Bari Weiss, Sohrab Ahmari and Many More Found New University ‘Dedicated to the Pursuit of Truth’
Former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss announced on Twitter Monday the creation of a new university “dedicated to the pursuit of truth.”
“We got sick of complaining about how broken higher education is. So we decided to do something about it,” Weiss added. The “we” Weiss refers to is a laundry list of contrarian writers, academics, and cultural commentators from right-wing figures like Sohrab Ahmari to former Bill Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to playwright David Mamet.
A new university dedicated to the pursuit of truth. pic.twitter.com/8mQRFPK53B
— The University of Austin (UATX) (@uaustinorg) November 8, 2021
Called “The University of Austin (UATX)” —not to be confused with the University of Texas at Austin — was announced on Weiss’s substack in a post by Pano Kanelos.
Kanelos, the former president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, writes he left his job to found UATX to fight back against a dominant academic culture in which “faculty are being treated like thought criminals.” Weiss resigned from the New York Times in July 2020 citing “bullying by colleagues” and an “illiberal environment.”
Kanelos argues that at universities today “the primary incentive is to function as a finishing school for the national and global elite” and that fostering an environment “where intellectual dissent is protected and fashionable opinions are scrutinized” is no longer encouraged.
After Weiss made her announcement on Twitter, “Trump University” began trending as many on the left were jokingly making comparisons between the two. New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones quipped in a reply, “Trump University at Austin.”
Trump University at Austin. https://t.co/hIFI6ZnHva
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) November 8, 2021
While progressive activist and author Grant Stern wrote, “Great choice by the University of Austin to operate in Texas right under the nose of GOP Gov. Gregg Abbott. He gave Trump University a free pass when prosecutors wanted to take them down for fraud.”
