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Something rotten was revealed in the temple of higher learning this week: the director of the AAUP’s new “Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom” was caught on audio plotting to map, name and “knock out” campus civics centers that push classical education and viewpoint diversity. If that sounds like a punchline, it isn’t. It’s a recording, and it exposes a campaign — backed by Mellon money — to sic academic muscle on institutions that want students to think instead of march.
What the recording and documents actually show
The City Journal report published meeting audio and internal notes from a brainstorming session where Isaac A. Kamola — listed as director of the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom — talks about “naming and shaming” and designing a research agenda to go after so‑called right‑wing civics centers. The AAUP’s center was launched with a Mellon Foundation seed grant. In the audio Kamola even mentions a possible much larger “rapid‑response” budget. The targets named in the reporting include public civics schools like the University of Florida’s Hamilton School and the University of Texas’s School of Civic Leadership.
Why this is stunning hypocrisy
“Defense of academic freedom” should mean protecting all ideas, not hunting professors and schools with different views. Yet here is an AAUP program that claims to defend free inquiry while plotting to discredit and disable institutions that disagree with the progressive academic mainstream. That’s not defense — it’s a political strike force. The language in the tape is raw and revealing: an admission the endgame is suppression, not debate.
The taxpayer and student angle: who pays for this political war?
Remember that many of these civics centers are at public universities or benefit from public funds and grants. Taxpayers and parents should not subsidize political hit squads dressed up as academic research. When foundations like Mellon move big sums into higher education, their influence becomes a serious public question. Colleges that once promoted open debate now look like party machines policing thought. Students deserve better than human‑resources style purges masked as “academic freedom” work.
What must happen next
Demand answers. AAUP leaders, Isaac Kamola, and the Mellon Foundation need to explain whether this was idle talk or an organized campaign. University boards, state lawmakers and donors ought to press for transparency and protections for viewpoint diversity. If the goal of higher education is to teach students how to think, not what to think, then we should treat any program that weaponizes funding and secrecy against rivals as a threat — and act accordingly. The choice is simple: real academic freedom or the new orthodoxy. Pick one.
