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[H2] We uphold the standards of a liberal arts education.

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[H2] Rescuing Science

In this report, J. Scott Turner reassesses America’s 75‑year experiment with federally funded “Big Science,” arguing that the system built to spark discovery has instead smothered it under bureaucracy, politics, and perverse incentives. It calls for a bold revival of the older, freer, curiosity‑driven scientific culture that once powered America’s most transformative breakthroughs.

[H2] The American Revolution Series Is Now on Substack

Join us as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of America with this new series exploring the untold stories and events that led to our nation's independence.

[H2] Shifting Sands: False Positives

Shifting Sands: False Positives provides a policy-oriented conclusion to our Shifting Sands reports by outlining Policy Recommendations for how to address the irresponsibility crisis of science policy.

[H2] Waste Land

This report sheds a new light on the history of the U.S. Department of Education, its abuses of policy, and charts a new path forward for American education.

[H1] Our Work

May 26, 2026
Lilla Nora Kiss and Ian Oxnevad

[H2] Here Comes the Fun(ding) Police! Tracking Foreign Funding of U.S. Universities

Despite higher education’s importance to national defense, it remains one of the least policed channels...

China
Foreign Influence
Higher Education

May 26, 2026
Kali Jerrard

[H2] Repayments Return: The End of SAVE

The next chapter of student loan repayments is here, what will it look like for borrowers?

CounterCurrent
Department of Education
Government Policy
Student Loans/Debt

May 22, 2026
Maryland Association of Scholars

[H2] Maryland Scholars Back Merit‑Restoring Order, Criticize Racialist Lawsuit

In voicing overwhelming approval for EO 14398 and other efforts by the Trump administration to dismantle ...

DEI
Higher Education
Law
Legislation, Federal

[H2] Latest Report

[H2] Behind the Climate Curtain

This report uncovers how California’s climate alliance with China—channeled through the UC system—quietly shaped state policy, enriched Beijing’s green‑tech dominance, and ...

May 18, 2026
Ian Oxnevad

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[H1] Media

[H2] VIDEO: 1776 in Mind: The Declaration of Independence

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1776 in Mind Webinar Series
American History
Civics Education

[H2] VIDEO: Winning the Tech Race? Trump 2.0 in the Age of Strategic Competition

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Artificial Intelligence
Government Policy
Technology

[H2] VIDEO: The Cather Standards

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Academic Standards
Curriculum
K-12 Education

[H2] VIDEO: The Prometheus Program: How to Improve American Science

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Higher Ed Reform
Science

[H1] Events

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[H2] 1776 in Mind: The Wealth of Nations

Thursday, June 4

2 pm ET

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[H2] Journal

[H2]
Academic Questions
Vol 38, No 4 (2025)

An unorthodox journal studying the virtues & vices of the American higher education establishment.

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Browse the Archive

[H2] Minding the Campus

Minding the Campus is a project of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) aimed at fostering dialogue and critique around higher education issues, including free speech, ideological diversity, and administrative overreach in American universities.
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[H3] Most Recent Publications

May 29, 2026
Richard Vedder

[H2] Techies Without Virtue

May 28, 2026
Lilla Nora Kiss

[H2] What AI Can’t Teach Us

May 26, 2026
Wenyuan Wu

[H2] The War on Common Ground

[H3] Weekly Newsletter

Join the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, CounterCurrent, to stay informed on the latest issues in higher education.

All past issues of the newsletter are available in our archive.

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Behind the Climate Curtain
The Cather Standards
The Prometheus Program
When Courts Rely on Unreliable Science
The Ideological Capture of General Education
Rescuing Science
Should Science Go to DIE
A Ramblin’ Wreck Over the Rainbow
Diversity Rocket Science at Caltech
Shifting Sands: Report V
The Archimedes Standards
Ideological Insistence
Waste Land
Instagram the Intifada
Shifting Sands: Report IV
Shadows of Influence
China and Our Children
DEI and Maryland College Campuses
The Franklin Standards
The Illusion of Institutional Neutrality
Imbalanced: A Study of Influence at the University of Virginia
Curriculum of Liberty
DEI, Left to Die
Disowned Yankees
Diversity Statement, Then Dossier
Shifting Sands: Report III
The Company They Keep
Taken for a RIDE
Comprehensive Restructuring
Should Virginians Pay for University “Diversity” Leftism?
Ideological Intensification
Hijacked
Outsourced to Qatar
The Anatomy of a Diversity Equity and Inclusion Takeover
Shifting Sands: Report II
Educating for Citizenship: The Texas Case Study
Educating for Citizenship: The Utah Case Study
After Confucius Institutes
Educating for Citizenship: The Arizona Case Study
Learning for Self-Government
Shifting Sands: Report I
Skewed History
Climbing Down
Priced Out
Freedom to Learn
Rebalancing the Narrative
Disfigured History
Dear Colleague
Corrupting the College Board
Critical Care
The Lost History of Western Civilization
Social Justice Education in America
Beach Books 2018-2019
Separate but Equal, Again
Beach Books 2017-2018
The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science
Charting Academic Freedom
Outsourced to China
Making Citizens
The Disappearing Continent
The Architecture of Intellectual Freedom
Inside Divestment
Sustainability
What Does Bowdoin Teach?
Recasting History
The Vanishing West
A Crisis of Competence
Losing the Big Picture
The Dissolution of General Education
SUNY’s Core Curricula

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All Reports
Academic Freedom
Corrupting the University
Costs of College
Foreign Influence
Ideology on Campus
Study of the Curriculum
Title IX
The 1620 Project

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May 18, 2026
Ian Oxnevad

[H2] Behind the Climate Curtain

This report uncovers how California’s climate alliance with China—channeled through the UC system—quietly shaped state policy, enriched Beijing’s green‑tech dominance, and helped make life in the Golden State more expensive than ever.

Climate Change
Government Policy
Higher Education

April 28, 2026
National Association of Scholars

[H2] The Cather Standards

The Cather Standards articulate clear, content‑rich PreK–12 expectations that cultivate strong reading, writing, speaking, and language skills; ground students in the great works of Western literature; and provide a coherent, year‑by‑year framework that prepares graduates for American civic life and cultural participation.

Curriculum

April 21, 2026
David Randall

[H2] The Prometheus Program

This report outlines a comprehensive plan to reform American science by depoliticizing research, restructuring funding and education systems, and strengthening scientific integrity to better serve national interests.

April 1, 2026
Stan Young and Warren Kindzierski

[H2] When Courts Rely on Unreliable Science

This report argues that the Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence systematically minimizes the modern irreproducibility crisis—evident in issues such as replication failures, multiple testing, and selective reporting—and thereby misleads judges who rely on it, particularly in areas such as climate‑related public health claims.

March 30, 2026
David Randall and Angela Moreno

[H2] The Ideological Capture of General Education

The National Association of Scholars has assembled new catalogues of the General Education Requirements (GERs) at the 50 flagship state universities and at 50 leading private universities and colleges. These allow Americans to tell at a glance the nature of GERs in America’s leading universities, many of which have been captured by progressive ideology.

Curriculum

February 14, 2026
J. Scott Turner

[H2] Rescuing Science

In this report, J. Scott Turner reassesses America’s 75‑year experiment with federally funded “Big Science,” arguing that the system built to spark discovery has instead smothered it under bureaucracy, politics, and perverse incentives. It calls for a bold unwinding of the "Big Science Cartel" and a revival of the older, freer, curiosity‑driven scientific culture that once powered America’s most transformative breakthroughs.

Academic Research
DEI
Science

October 3, 2025
Mason Goad

[H2] Should Science Go to DIE

Should Science Go to DIE argues that an authoritarian, anti‑scientific DEI ideology has overtaken MIT—suppressing free speech, distorting scientific inquiry, and splintering into radical factions—and urges the institute’s stakeholders to remove DEI advocates, enact robust free‑speech reforms, and restore MIT’s core commitment to scientific excellence.

Academic Freedom
and Inclusion
Diversity
Equity
Intellectual Diversity

October 2, 2025
Mason Goad and Louis Galarowicz

[H2] A Ramblin’ Wreck Over the Rainbow

This report traces the rise of DEI at Georgia Tech from its ideological roots in movements that sought to inflame racial division, argues that these dynamics persist in contemporary DEI programs, and concludes with recommendations for stakeholders to dismantle DEI’s radical and discriminatory practices and protect the campus from renewed racial antagonism.

October 2, 2025
Ian Oxnevad

[H2] Diversity Rocket Science at Caltech

This report documents the growth and operation of DEI at Caltech, as well as its rebranding over the past two years. It also highlights the awkwardness and ideologically performative nature of DEI in relation to Caltech’s international student body and in addressing real campus tensions surrounding anti-Semitism.

Academic Freedom
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Science Education

August 19, 2025
David Randall, Stan Young, and Warren Kindzierski

[H2] Shifting Sands: Report V

Shifting Sands: False Positives provides a policy-oriented conclusion to our Shifting Sands reports by outlining Policy Recommendations for how to address the irresponsibility crisis of science policy.

Irreproducibility
Legislation, State
Science

May 31, 2025
National Association of Scholars

[H2] The Archimedes Standards

These model PreK–12 mathematics standards aim to ground students in the core concepts, processes, and discoveries of great mathematicians while instilling the spirit and rigor exemplified by Archimedes, whose work reflects both the beauty and the practical power of mathematics.

Curriculum
Mathematics

April 15, 2025
Mason Goad and Louis Galarowicz

[H2] Ideological Insistence

This report documents the persistence of DEI requirements in higher‑education hiring by analyzing more than 23,000 job postings across 89 public universities, the Ivy League, and MIT, demonstrating the widespread use of mandatory diversity statements and offering the largest quantitative study to date of this ideological practice.

Administration
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

February 5, 2025
David Randall, Teresa R. Manning, Neetu Arnold, Mason Goad, and Nathaniel Urban

[H2] Waste Land

This report sheds a new light on the history of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), its abuses of policy, and recommendations for a path forward. The report's evidence, and the long-term political dispositions of America's citizenry, supports the wholesale reform of ED, but not its elimination.

Department of Education
Student Loans/Debt
Title IX

November 9, 2024
Mason Goad

[H2] Instagram the Intifada

This report maps the organization, leadership, and affiliations of America's largest pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas student organizations—Students for Justice in Palestine.

Boycott, Divest, Sanction
Social Justice
Student Activities

October 15, 2024
David Randall, Warren Kindzierski, and Stanley Young

[H2] Shifting Sands: Report IV

Shifting Sands: Zombie Psychology examines the science underlying implicit bias theory. The report finds that many researchers and legislators believe policies based on this theory are harmful. Moreover, the report finds that the Implicit Association Test does not accurately or reliably measure implicit bias, nor does it reflect the real-world behaviors of individuals.

Irreproducibility
Legislation, State
Science

September 29, 2024
Neetu Arnold

[H2] Shadows of Influence

Foreign funding of American universities remains an open secret. This report details the underreporting of foreign gifts to universities by analyzing a complementary database compiled using public records requests.

Foreign Influence
Middle Eastern Studies

July 16, 2024
Ian Oxnevad

[H2] China and Our Children

This report examines how the Chinese Communist Party uses language as a tool of asymmetric warfare and its deployed effects in the United States. Confucius Classrooms did not only expand from Confucius Institutes and into K-12 schools; instead, they grew out of China’s strategy to influence America’s civic and business leaders.

Confucius Classrooms
Confucius Institutes
Foreign Influence

June 22, 2024
Maryland Association of Scholars

[H2] DEI and Maryland College Campuses

This report surveys the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and administrative initiatives at 12 University System of Mayland campuses.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

May 24, 2024

[H2] The Franklin Standards

These model K-12 state science standards seek to restore informed and disciplined curiosity to American science education, along with the spirit and the rigor of America's first great scientist and inventor, Benjamin Franklin.

Curriculum
Science Education

April 22, 2024
Peter W. Wood

[H2] The Illusion of Institutional Neutrality

College presidents, often scrutinized for what they say or don’t say on political controversies, frequently invoke “institutional neutrality” to avoid dividing their campuses, but as Peter W. Wood argues, universities should instead reject neutrality and openly defend a clear set of values against pressures from students, faculty, trustees, politicians, foreign governments, and the public.

College Administration
College Presidents
Intellectual Freedom

April 20, 2024
Mitchell Langbert

[H2] Imbalanced: A Study of Influence at the University of Virginia

This analysis finds that political donations from the faculty and staff of the University of Virginia go almost exclusively to the Democratic Party. If the faculty and staff are combined, the ratio of Democratic to Republican (D:R) donations is 18:1. If faculty and staff are viewed separately, for faculty the D:R ratio is 24:1 while for staff the ratio the ratio is 16:1. Of the few blue collar-staff donors whom I could identify, the D:R ratio is 11:8, much different from the white-collar staff’s ratio of 17.5:1 and the faculty’s ratio of 24:1.

Administration
Politics

March 19, 2024
David Randall

[H2] Curriculum of Liberty

The Curriculum of Liberty proposes a content‑rich program to cultivate freedom, truth‑seeking, and virtuous citizenship by teaching Americans the self‑reliance and moral resilience needed to endure and reform a failing regime in the short term, while also equipping them with the scientific and technical knowledge required for long‑term national strength and competition with rising powers such as China.

Academic Freedom
Curriculum
History
Liberty

February 25, 2024
Mason Goad

[H2] DEI, Left to Die

Is DEI still popular? If so, why have DEI-related scholarly works decreased since 2020?

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

February 20, 2024
David Randall

[H2] Disowned Yankees

This study examines the origins and meaning of Americans’ birthright of liberty—how it developed, how it is preserved through history and civics education, and what citizens must do to sustain it—and concludes that Connecticut’s current social studies standards fail to fulfill these essential aims.

September 16, 2023
John D. Sailer

[H2] Diversity Statement, Then Dossier

In this report, we seek to explain the phenomenon of DEI cluster hiring, demonstrate its widespread practice throughout academia, and highlight the dangers of the practice. Ultimately, DEI cluster hiring signals the total reorientation of the university’s function from the pursuit of truth to the pursuit of political and social transformation.

Academic Hiring
College Administration
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

July 13, 2023
David Randall, Warren Kindzierski, and Stanley Young

[H2] Shifting Sands: Report III

Shifting Sands: Confounded Errors focuses on failures by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to consider empirical evidence available in the public domain early in the pandemic. The report finds compelling circumstantial evidence that lockdowns and masking mandates imposed during the pandemic had no proven benefit to public health outcomes.

Irreproducibil

The National Association of Scholars is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that seeks to reform higher education. We uphold the standards of a liberal arts education that fosters intellectual freedom, searches for the truth, and promotes virtuous citizenship. To accomplish this mission we defend the academic freedom of faculty members, students, and others through individual advocacy; investigate issues affecting the academic freedom, integrity, and purpose of the university and publish our findings as in-depth reports; educate the public about policies and legislation that would preserve the liberal arts and protect academic freedom. These create three pillars from which our work stands: individual advocacy, research reports, and public advocacy.
[H1] Our Mission
The National Association of Scholars upholds the standards of a liberal arts education that fosters intellectual freedom, searches for the truth, and promotes virtuous citizenship.
[H1] Our Ideals
The standards of a liberal arts education that the NAS upholds include reasoned scholarship and civil debate in America’s colleges and universities; and individual merit in academic and scholarly endeavor. We expect that ideas be judged on their merits; that scholars engage in the disinterested pursuit of the truth; and that colleges and universities provide for fair and judicial examination of contending views.
We expect colleges to offer coherent curricula and programs of study. We uphold a view of institutional integrity that includes financial probity as well as transparency in the curriculum and classroom. We uphold the principles of academic freedom that include faculty members’ and students’ freedom to pursue academic research; their freedom to question and to think for themselves; and their freedom from ideological imposition.
We expect colleges and universities to prioritize education as academia’s main purpose. And we understand education in our time and place to entail providing students with a breadth of understanding of core subjects including Western civilization and American history. We recognize that the vitality of American education arises in large part out of the freedom of colleges and universities to experiment and to offer diverse curricula. That robust diversity, however, must be anchored in respect for the abiding ideals of the pursuit of the truth and the cultivation of virtuous citizenship.
We view the liberal arts as foundational in higher education. The liberal arts provide the essential intellectual skills, substantive knowledge, and cultural context that underlie every discipline within the university.  We expect the university as a whole to abide by the standards enunciated in the liberal arts.
We view colleges and universities generally as serving the need to prepare students for virtuous citizenship, which for citizens of the United States entails an understanding of the nature of democratic institutions, including representative government.  More broadly, virtuous citizenship is upholding the principles of the rule of law and taking a positive role in shaping public life.
[H1] What We Do
[H5] Journal
We publish a quarterly journal, Academic Questions, which explores the vices and virtues of the contemporary university. Issues are often themed and include scholarly articles, book reviews, poetry, and items of academic interest. A subscription to Academic Questions is included in NAS membership.
[H5] Reports
We regularly publish studies that examine curricula and other aspects of higher education policy and practice. These studies document trends in contemporary academia. They aim to stimulate improvements to the quality of education in our colleges and universities.
[H5] Commentary
NAS’s website presents daily opinion and commentary on developments and trends in higher education. A high-traffic destination linked by major online publications, NAS.org publishes substantial op-ed style articles by guest authors and NAS staff, along with debates and videos.
[H5] Advocacy
NAS and our members are involved in efforts to pass legislation for true and salutary higher education reform. We file friend-of-the-court briefs in legal cases, defending freedom of speech and conscience, and the civil rights of educators and students. We give testimony before congressional and legislative committees and engage public support for worthy reforms.
[H5] Conferences
NAS holds national and regional conferences that focus on important issues and public policy debates in higher education today. At these meetings and conferences, those concerned about higher education convene to discuss issues of the moment, propose reforms, and recognize individual achievements.

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[H3] Weekly Newsletter

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[H3] Weekly Newsletter

Join the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, CounterCurrent, to stay informed on the latest issues in higher education.

All past issues of the newsletter are available in our archive.