Politics

Apr 30, 2026 Jan-Werner Mueller

Lost in all the debates about whether US higher education is serving its proper function are conservative critics’ own motives. Leveraging the public’s apparent loss of confidence in colleges and universities, the American right has shifted the discussion from academic freedom to free speech, using the latter to undermine the former.

PRINCETON—The public has lost trust in universities, and restoring it is an urgent task. That is the conclusion reached in a much-discussed new report by the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education. The report captures the conventional wisdom in the United States, including the often-heard complaint that universities have become ideologically one-sided, alienating conservatives.