A collection of FAIR Advisor-related content from Summer 2023.

A collection of FAIR Advisor-related content from Spring 2023.

Bridget Phetasy Show

“A fascinating conversation about the disconnect between what people in upper middle class America believe and reality, the power of victimization, and racial dynamics in the US.”

A collection of FAIR Advisor content of interest from Winter ‘23.

The Economist

An important question addressed by FAIR Advisor Jonathan Haidt in a podcast with Erwin Chemerinsky and HKS’s Kenneth Roth. “Dean of Berkeley Law Erwin Chemerinsky makes the case for diversity statements, while NYU’s Jonathan Haidt argues against them. We go back to when professors took a stand against anti-communism. And former head of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth recounts his own fight for academic freedom.”

Atlantic

TCW is skeptical: “The notion that the most likely explanation for this specific horror…ought to be reduced to a permanent, invisible, and unfalsifiable force called white supremacy veers dangerously close to determinism. Perversely, this infantilizing logic can’t help but absolve the five officers of responsibility for a heinous crime that most people and most police officers of any background do not commit.”

The Equiano Project

In January 2023, the Equiano Project, Emmanuel College, and King's College, Cambridge hosted a panel on the topic, “Towards the Common Good: Rethinking Race in the 21st Century conference.” Panelists/speakers included FAIR Advisors Glenn Loury and John McWhorter.

The Glenn Show

A conversation with FAIR Advisor Glenn Loury and Harvard professor Michael Sandel, known for his popular course Justice and writings, including his recent book, The Tyranny of Merit. Sandel points to the “meritocratic hubris of elites” including “elites in the world of finance, in the world of academia, in the world of the media, in journalism, the Manhattan elite. .. the neoliberal globalization project of the center-right and center-left…a certain meritocratic hubris among the elites who said, ‘The winners deserve their winning.’”

Glenn Show | Uncommon Knowledge | Fifth Column-Honestly

Three recent conversations with FAIR Advisors on black identity and experience in America are worth a listen. FAIR Advisors include Glenn Loury (AM ‘82), Kmele Foster, Ian Rowe (MBA ‘93) and John McWhorter. We found The Glenn Show’s cross-generational conversation powerful and insightful, with both Steele and Woodson bringing firsthand civil rights movement experience into their current thinking on the ethics of racial identity in America.

A collection of FAIR Advisor (FA) content of interest from Fall ‘22.

The Great American Race Game

Recently released documentary “The Great American Race Game” features FAIR Advisors Glenn Loury, Wilfred Reilly and Kmele Foster plus Larry Elder, Walter Williams, Bevelyn Beatty, Brandon Tatum, Robert Woodson and Niger Innis. The documentary covers “the politics of race in America, …its weaponization for political gain, and the Black Americans who are fighting back.” It includes “interviews from some of the most outstanding thinkers active today to discuss this complex issue and to shed much needed light on its past and present…as a key group…is beginning to refuse to be used. “

Deseret

Princeton Professor and FAIR Advisor Robert P. George dispels the notion that young people on college campuses are independent, rebellious thinkers. Rather, he paints a picture of conformists more concerned with being regarded as smart and sophisticated, aided by universities’ systemic mechanisms of indoctrination. The answer, he writes, lies with professors intentionally encouraging and modeling free thinking.

Honestly

Bari Weiss hosts an important debate during a time in which the very idea of “liberalism” is being questioned. NYT’s Bret Stephens debates Notre Dame professor and author Patrick Deneen on the question, “Should we be fighting to preserve liberalism, the system that prizes our individual rights and the very foundation upon which America was built? Or is the system itself the problem?”

A collection of FAIR Advisor (FA) content of interest from July/Aug ‘22.

Washington Post

“If Rushdie had been murdered then, I would have been happy. Now that he has been nearly killed…I am shattered,” explains FAIR Advisor Hirsi Ali. “When someone attempts to take Rushdie's life, what’s at stake is not just the inventive language and far-sighted vision of one person. Also at stake is our freedom to share ideas: the lifeblood of Western civilization.”

The Glenn Show

FAIR Advisor Glenn Loury doesn’t mince words in this outtake of a conversation with FAIR Advisor John Wood, Jr.— “My concern is about the actual well-being of Black people, not about the froth on the top of the waves of American elite culture and how they’re reconciling their own psycho-dramas about racial guilt. What about the actual lives of people who are getting gunned down—gunned down!—by thugs a half mile from where they live.”

RealClear Politics

A number of FAIR Advisors, Harvard’s Roland Fryer, and more than one hundred black American thought leaders sign an open letter penned by FAIR Advisor Glenn Loury and Robert Woodson, Sr. denouncing the post-Roe attacks against Justice Thomas. “White progressives do not have the moral authority to excommunicate a black man from his race because they disagree with him. And those – regardless of background – who join in the charade or remain silent are guilty of enabling this abuse.”

Common Sense

FAIR Advisor Bari Weiss delivers a powerful message to the first students at University of Austin. She explains that the “zealous and profoundly illiberal ideology” of today’s soft revolution is “the biggest untold story in America...and it promises to reshape the country.” She calls on the students to return to “the virtues and values that have made America and the West the best, freest, most enlightened, most tolerant of minorities, most open to new ideas, most innovative places in the history of the world” and asks them, “a new generation of founders…[to] lead us out by looking to those same bedrock principles.” As for their age, Weiss reminds them: “Don’t forget: More than a dozen of the actual founders… were 18th century millennials.”

Wall Street Journal

“If you’re looking for proof that teachers unions don’t care about the interests of schoolchildren,” argues Tunku Varadarajan, you can find it in the impoverished Bronx neighborhood of Soundview.” This is where FAIR Advisor and Harvard Alum Ian Rowe (MBA 93) and Joyanet Mangual are building Vertex Academies, a new charter high school with 80-85% of its students from low-income families, mostly black and Hispanic. The teachers union is suing Vertex and trying to block its opening.

Four decades after Thomas Sowell organized the Black Alternatives Conference (later known as the Fairmont Conference), Glenn Loury, Jason Riley, Ian Rowe, and Shelby Steele recently organized a historic conference to explore alternative solutions to the economic and social advancement of black Americans. The conference speakers and panelists included numerous FAIR advisors, Harvard professor Roland Fryer and other thought leaders. The inspirational calls for courage and change give new urgency to the work ahead.