The Rebel Campus Boosters Rising Up Against Wokeness on Campus

Real Clear Investigations ^ | February 19, 2025 | John Murawski

[Twotone]

In the plummy world of alumni relations, where distinguished graduates are awarded honorary degrees and major donors are fêted at the president’s mansion, it is virtually unheard of for former students to set up shop as a political counterweight to the university, challenging its modes of governance and day-to-day operations

Alarmed by academia’s dominant ideological ethos of social justice activism – particularly the holy trinity of race, sex, and gender – more than two dozen dissident groups have emerged seeking to rebalance the culture at leading public and private universities across the country, including Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UCLA, Williams, the University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia.

They are expected to gain traction with Donald Trump back in the White House.

The dissident alumni organizations are not shoestring operations, but well-honed machines, some raising several hundred thousand dollars a year; a number of them have hired executive directors, professional staff, or consultants. This loose coalition of local chapters has also developed into a national movement with its own umbrella group, the Alumni Free Speech Alliance.

Drawing on alumni resources and connections, the dissidents have curated email lists totaling thousands of recipients, diverted financial contributions from longtime university donors, attracted financial support from foundations, organized speaker series and public events, and generated critical reports and investigative articles, especially regarding policies advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. They have invited prominent conservative and contrarian thinkers such as George Will, Nadine Strossen, Jonathan Haidt, Douglas Murray, and Heather Mac Donald to deliver on-campus talks.

[nopardons]

BTTT

[Retain Mike]

"Some observers warn the anti-woke pushback will lead to an overcorrection. The legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, predicted, according to the New York Times, the likelihood of increased attacks on the free speech rights of progressive students and professors, including investigations, punishment, and terminations."

What predictable nonsense. True free speech involving these people facing truth would devastate them and place them in a challenging work environment, where if fact they would feel investigated and punished .

[Honorary Serb]

https://www.mitfreespeech.org

https://harvardalumniforfreespeech.com

These are the ones that are relevant to me. Great public universities need free speech links, too.

Other Freepers may add additional links!

Make our universities great again!

[Lurker]

Keep George Will far, far away.

L

[Albion Wilde]

Very interesting. I, too, opened up several of the links in the article, looked up my grad Ivy, and a few other colleges where family have attended or taught. This is a starting place. Hope it takes off during Trump47.

Universities will be squealing like pigs when DOGE takes the chainsaw to them, and Congress finally decides to levy a meaningful tax rate on the ones with gigantic endowments, something Trump asked for since 2015.

I’d like to see a lot fewer woke lady presidents.

[Honorary Serb]

I am totally against cutting NIH and NSF grants and fellowships, having benefited from both! “Indirect costs” should also not be unduly cut, so that universities can maintain labs and support staff.

The exceptions are DEI-based grants and fellowships! These should be eliminated, and the money used for real scholarship!

University endowments must not be taxed to death. They are the basis for financial aid and building new facilities for research and student life.

Let’s make our universities great again, not reduce them to Third World status!

[Albion Wilde]

bump to post 7 for later

[Albion Wilde]

I am totally against cutting NIH and NSF grants and fellowships, having benefited from both! “Indirect costs” should also not be unduly cut, so that universities can maintain labs and support staff.

I bumped your post to read later—9 days ago! Typical of my schedule lately...

I get your concern. But one earnestly hopes that the focus will shift to essential or widely important research, waste reduction, and innovate use of what resources remain. The DOGE reports have listed outrageous ideological sweetheart deals over transgenderism and similar navel-gazing. Cuts aren't necessarily a bad thing, as long as priorities are also somehow demanded. It's the second part that is so hard to achieve in the echo chambers of the ivory towers.

[Honorary Serb]

.....essential or widely important research.....

In the basic and novel research area, it is often hard to determine what will be “essential or widely important research”, especially in the future.

We all know, however, that woke, transgender, and “gay” studies are not studies at all, but pure propaganda! Studies aimed at helping youths overcome transgender, and “gay” ideation are an exception.

[Albion Wilde]

innovate = innovative

[Albion Wilde]

We all know, however, that woke, transgender, and “gay” studies are not studies at all, but pure propaganda! Studies aimed at helping youths overcome transgender, and “gay” ideation are an exception."

"We" do know that. But since academic faculty has turned 90% leftist, and wokeism has infected even the STEM and medical schools, it's going to be hard to convince the people in charge who don't know that. Some of them really believe a man can become a woman, or a person can be born gay, and they are determined to prove it.

[Honorary Serb]

.....wokeism has infected even the STEM and medical schools......

In real biology, there are some species in which gender is easily convertible (for example, dependent on environment). Humans and their relatives are not among them!

[Albion Wilde]

Mais oui, et vive la difference!

[Honorary Serb]

Jawohl!