Questioning the Founders—and Ourselves

The question of the relation between liberal education and political liberty, perennially important, is driven for this forum by the Obama administration’s endorsement of A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy’s Future, according to which the chief ends of postsecondary civic education ought to include the promotion of sweeping egalitarianism, progressive activism, and cosmopolitanism.1

In its guidelines for addressing this issue, Academic Questions offers contributors a dichotomy between the “university as a ‘temple of science,’ where rival theories, perspectives, and preferences receive a rigorous and impartial testing,” versus A Crucible Moment’s promotion “of a particular political view.” The guidelines go on to distinguish the vision behind the “scientific university” from that underpinning institutions that carry “ideological and philosophic commitments.” Keen to the dangers attending this dichotomy, Academic Questionsalso offers contributors the option of defending instead a