down with ACTA’s president Michael Poliakoff to discuss current societal challenges to free speech and how they are manifesting on American college campuses.

ACTA’s Steven McGuire interviews Carole Hooven, whose book titled T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us,  was published in 2021. Hooven is currently an associate at Harvard University and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she works on issues related to sex and gender, human evolutionary biology, health, and psychology — as well as the underpinnings of academic freedom in higher education.

Jonathan Marks has been an educator for almost a quarter century, and is currently Professor and Chair of Politics and International Relations at Ursinus College. He has published on modern and contemporary political philosophy in journals like the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of American Political Science, and the Review of Politics. Professor Marks has written on higher education and other matters for Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Commentary Magazine, the Washington Examiner, the Bulwark, the American Conservative, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets.

ACTA’s vice president of public policy, Bradley Jackson, sat down with Professor Marks to talk about civic education, free expression on college campuses, and much more.

Higher Ed Now is pleased to launch a new series of student-driven podcast conversations issuing from the College Debates and Discourse (CD&D) Alliance – a national initiative led by ACTA, Braver Angels, and BridgeUSA. ACTA’s program manager for the CD&D Alliance, Sadie Webb, will host the series to showcase students across the nation who are leading a movement to promote civil discourse, depolarizing debates, and free expression on college campuses.

In July 2023, the CD&D Alliance team gathered at the University of Denver for a symposium bringing together faculty leaders and student fellows from ten colleges and universities that are participating in a two-year $1.3 million research project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. This multifaceted project explores the effects of Braver Angels debates and discourse on campus communities – and student leaders have a major role in driving it. Joining Ms. Webb in this episode are three student fellows in the Templeton project. They include Jordan Phillips from Duke University in North Carolina, Lucas Rice of Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, and Cheyanne Rider of Linn-Benton Community College in Oregon. The wisdom and insights of these students are inspiring and instructive for our politically fractured nation.

ACTA president Michael Poliakoff and Higher Ed Now producer Doug Sprei interview Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, nonpartisan think tank and educational institution dedicated to being a resource to help people better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. Dr. Haass’s extensive government experience includes service as special assistant to President George H.W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. From 2001 to 2003, he was director of policy planning for the Department of State, serving as a principal advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the rank of ambassador, he served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and U.S. envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process.  Dr. Haass is the author or editor of fourteen books on American foreign policy, one book on management, and one on American democracy. His latest book, The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens, was published by Penguin Press in January 2023 and became a New York Times best seller. 

ACTA’s Steve McGuire sits down with Eric Kaufmann, Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of several books, including Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism and the Future of White Majorities; Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth; The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America; and The Orange Order. He is co-editor, among others, of Political Demography and editor of Rethinking Ethnicity: Majority Groups and Dominant Minorities. He has also written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Newsweek, National Review, New Statesman, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and other outlets.