Below are links to some recent bylines by Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth.
March 11, 2025 - Slate
A Turning Point for University Leadership
The content of your views (unless they veer into harassment and intimidation) should have no bearing on the restrictions you face. This is fundamental to freedom of speech. The federal government violated this principle when it sent agents to arrest Columbia University alumnus Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who was politically engaged on the Columbia campus before graduating last spring. [ Read More ]
March 6, 2025 - Inside Higher Ed
Free Speech Matters. So Does DEI.
Freedom of expression is vital for educational institutions—as are diversity, inclusion and equity. That’s why the recent Dear Colleague letter attacking DEI is so misguided. Of course, we should practice antidiscrimination, but just being “race neutral” won’t alone create the heterogeneity out of which a robust education grows. We need safe enough spaces for people from diverse backgrounds with a mix of ideas to learn from one another with courage and resilience, and we must ensure that access to those spaces and conduct within them are fair. [ Read More ]
March 5, 2025 - Los Angeles Times
A transformative education for my trans students and me
Simple words of compassion from a government official to a vulnerable population...That seems so distant now. That government-level recognition and reassurance were so important then. It’s even more important that we stand with trans people today. [ Read More ]
February 8, 2025 - Slate
Say Something
Leaders in civil society shouldn’t be “demure” in the face of authoritarian attempts to align all power with a president’s agenda, civil society be damned. Business and civic officials, religious authorities and college presidents should weigh in when they see the missions of their institutions—not to speak of the health of their country—compromised. This wouldn’t be a novelty. [ Read More ]
December 27, 2024 - The New York Times
How Higher Education Can Win Back America
Like the founders, we can be anti-elitists without falling into the trap of being anti-education. We’ll have to create pathways that change the opportunity structures for our fellow citizens, wherever they live and wherever, or whether, their parents went to school. [ Read More ]
December 24, 2024 - Los Angeles Review of Books
From Woke to Solidarity
Sociologist Musa al-Gharbi doesn’t want his readers to think he’s just another player taking shots at woke fish in a barrel. He conceives his new book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite as belonging to “a tradition of Black critique […] highlighting how liberals exploit social justice advocacy to make themselves feel good.” ... In Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis (2024), James Davison Hunter offers another diagnosis of what is wrong with contemporary American culture. [ Read More ]
December 16, 2024 - The Atlantic
Oliver Sacks’s Lifelong Search for Recognition
His letters show a man who feared abandonment and craved acknowledgment but discovered through his practice the rewards of his great gifts of feeling, of thoughtfulness, and of care. “I am a doctor, I can help,” he said as a young man in the wilderness. Letters show how his long and fruitful life came to fully embody that simple statement. [ Read More ]
November 1, 2024 - Inside Higher Ed
Defending Democracy, Defending the University
Democracy and higher education have been good for each other. Although the first colleges on our shores were founded in colonies controlled by a monarchy in Britain, the impressive growth of universities that combined research, teaching and education of the whole student happened here as the country became more democratic. Slavery was the great stain on the nation, and the war fought to abolish this vile institution ended with promises that Black people, too, should enjoy opportunities for education, including at colleges. [ Read More ]
October 23, 2024 - Slate
The Neutral Turn
It is urgent that the leaders of colleges and universities stand up in defense of their interests and the values of higher education. American schools have long trumpeted their contribution to promoting an educated citizenry. Now, as one of the most consequential elections in American history approaches, we must do everything we can to help students work on campaigns and facilitate voting. And we must call out the threats to higher education. [ Read More ]
October 7, 2024 - The Chronicle of Higher Education
October 7 Is Not the Time For Institutional Neutrality
In this year since October 7, we have been reminded that education depends not just on free speech and critical thinking, but on a willingness to listen for the potential to build things together. A year ago, I ended my blog post like this: May the wounded receive care, the kidnapped be returned to their homes, and the bereaved find comfort. And may it not be long before the peacemakers can find a way. As educators, we should help all those open to learning to become peacemakers who find a way. [ Read More ]
October 2, 2024 - The Wall Street Journal
‘No Road Leading Back’ Review: The Pits of Ponar
At a time when self-styled radicals call Holocaust survivors “settler-colonialists” and Hitler apologists get to spew nonsense about Nazi administrators being overwhelmed by capturing too many prisoners of war, a detailed account of what happened in Ponar and how we remember it is an act of deep piety. To borrow the words of Rachel Margolis, a Lithuanian Holocaust survivor, Mr. Heath “is placing a stone, a big stone, marking the spot where those Jews died.” The reader is disturbed. And grateful. [ Read More ]
Read older bylines here.
