The Syllabus

“The SJP doesn't have tunnels under our universities like Hamas has tunnels under Gaza,” ADL director Jonathan Greenblatt tells The Syllabus. “But they were clearly organizing and preparing in a way that really took us by surprise, and I regret that that happened.” In this week's episode of The Syllabus, Greenblatt reflects on the events following October 7 on our college campuses, the ADL's effor...

“The modes by which we transmit these beliefs and values are not just like we walk into the room, and we announce, ‘You only get an A if you write a paper that conforms with my preferred worldview,’” says Connecticut College philosopher Simon Feldman. In this week’s episode of The Syllabus, Feldman and his colleague Afshan Jafar join Mark Oppenheimer to talk about what professors’ politics should...

“The system of elite education, which I can define at greater lengths is making kids miserable, and it's producing an elite class that's wrecking the country,” says best-selling author and essayist Bill Deresiewicz in this week’s episode of The Syllabus. Syllabus host Mark Oppenheimer discusses topics in Deresiewicz’s book Excellent Sheep, including societal pressures to attend elite colleges, ove...

“Our position is you don't need test scores and that individual schools should develop admissions policies that reflect the type of kids they want to recruit and the mission that they have,” says FairTest’s public education director Bob Schaeffer in this week’s episode of The Syllabus. Syllabus host Mark Oppenheimer and Bob Schaeffer discuss the evolution of college admissions testing, the recent...

“The most important project, the most important mission, is to form our young men and women to be determined truth seekers and courageous truth speakers,” says Princeton’s McCormick Professorship of Jurisprudence Robert P. George in this week’s episode of The Syllabus. Syllabus host Mark Oppenheimer and Professor George discuss the dual mandate of religiously affiliated universities, concerns abou...

“You’re going to have to be defending people, sometimes publicly, for saying stuff that you find abhorrent and that you hate. But that’s the gig.” says Alex Morey, director of campus rights advocacy at FIRE, on this week’s episode of The Syllabus. Mark Oppenheimer digs deep with free speech defender extraordinaire Alex Morey, as they discuss the chilling effect of fear and censorship on college ca...

“I'll say whatever I want to say, under reasonable standards, and if they want to fire me for saying that there’s systemic racism in the U. S. housing market, then fine,” says economist, legal scholar, and professor Neil Buchanan in this week's episode of The Syllabus. Are UF professors fleeing the state? Is it harder to recruit new professors? Syllabus host Mark Oppenheimer asks Buchanan these to...

“You may be right that if we bend over and tell Chris Ruffo to hit us in the ass, that he won't really hit us that hard next time, because we're being so nice and bend over for him,” says Wesleyan president Michael Roth, discussing the famed anti-DEI crusader in this week’s episode of The Syllabus. “But I actually don't think that’s true.” Syllabus podcast host Mark Oppenheimer gets Roth to open u...

“Whether it's parents or alums or current students or faculty, everyone wants us to figure out how do you stop people from saying things that they don't agree with,” says the president of Mount Holyoke College, Danielle Holley, in this week's episode of The Syllabus. Holley and Oppenheimer discuss the complexities of defining hate speech versus protected free speech, as well as the intrusive natur...

“So what upsets me about all the protesting, right? Leave aside my political views. It's making it really hard for people to learn,” says Georgetown professor Jacques Berlinerblau in this week’s episode of The Syllabus. “People that don't even know what's going on are being told, ‘Pick a side, man,’ and if they don't pick a side, their social life, like cascading dominoes, starts to veer off into...

“So at the higher education level, in colleges and universities, ethnic studies pedagogy actually doesn't align with K-12 education code,” says Brandy Shufutinsky, the director of education and community engagement at the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, in this week’s episode of The Syllabus podcast. “At the college level, you're allowed to bring in a certain level of biases, while K-12 educa...

The ethnic studies model curriculum has been at the center of controversy in California since its proposal in March 2021. After two years of drafting and heated debate, the State Board of Education adopted an ethnic studies model curriculum that primarily focuses on the untold “histories, cultures, struggles, and contributions” of Black, Latino, Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islander...

“I think at Hillel, we've hosted more Palestinian speakers than any organization on any campus, including [from] Palestinian rights organizations, because we do want to create opportunities for Jewish students and other students to understand Israel, including all the communities within and around Israel,” says Adam Lehman, CEO of Hillel International, on this week's episode of The Syllabus podcas...

Robert Vitalis, a political scientist at Penn, is a man caught in the middle.   He has spent most of his career identified with the left, and with Palestinian rights. And on this week's podcast episode, Vitalis defends the Palestine Writes conference, held in September 2023 at his university, against charges that it was antisemitic. He also decries donor meddling, and says candidly that Penn presi...

Ivy League scandals seem a dime a dozen these days, but New York Times columnist David French believes that the worst scandal in American higher education isn’t in the Ivy League. David French joins host Mark Oppenheimer to discuss the moral collapse at Liberty University and other Christian institutions of higher education, turning Christian theology on its head.

“At one point [President Salovey] copped to being a Zionist”—that’s according to Evan Morris, a Yale professor, telling Syllabus podcast host Mark Oppenheimer about his meeting with Yale president Peter Salovey to demand that the university come out more forcefully against Hamas. But what does it matter if the Yale president is a Zionist? For that matter, who cares what university presidents think...

Meet Raphi Gold, a Gen Z’er without social media, or even a smartphone. She’s unusual, and not just because she tries to observe the Jewish Sabbath, taking Saturdays off from work, or because of her passionate interest in the environment. Here’s the kicker: she has a flip phone. And no social media. She’s the college student you didn’t think existed.   Raphi’s choice to stay out of the constant ba...

On October 14, a week after Hamas’s attacks in Southern Israel, Conor Friedersdorf, a staff writer for The Atlantic, wrote an article entitled, “Students for Pogroms in Israel”; the sub-head was “By excusing murder and kidnapping, activist groups have already changed campus politics in America.” Conor joins Mark Oppenheimer to talk about how, exactly, he thinks campus politics have changed.