Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
President of Wesleyan University. (grand)father, husband, author, professor. Defender of academic freedom, liberal education and democracy.
Catching up with Mark Lilla “Such a regime could attain its ends by making only a small number of opponents suffer physically while leaving the rest in psychological torment, wondering if or when the blow will fall.” www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...
From Fear Set Free | Mark Lilla
Humankind cannot bear very much uncertainty; to our dying day, we are all afraid of the dark. And so we perceive the world selectively, exaggerating the
nybooks.com
"Aaron shall lean both of his hands..upon the live he goat's head and confess upon it all the willful transgressions of the children of Israel, all their rebellions, and all their unintentional sins, and he shall place them on the he goat's head, and send it off to the desert with a timely man"
Ah, unbundling again! www.theatlantic.com/education/ar... www.theatlantic.com/education/ar... www.thedailybeast.com/how-to-destr...
Why 'Nano-Degrees' Can Never Replace Liberal Arts Colleges
In a market where jobs are constantly shifting and disappearing, the kind of ultra-specialized training offered by companies like Udacity won't go very far.
theatlantic.com
The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · 3w agoIt feels like artificial intelligence is wresting higher education apart—but something bigger and more damaging has been taking place on college campuses for a long time, @ibogost.com argues.
Read jloeffler.bsky.social “debates about Jews are never just about Jews. They are the seismographs of a society’s deeper tremors: its fears of difference, its contested visions of nationhood.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/o...
Opinion | For Trump, Jews Are Proving to Be a Very Useful Tool (Gift Article)
Debates about Jews are never just about Jews.
nytimes.com
About to go teach my first class of the year at @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social. I'll try to remember this all semester: "Today’s students are trying to work out what it means to be decent humans in a world growing more heated, hostile and, sometimes, heartless." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/o...
Opinion | This Is the Real Point of College (Gift Article)
It’s all about the practice of freedom.
nytimes.com
Barbara Kingsolver quotes Wendell Berry: “As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/b...
nytimes.com
My take: “Students approach college “with energetic curiosity. They always do. Why? Because they are [about] to discover who they are as readers, as conversation partners, as people. They are figuring out what kind of work they find fulfilling, what they love to do.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/o...
Opinion | This Is the Real Point of College (Gift Article)
It’s all about the practice of freedom.
nytimes.com
Watch the full episode of @realbillmaher.bsky.social featuring @msroth.bsky.social on HBO Max and catch his appearance on the “Overtime” after show on YouTube. #highered
Overtime with Bill Maher: Byron Donalds, Molly Jong-Fast, Michael S. Roth (HBO)
YouTube video by Real Time with Bill Maher
youtu.be
Wesleyan University’s @msroth.bsky.social from last week’s @realtimers.bsky.social. #highered
Real Time with Bill Maher@realtimers.bsky.social · last mo."We have too much of a political monoculture and we have to work really hard to bring other ideas into the campus." Watch Wesleyan University president Michael S. Roth discuss faculty bias with Bill Maher on the latest episode of #RealTime:
“The Secretary of the Treasury is using the IRS to advance a pro-White Nationalist agenda. That is extraordinary.” —Wesleyan University President @msroth.bsky.social on @npr.org with @steveinskeep.bsky.social #highered
Wesleyan University president on administration's efforts to revoke tax-exempt status
NPR's Steve Inskeep asks Wesleyan University president Michael Roth about U.S. Treasury and IRS efforts to revoke tax-exempt status from private schools that help students based on race.
npr.org
Read @michellegoldberg.bsky.social “the bleakness of our time makes her example more important than ever. She didn’t vanquish crude sexism, but she was part of a movement that made it marginal, at least for a while. If it was done before, it can be done again.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/o...
Opinion | What Gloria Steinem Can Teach Us (Gift Article)
Steinem has died at the end of a decade that undid some of what she struggled for.
nytimes.com
Read @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social "if the free speech clause means anything, it means that each of us has the right to engage in political argument, no matter if our views are radically fringe, comfortably mainstream or something in between. This is basic stuff." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/o...
Opinion | Who’s the Snowflake Now?
Marco Rubio is taking the wrong approach to free speech.
nytimes.com
"Because the rules allow no wiggle room &the potential penalty is so large, schools are likely to examine their own activities and make changes even before the regulations take effect “The chilling effect is very real" @wsj.com @aacu.org @thefireorg.bsky.social @aaup.org www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...
IRS Proposes Rules to Strip Tax Exemptions From Colleges Using Race in Policies
Race-based admissions, scholarships and other policies could lead to costly penalties.
wsj.com
“Ms. McMahon’s letter might appear more benign than the compact. But she still implies that core academic decisions should be overseen by the federal government…Coercion is coercion, even if it’s not explicit.” @nytopinion.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/o...
Opinion | College Presidents, Don’t Be Fooled by Linda McMahon (Gift Article)
Her open letter to American universities is a trap.
nytimes.com
Read @dwightgarner.bsky.social “Some of the ironies are pitched so high that only a dog can hear them…You don’t finish “The Disappearers.” It finishes you.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/30/b...
Book Review: ‘The Disappearers,’ by Marlon James
Marlon James’s story of gay experience and murderous homophobia in Jamaica is a maximalist’s banquet — and the Booker Prize winner’s finest book yet.
nytimes.com
Too woke? “I used to live in the country that I thought was the most enthusiastic about the prospects for science improving the human condition, of any country in the world,” said Phillip Zamore… “And I woke up one day and that wasn’t true anymore.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/w...
Canada Hires U.S. Scholars From Harvard and Other Top Universities
A crackdown on American academia by the Trump administration has handed Canadian universities a rare opportunity to lure some top researchers north.
nytimes.com
Brian Rosenberg on the alignment of Vanderbilt with the White House www.chronicle.com/article/vand...
Susan Faludi: “The purpose of civic society and government — in the democratic world, anyway — is to serve the unheroic needs of ordinary people. Not to make a mess of their lives on the way to staging a cage fight on the White House lawn.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/23/o...
Opinion | The Barbie Backlash (Gift Article)
‘The Odyssey’ and ‘Barbie’ show a zeitgeist shift that goes beyond Hollywood: The hero’s narrative is corroding our political and public life.
nytimes.com
Read @jabannandale.bsky.social "If universities do not fight to maintain the vital work they have done to promote democracy in its most literal form, they will lose that foundational purpose, and the nation will lose the vital contributions of countless young adults" www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/o...
My take: different period, similar story. "Even those who recognized that officials were not following the rule of law but instead lying to enrich themselves and attack their enemies might nevertheless have found a way to accommodate themselves to the new reality." www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
‘Hotel Exile’ Review: Occupiers and Survivors
The Nazis commandeered the Hotel Lutetia after capturing Paris. The hotel later became a center for those returning from the death camps.
wsj.com
A fine history with unsettling relevance: “The very nature of the German occupation,” ...led many into a “take what you can” form of corruption. As the rule of law receded, as is so often the case under authoritarianism, greed and corruption came to the fore" www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
‘Hotel Exile’ Review: Occupiers and Survivors
The Nazis commandeered the Hotel Lutetia after capturing Paris. The hotel later became a center for those returning from the death camps.
wsj.com
Read @mashagessen.bsky.social “Fascism works not only by the passage of arbitrary, dehumanizing laws but by the arbitrary, dehumanizing enforcement of the laws.” @nytopinion.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/o...
Opinion | What’s Happening in Kansas Should Alarm Us All (Gift Article)
Is Kansas just the beginning?
nytimes.com
The wait is over—Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rae Armantrout's newest collection, Safe Rooms, is releasing today! Order your copy now at weslpress.org or your favorite bookstore near you! #bookrelease #raearmantrout #poetry #saferooms
Enjoyed talking with Joe Donahue at @wamc.org this week about the threats to academic freedom, and why it's so important to defend civil society during this season of authoritarianism. More at montereymeetinghouse.org on Sunday www.wamc.org/podcast/the-...
Monterey Meeting House | Preserving History & Community in Monterey, MA
Help preserve the Monterey Meeting House, a historic landmark in Monterey Village, as a vibrant space for cultural, educational, and community gatherings.
montereymeetinghouse.org
"The Vanderbilt declaration goes far beyond what the Trump administration dreamed of proposing for colleges, imposing an extreme attack on academic freedom, shared governance, international scholars, and free speech that may be unmatched in the history of statements by American college boards."
My latest @insidehighered.com column examines the Vanderbilt University Board's recent declaration and threats to academic freedom that have concerned groups such as the @vanderbiltaaup.bsky.social www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
Schools are so afraid of the feds they praising its "national call to action." An executive branch bent on “reforming” higher ed has found collaborators to play ball just as other threats have incentivized “deals” between corporations & the administration. www.wamc.org/podcast/the-...
Michael Roth will speak on education and democracy at the Monterey Meeting House on 8/9
Michael Roth, the President of Wesleyan University, will speak at the Monterey Meeting House in Monterey, MA on Sunday, August 9th. His talk is titled: 'From Neutrality to Democracy; How Higher Ed Can...
wamc.org
Nothing to worry about here. Thanks to bold and courageous collaborators and institutional neutrality, we are fulfilling the promises of White House.
Join a Loyalty Club for Higher Education! "history [shows] us..how this might work. In the decade or so after the end of WWarII, higher-education leaders across the country collaborated with Senator Joseph McCarthy’s effort to rid the land of communists." www.thenation.com/article/poli...
Join a Loyalty Club for Higher Education—While You Still Can!
Another way to show devotion to the nation and to truth.
thenation.com
Read @mashagessen.bsky.social “evaluating history has the potential to change a people’s future by changing its self-understanding. It can unite people in a genuinely new project. And then there is the rewriting of history, which is crazy-making.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/o...
Opinion | Trump's Smithsonian Attacks Are Attacks on America’s Future (Gift Article)
This is how we decide who we are and who we want to be.
nytimes.com
