Religious Freedom & Higher Education Reform

I get to talk about two issues near and dear to my heart!

First Things first.  Or perhaps that should be: first, First Things.  Mark Bauerlein and I had a great time discussing the nature of religion, Wokeism, and America’s future over on the First Things podcast.  The motivation for our discussion was obviously American Spirit or Great Awokening? though in many ways it harkens back to issues I first raised publicly in 2015. 

Back then, I anchored Mosaic Magazine’s monthly essay with a discussion of the threat to religious freedom.  My “final word” in that series was quite practical: I urged America’s Christians to learn from the Jews the skills necessary to function as a vibrant American minority.

I should note that this discussion was my second appearance on the First Things podcast.  Mark had me on to discuss the corruption of higher education in 2021, shortly after the publication of The New Civil War (I still hate that name for a book that should have been called The Cult of Expertise, but sometimes you’ve just got to cave to the publisher).  That conversation took on particular salience in 2023, when Mark and I both joined the effort (in different ways) to reclaim American higher education in the flagship project: New College of Florida.

My primary preoccupation of the past couple of weeks, however, has been the start of the new academic year.  I’ve now completed a full year as Admissions Director at New College of Florida.  It’s exciting to be at the forefront of the move to reform American higher education—and it’s good to be on a team that’s running up the score.  I’m pleased to report that we just enrolled the largest entering class in the school’s history and that we’ve grown roughly 33% since new leadership began moving the school in new directions. 

Having inherited misplaced Admissions processes and vendor contracts when I arrived, I’m looking forward to doing things very differently this year—placing a premium on programming and applicant quality.  Stated simply, I ask three questions: Who are the students we want to recruit? Where can I find them? How can I engage them?  Turns out, that’s a radical approach to college admissions.  Who knew?

I even wrote up some our excitement for the local Sarasota Herald Tribune—not known as a fan of our new leadership and direction, but often willing to provide us (or at least me) with a forum.  We need more of that in this country.  Meanwhile, what can I say?  If you know talented High School student, send them my way!

Setting all of that aside for the moment, there’s been a lot happening on the political front.  As is my wont, I’ve refrained from saying something for the sake of saying something.  I try to chime in only when I think I have something to add.  Having tuned in only occasionally to the content-free DNC and the polls that surround it, the only useful observation I could find is that 5-10% of the American public will clearly believe whatever they’ve been told to believe. 

Kamala Harris, throughout her entire political career, has been known quite widely as a deeply incompetent, genuinely unlikeable hack.  Pity, really.  An attractive candidate with desirable demographics who hasn’t spent her career dwelling on racial grievance seems like a good package.  Unfortunately, the negative realities of her own personality and performance have long drowned out that promise.  A month ago, however, the story surrounding her hit an abrupt shift.  Given zero new accomplishments and a press makeover, nearly 10% of the country upgraded their opinions of Harris overnight.  That’s a dismal comment on American education, self-awareness, and susceptibility to propaganda.  It also is what it is.  Each of these sheep gets a vote.

The recent story that hit closest to home, however, was RFK Jr.’s marvelously substantive speech about his decision to reach across the aisle and find common cause with Donald Trump.  But then, I wrote about that last week.

Now I’ve got to get back to my primary project for this Holiday Weekend—prepping a course on “Information Integrity” I’ll be teaching this Spring.  More on that to come, so stay tuned!

---

For more information about Bruce D. Abramson & American Restorationism, visit: www.BruceDAbramson.com

To learn more about America’s Spiritual Crisis and the new religion of Wokeism, see: American Spirit or Great Awokening?  The Battle to Restore or Destroy Our Nation (Academica Press, 2024). 

To learn more about how America’s elites destroyed the republic, see:  The New Civil War: Exposing Elites, Fighting Utopian Leftism, and Restoring America (RealClear Publishing, 2021).

To learn more about the ideology driving today’s anti-American leftism, see: American Restoration: Winning America’s Second Civil War (Kindle, 2019).

To learn more about our work at the American Coalition for Education and Knowledge, visit us at The Coalition for America.

To learn more about how I turn the ideas I discuss here into concrete projects that serve the interests of my clients, donors, and society at large, please e-mail me at bdabramson@pm.me.