Against “Academic Freedom”: Willmoore Kendall and the Conservative Challenge to Higher Education

Controversies about academic freedom are nothing new.

After World War II, Americans debated the extent of freedom in higher education in the shadow of the Cold War. While liberals asserted a broad conception of academic freedom, conservatives argued that society and academic institutions should set boundaries—especially in the classroom. Yale professor Willmoore Kendall offered one of the sharpest versions of this criticism. His ideas laid the foundation for the arguments of his student William F. Buckley, whose book God and Man at Yale: On the Superstitions of Academic Freedom helped launch the modern conservative movement. 

The Kirk Center will explore historical and contemporary challenges to and conceptions of academic freedom on November 11 at Hope College in partnership with Markets & Morality and the Emmaus Scholars program.

We look forward to hearing from Sam Goldman, Associate Professor of Humanities at the Hamilton School, and the Kirk Center’s Mickey Shapiro Free Speech Fellow from 2024-2025. Dr. Goldman’s first book God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2018. His second book, After Nationalism, was published from the University of Pennsylvania Press in early 2021. In addition to his academic research, Goldman’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.