Defending Free Speech, Religion, and Education

I filed three briefs this week that highlight the bleeding edge of our culture wars.

I originally thought about doing an election post this week, but (a) I’m not sure I have anything original to say; (b) I doubt any of my readers are undecided; and (c) it would just anger and depress me too much and whatever reasons I had to start this Substack, it wasn’t to anger and depress myself! I’ll just say two thing about the presidential campaign: (1) if you’re surprised at how close the race is, you’re blind to the glaring weaknesses of the candidate you prefer, and (2) those who say DeSantis or Haley wouldn’t be doing better because MAGAs wouldn’t turn out for them somehow misunderstand the Trump factor: he’s the kingmaker on the Republican side and if he had decided to anoint and actively support a successor, I doubt there would be much drop-off among his supporters given the unpopular woke socialism coming from the other side. Anyhow, this week provided me a unique perspective on culture war 3.0, the attempt by those in power—liberal elites placating illiberal radicals—to suppress the politically incorrect. Not surprisingly, these issues come to the fore in education, both K-12 and universities. (On the latter, pre-order my book Lawless, which comes out Jan.14.) I filed three briefs that illustrate the stakes of this election and beyond.—IS