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This November, Nebraskans will vote on two competing abortion ballot measures — the only voters facing a measure to restrict abortion. In 2023, demonstrators protested the 12-week abortion limits currently in place at the Nebraska Capitol In the proposed pro-life amendment called Protect Women and Children, “unborn children … (would be) protected from abortion in the second and third trimesters” with exceptions for medical emergencies, sexual assault, or incest. This amendment would codify current state practice of restricting abortion to the first twelve weeks in the Nebraska constitution.    The Nebraska Family Alliance (NFA) — the longest-standing “pro-family” organization in Nebraska which helped organize the Protect Women and Children’s ballot measure, described the amendment as a tool to “allow greater protections going forward”—hinting at even stricter, future limitations.     Conversely, the Protect the Right to Abortion proposed constitutional amendment establishes abortion as a “fundamental right” until fetal viability (around 23-24 weeks of gestation) with exceptions for medical emergencies.    However, the Nebraska Family Alliance criticized the pro-choice amendment: “The abortion industry is attempting to enshrine a right to abortion in the Nebraska Constitution with a ballot initiative that would legalize abortion until birth, subject preborn children to painful late-term dismemberment abortions, put girls at greater risk for human trafficking, and eliminate parental notification requirements.”   Despite speculation that the measures violated the state procedure of singular-subject ballot initiatives, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled unanimously to keep both abortion measures on the ballot on September 13. Two lawsuits unsuccessfully targeted the pro-choice amendment by arguing that it addressed abortion pre-fetal viability, post-fetal viability, and the state’s legal jurisdiction over abortions — three separate subjects.   “Barring any legal challenges, this November general election ballot will host two ballot measures that appear in direct conflict with each other, which could be the first time this has happened in Nebraska’s history,” Secretary of State Bob Evnen said in a press release. Evnen will host hearings in October regarding all the state ballot measures.   A passed ballot measure needs more “for” votes than “against” and must receive at least 35% of the total votes cast in that election. Theoretically, both measures could pass, but, on August 23, the secretary of state’s office announced the measure with the most “for” votes would be adopted.   “The potential for confusion is high, so strong voter education will be critical to our campaign. Regardless, we’re confident that when voters are given the choice, they will vote to restore their control over their bodies and health care,” said Katie Rodihan, Director of State Advocacy Communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America on the Nebraska ballot measures, in correspondence with The Forum regarding the ballot measures.    Conversely, NFA writes on their webpage that “since the overturn of Roe v. Wade,  the abortion industry has won in all seven states where abortion has been on the ballot, and abortion advocacy groups are spending millions of dollars to confuse and mislead voters.”    Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, and South Dakota all have protective abortion rights ballot measures. Most ballot measures protect the right to abortion until fetal viability. In 2021, less than 1% of abortions occurred after 21 weeks of gestation, according to a report  from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.   "Make no mistake: Reproductive rights are on the ballot in every race, across every state in 2024," Rodihan said, speaking more broadly about the upcoming election. "For anti-abortion politicians, Roe was just the beginning. The end goal has always been full control of our bodies and our medical decisions."

Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) Painting of Mercy Otis Warren by John Singleton Copley (credit: American Battlefield Trust) When people think of the key figures of the American Revolution, many forget the anomaly, Mercy Otis Warren. A poet, playwright, political activist, patriot, and prolific author, Mercy Otis Warren wrote about the politics of the American Revolution – rare for a woman of her time.  Warren was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts and was the third of thirteen children of James Otis and Mary Allyne. In an age where few women had access to education, Warren leveraged her male relatives to glean a comprehensive political and historical education. She followed her father’s career as an attorney and politician, learned about history and politics by sitting in on her brother’s private tutoring, and studied classical literature with her Yale-educated uncle, Reverend Jonathan Russel. In 1754, Warren married James Warren, a popular Massachusetts politician who encouraged Warren to pursue writing. Through James Warren’s connections, she met politicians such as John Adams , who also encouraged her writing. From 1765 to 1789, Warren was near all revolutionary political events in Massachusetts and used her writings to support the Revolution. Warren began writing political dramas, criticizing British policies and officials like Governor Thomas Hutchinson. She also published political satires and pamphlets used as key propaganda for the patriotic movement in Massachusetts. Most of her publications during the Revolutionary War were anonymous to avoid British retaliation and the dismissal of her work on account of her sex. Warren was a fierce proponent of the Revolution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence during the War, but she and her husband became Anti-Federalists after the proposal of the new Constitution in 1787. Warren’s Challenge of the Constitution Many American politicians, like John Adams, favored a stronger federal constitution, which Warren strongly opposed. In 1788, she anonymously published the pamphlet Observations on the New Constitution  in which she discussed standard Anti-Federalist concerns, such as the lack of a bill of rights and the potential for corruption that could ruin the United States if the Constitution proposed by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and other delegates was passed. She encouraged other states to reject the new Constitution. She wrote that “the glorious fabric of liberty successfully reared with so much labor an assiduity totters to the foundation, and may be blown away as the bubble of fancy by the rude breath of military combinations, and politicians of yesterday.” Warren felt that the United States was willing to accept the same tyrannical power structure they had fought so valiantly to overturn due to politicians greed and the hunger for power. She believed that the framers were not adhering to the promises of the new republic since the Constitution did not protect citizens and their rights. More importantly, she argued that the United States had the capability to achieve freedom and happiness, but politicians were limiting the country's capabilities. Instead of taking advantage of a new beginning, the United States was repeating its history. Mercy Ottis Warren’s pamphlet gained popularity as it was reprinted in newspapers across several states. Many Anti-Federalists used it to generate opposition to the new Constitution and urge states to vote for the ratification of a Bill of Rights. Thinking that the Constitution could not be ratified without Anti-Federalist votes, James Madison created a list of rights that would make up the first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Yet Warren was still not satisfied. In 1805, Warren published History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution —a three-volume, 1,200-page book on the American Revolution. She published it under her name, becoming the first woman in the United States to publish a nonfiction book. In it, she presents the history of the Revolution while also discussing her worry with the Constitution in that a centralized, powerful government could return to the monarchical power that she and other revolutionaries had fought against. She writes: Thus, after the conclusion of peace and the acknowledgment of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, the situation of America appeared similar to that of a young heir who had prematurely become possessed of a rich inheritance, while his inexperience and his new felt independence had intoxicated him so far as to render him incapable of weighing the intrinsic value of his estate, and had left him without discretion or judgment to improve it to the best advantage of his family.  Warren held so much hope for the U.S.’s new independence and felt that the country did not live up to her expectations. She argued that the U.S.’s desire to achieve equality and greatness was eclipsed by politicians’ personal hunger for power. Moreover, she argued that the Constitution was contradictory to what the revolutionists fought for—freedom and equality. Warren argued that the Federalist government restricted the rights of citizens in ways antithetical to the Revolutionary spirit.  Warren’s Vision for America As a Jefersonian republican, Mercy Otis Warren believed in limiting the federal government by advocating for states’ rights and personal freedoms. Therefore, she believed that the federal government should be weakened to increase the power of state and local governments. She believed that this solution was the most viable and that operating under federalism could risk the United States turning into a monarchy. But she argued that liberty would be secured if the majority of power was given to the American people. Unfortunately for her, this Jeffersonian vision never occurred. The success of Warren’s writing, however, should not be measured by the popularity of her ideas but rather by the strength of her words. As a woman, to not only publish on but criticize   the United States and its male politicians was audacious and admirable. Moreover, most curricula understate her contributions to the American Revolution. Warren’s ideas have become increasingly relevant in a political climate where more and more voices argue that the U.S.’s government is too powerful  and that power should be returned to the states. These voices raise the question: should the U.S. continue to maintain a political structure originally established in 1787? Or should citizens attempt to restructure the political powers in the U.S.? The path forward may be obscure, but perhaps Mercy Otis Warren’s writings can light the way.

Has the LinkedIn culture at CMC become toxic? It’s that time of year again. No, not pumpkin spice season or Oktoberfest. It’s time for the obligatory fall internship LinkedIn posts, where college students—particularly those at Claremont McKenna—advertise their new positions for the semester.  The pressure is on: find a job—not just any job, but one that takes you on the next step of your hundred-step career ladder over the next ten years—and tell all of your peers, professors, and networking connections about it online. Whether on-campus or off-campus, paid or unpaid, internship or fellowship, or “just a life update” for those who’ve graduated, the start of the semester marks a flood of notifications about students’ career updates. While it can be fun to share our accomplishments on social media, have we become too “ linked in ” to each other’s professional lives? I don’t mean to downplay networking or resume building. The career culture on campus is the reason many of us chose CMC in the first place—our school is notorious for its pre-professional slant and its return on investment. The Soll Center for Student Opportunity provides excellent opportunities to learn how to apply for jobs and build a professional network. We can walk into the glass-paned office to get instructions on initiating coffee chats, formatting our resumes, and writing outstanding cover letters. The Center designates $1,000 to each student per academic year to attend conferences and visit graduate schools (if you didn’t know that, now you do!). We are fortunate to have such great resources on our campus. Still, I am beginning to wonder if the LinkedIn culture at CMC has become toxic. I’m guilty of it, too. I posted when I got my first college job. My first summer internship. My first job in Washington DC. Part of it was truly networking—I’ve met some great people along the way who are genuinely interested in what I’m up to and where I’m at. But I’ll be the first to admit that for the most part, I was excited to get likes and comments from my friends on my latest acceptance into a coveted position. I’m all for networking, but in a recent conversation with my supervisor on the Hill, we discussed horizontal networking—building professional connections with our peers at work and in school. Is that not just… making friends? I suppose it is, but calling it horizontal or lateral networking adds unnecessary stress and reduces friendship to a transactional relationship. Every day in Washington I get emails advertising “intern networking” happy hours hosted by universities in the area. You show up, mingle about work over free pizza, and share your LinkedIn profile with anyone who will listen in the hope of a follow. Unfortunately, I can’t even remember the names of the juniors at Harvard and BU I connected with this summer. I doubt whether these events or making those online connections are really worth it. Like all social media platforms, LinkedIn is curated. When we post about the end of our summer internships come fall, we don’t write about the time our boss yelled at us to fix a memo or the meetings that bored us to tears. We share the happy things, like our nice intern cohort or the cool project we led and presented to management. Reading perfectly-phrased posts naturally leads to unrealistic expectations for our own jobs, stirring the perpetual insecurity that we are constantly behind our peers. In my short four months in Washington, I’ve already learned one of many hard truths about this city—the first question out of someone’s mouth when they meet you is, “What do you do?” And they’re not talking about your hobbies. While it’s not as bad as New York, young people are always looking for their next bigger and better job, chasing any connection that will lead them there.  My experience in Washington brings me back to Claremont and our school’s LinkedIn obsession. Professional work is important, but life is too short to compare ourselves to our friends’ job postings online.  So, as we navigate this season of LinkedIn updates, let’s remember we are all at CMC for a reason. Each of us can succeed regardless of where our friends work this term. The world needs investment bankers at Goldman Sachs and consultants at Deloitte, but there are also thousands of paths that may work better for you . As cheesy as it sounds, I hope we all trust that our unique interests and journeys will lead us where we’re meant to be.

Salvatori Center research assistants wrote profiles of overlooked American political thinkers in the areas of conservatism, federalism, gender, and journalism. Conservatism Thinker: William F. Buckley Jr. Author: Jaxson Sharpe Born: 1925 Died: 2008 Spouse: Patricia Buckley Occupation: Editor, author, pundit Education: Yale University (BA) Read about the life and thought of William F. Buckley Jr. here . Thinker:  Harry Jaffa Author:  Henry Fina Born:  1918 Died:  2015 Spouse: Marjorie Etta Butler Occupation:  Professor (Claremont McKenna College) Education:  Yale University (BA), The New School (PhD) Read about the life and thought of Harry Jaffa in forthcoming weeks. Federalism Thinker: Mercy Otis Warren Author: Maribella Muñoz-Jiménez Born:  1728 Died:  1814 Spouse:  James Warren Occupation:  Poet, political writer Education:  Self-educated Read about the life and thought of Mercy Otis Warren here . Thinker: Frances Perkins Author: Gabriel Goldstein Born: 1880 Died:  1965 Spouse:  Paul Wilson Occupation:  United States Secretary of Labor Education:  Mount Holyoke College (BS), Columbia University (MA), University of Pennsylvania Read about the life and thought of Frances Perkins in forthcoming weeks. Thinker: Lysander Spooner Author: Andrew Rizko Born: 1808 Died:  1887 Spouse:  None Occupation:  Lawyer, writer, entrepreneur Education:  Self-educated Read about the life and thought of Lysander Spooner in forthcoming weeks. Gender Thinker: Patsy Mink Author: Nicole Jonassen Born:  1927 Died:  2002 Spouse:  John Mink Occupation:  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii Education:  Wilson College, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (BS), University of Chicago (JD) Read about the life and thought of Patsy Mink in forthcoming weeks. Thinker: Alice Paul Author: Caren Ensing Born:  1885 Died:  1997 Spouse:  None Occupation:  Suffragist Education:  Swarthmore College (BS), Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, London School of Economics, University of Pennsylvania (MA, PhD), American University (LLB, LLM, DCL) Read about the life and thought of Alice Paul in forthcoming weeks. Journalism Thinker: Herbert Croly Author: Sophia Lakhani Born:  1869 Died:  1930 Spouse:  Louise Emory Occupation:  Journalist, editor, author Education:  City College of New York, Harvard University Read about the life and thought of Herbert Croly in forthcoming weeks. Thinker: Walter Lippmann Author: Henry Long Born:  1889 Died:  1974 Spouse:  Faye Albertson, Helen Byrne Occupation:  Journalist, author Education:  Harvard University (AB) Read about the life and thought of Walter Lippmann in forthcoming weeks.

Statements from the candidates for First-Year Class President. First-Year Class President posters hang along the balcony outside of Appleby Hall As the fall semester ramps us, familiar banners hang over the balcony outside Appleby Hall. First-Year Class President campaigns are in full force, and this year's cohort promises to bring you everything from North Quad air conditioning to new party music to chicken-fueled social events. The First-Year Class President (FYCP) sits on ASCMC’s Executive Board as a representative and liaison of the Class of 2027. The FYCP manages a budget of $3000, and is responsible for planning a plethora of events, activities, and initiatives geared towards the Class of 2027 or the broader CMC community. Candidates rush to collect 50 signatures by Thursday at 11:59pm to officially declare their candidacy and earn a spot on the ballot. Speeches will occur during snack (10:30pm) on Thursday, September 19th at Collins Dining Hall! Voting will open starting at Midnight and will be open until 8pm on Friday the 20th! FYCP Candidates (alphabetical order by last name) Clark Cheung Gabe Gardner Selah Han Ismail Iftikhar Ibukun Owolabi Caleb Rasor Gabe Gardner Hi everyone, my name is Gabe Gardner, and I'm running to be your first year class president! These past four weeks have been an amazing way for us to get to get to know one another, but I believe that we can make these bonds even stronger. If I were to be your class president, I intend to grow our already amazing community into an even better, more connected group. I want to plan events that you, the students, want. Whether it’s Raising Canes or Chick-Fil-A at socials or study groups, painting class coolers or di tables, communicating your wants and concerns with ASCMC directly, I will do my absolute best to make sure I am serving you all. On top of this, I would use my position and the resources it comes with for everyone’s best interests. We’ve only been here for a short time, and might not know what needs adjusting, but I can promise you that once we do, I will work my hardest to fix it. I want to be here for everyone and their problems, whether it's social, academic, or personal. College has, and will continue to be, a transition for all of us. Transitions are shaky, scary, and uncertain at times, and I want to be here for you all, so we can build a strong, tight-knit community. Just like RA’s, I want to have open-door hours and times for people to meet and talk with me, and also each other. Socials are going to be one of my biggest focuses if elected, but on top of that, I also want to make sure that I can create environments for people to study and hang out. I want to program for all of you, not just some of you. Selah Han INVEST IN SELAH shes YOUR greatest asset and she won’t SEL YOU OUT! super excited abt possibly representing our class and having a fun year! come up and say hi, I’d love to get to know everyone more! Ismail Iftikhar As freshmen class president, there are two main causes I, Ismail Iftikhar, will dedicate myself to. First, our upperclassmen have been striving, for some time, to include racial-studies as a G.E. This initiative succeeded in attaining approval from the faculty, but has, till now, been submissed by the board. This, to me, is utterly surprising. Racial-studies is a broad category, and almost 85% students fulfill the requirement without it even existing. Thus, it isn’t a matter of academic consideration, rather, a political statement. A statement that we as a community should be proud to make, as only by learning about each other can we truly learn to co-exist. Thus, as the only international student in the race, I pledge to dedicate myself to making sure that CMC stands for such statements. Second, as a leading institution of the world that will give birth to the leaders of tomorrow, we must remain inclusively engaged with relevant global issues. In particular, it is disappointing that CMC has played no role in educating its students on the Israel-Palestine conflict. This isn’t a matter of opinion or sides. It is a matter of principle. We cannot ignore the realities of such terrifying global issues. Thus, considering the uniqueness of the ath, I seek to elevate student involvement in deciding speakers for ath talks, so that we may host speakers that inform us about both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. While I will work towards other causes, like North-quad air conditioning, increasing budgets for dorms, and evacuating the school whenever there is a fire again (just for free vacations), what I ultimately stand for is simple: to make CMC a place that we and the world can be proud of. A diverse, responsible, honest, and proactive institution. Ibukun Owolabi One of the best success stories in sports history is that of Serena and Venus Williams. Their whole life, they pushed each other as far as physically possible in the sport that they loved. Eventually, their hard work and dedication would lead to their cementation in the Sports’ Hall of Fame! Without one another, they would not have been able to become world champions. Without one another, they would not have been challenged and pushed hard enough to become better. When asked to write this statement, I was challenged. Not because the question was hard, but because there were so many ways to go about answering the question. As I pondered an answer, I thought about how Serena and Venus would tackle such a situation. And I realized that (if they were in such a position of running for Class President of CMC) no matter what their answer to this question would be, they would not go through it alone. That is where I took inspiration from as my answer. Regardless of who ends up as our class president, I encourage and implore you to put your voice and ideas out there. Solutions that seem minuscule to you can be life-changing for other people. Whether you go to senate meetings or reach out to your class representative, please use your voice to make CMC better. If I have the honor to serve you as president, I would love to hear all of the amazing ideas that all 338 of you have and I would love the opportunity to learn more about the beautiful person behind that idea. Caleb Rasor Hey everyone! My name is Caleb Rasor, and I’m running this year for First Year Class President. When your high school ran class president elections, who tended to be the winner? I can guess that they were charismatic, popular, and skilled at speaking. I can also guess that they had elaborate, lofty plans to “change things” – and that those plans never panned out. You may have found yourself disappointed at the end of the year, when all their promises came up empty, that no one had simply vowed to listen. Unlike your class presidents of old, I not only vow to listen – I vow to make it my top priority. I vow to make myself available to all first years so you can voice your concerns and desires. My first line of business will be to make a submission form where, at any time, you can share your thoughts anonymously or with your name attached. With every major decision by ASCMC involving the first-year class, I will specifically ask for your input, and vote according to the sentiments you express. Throughout this year, we will all face opportunities and challenges. There will be clubs to be funded, parties to be planned, physical spaces to be improved, and issues to be resolved. No matter what comes our way, you can rest easy knowing that you set my agenda. I don’t act like I know all the answers – and you shouldn’t settle for a class president who does. Oh, and when I’m elected, I think we can agree on agenda item number 1: improving the CMC party music! Candidates who did not provide a statement will still give speeches! Speeches will occur during Snack (10:30pm) on Thursday, September 19th at Collins Dining Hall! Voting is open starting at midnight and is open until 8pm on Friday the 20th!

ASPC states that the zine found its way onto their 5C club fair table by mistake.  Students accuse ASPC of spreading “anti-Jewish propaganda” on the Walker Beach art wall Last Wednesday, the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) club table distributed copies of a zine titled “Mask Up”  alongside masks and other materials regarding COVID. The zine’s initial pages provide information on the COVID virus and protective measures, such as testing and effective personal protective equipment.  Front cover of the “Mask Up” zine After the initial pages, the booklet forwards the arguement that the “amerikkkan-israeli empire” weaponizes the COVID virus as a tool of eugenics-based genocide in the first section, “Pandemics are a Tool of the Colonizer.” ASPC table with “Mask Up” zines (credit: Claremont Haverim) Claremont Haverim claimed that the zine’s content was expressly antisemitic and pro-Hamas. The organization pointed to statements such as, “BY BOMB OR BY PATHOGEN, THESE ATTACKS ON PALESTINIAN LIFE ARE MAN-MADE, INTENTIONAL POLICY CHOICES, ONES INTENDED TO CONSOLIDATE WEALTH FOR THE MIS-RULERS OF THE WORLD,” as examples of historic antisemitic beliefs that Jewish populations control disease and wealth.  Haverim also pointed to statements in the zine that “the ongoing Operation Al-Aqsa Flood is a direct attempt to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails” and that Hamas is a “national liberal group” as evidence of explicit support for a terrorist movement since Operation Al-Aqsa is Hamas’s codename for the October 7th attacks . The zine also cited a statement by the Palestinian Youth Movement and Writers Against the War on Gaza categorizing The New York Times  as Israeli “state-run media” that spread “unevidenced claims of ‘mass rape’ by Palestinian resistance on October 7th.”  Illustration from “Mask Up” featuring an armed individual masking a child On Tuesday September 10 Avis Hinkson, the vice president of student affairs and dean of students, and Y. Melanie Wu, vice president of academic affairs and dean of the college, announced that the college officially launched an investigation into the incident. ASPC issued a community update on the matter in an email later the same day: “During the course of the club fair, 3-5 copies of a zine that we did not print, the “Mask Up” zine, were mixed up with our own materials. We did not realize and were not notified of this until after the club fair, and we did not produce the zine.” Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA) responded to Pomona’s investigation in an Instagram post  on Thursday, September 12. SJP and PDfA called the investigation into the zine’s content and ASPC’s distribution of the material a conflation of antisemitism with anti-zionism. On Monday, September 10, students took to the Walker Beach art wall to levy accusations against SJP and ASPC of distributing “anti-Jewish Propaganda.” By Wednesday, another group of students painted a new message: “Anti-Zionism is not anti-Jewish propaganda. Free Palestine. Intifada. We are not afraid. Disclose. Divest.” Students respond to accusations of antisemitism on the Walker Beach art wall No organization or individuals have publicly affiliated themselves with the zine or claimed responsibility for its distribution. In a comment to The Student Life , Kenneth Wolf, chair of the faculty of Pomona, expressed concerns with a lack of intellectual accountability at the Claremont Colleges: “If you don’t stand up for what you believe in and let people know that you believe in it, everything is muddled from the very beginning, as far as I’m concerned. If something is done anonymously it’s always problematic.” The matter will continue to unfold over the next few weeks as the investigation develops alongside U.S. Department of Education investigations into alleged discrimination against Palestinian  and Jewish  Pomona students.

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008) William F. Buckley Jr. with his magazine, National Review (credit: The Intercept) William Buckley’s rise to stardom in postwar conservatism demonstrates the continued relevance of the old adage “it’s not what you say but how you say it.”  In The Fire Is Upon Us , Claremont McKenna College (CMC) Professor Nicolas Buccola observes that Buckley achieved prominence as a “communicator and popularizer of conservative ideas. According to Buccola, Buckley wove together “a combination of devout religiosity, strident antiegalitarianism, and deep opposition to the welfare state” into a pithy argument that convinced many that the greatness of the United States required the recognition of “certain immutable truths.”  But as much as Buckley is lauded as a pioneer of contemporary American conservatism, his rise and fall as a conservative icon provides a cautionary tale for today’s political commentators. Although publicity made Buckley, it would ultimately burn him. Buckley’s Rise: Challenge with Charm In Buckley’s first issue  of National Review magazine, he positions his conservative project against a liberal intellectual class that “runs just about everything . There never was an age of conformity quite like this one, or a camaraderie quite like the Liberals’.” The consequences of this social-intellectual monopoly were significant: “Our political economy and our high-energy industry run on large, general principles, on ideas—not by day-to-day guess work, expedients and improvisations. Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word. A vigorous and incorruptible journal of conservative opinion is—dare we say it?—as necessary to better living as Chemistry.” National Review , November 19, 1955.  Core to William Buckley’s conservative ethos was an understanding that political ideology was driven by the press. In order to effectively challenge the dominant liberal order, Buckley’s National Review  needed to distinguish itself: “Especially during NR ’s early years,” observes historian David Farber , “Buckley crafted an ironic tone that made conservatives appear dashing and clever and calls for Christian virtue in the public square sound hip and rebellious.”  Equality: The Solution to Academic (Un)Freedom In 1951, four years prior to the first issue of the National Review , William Buckley published God and Man at Yale  as an undergraduate. The ideas in Buckley’s debut political salvo should sound familiar to the contemporary college student. Buckley alleged that the Yale faculty prompted students to abandon their religious and free market fidelities, rendering them nothing less than “atheistic socialists.” Buckley couched his argument in appeals to “academic freedom.” If it is unacceptable to pontificate on the “anthropological superiority of the Aryan,” Buckley reasoned, then it should also be unacceptable to preach communism and atheism: “My task becomes, then, not so much as to argue that the limits should be imposed  but that existing limits should be narrowed, ” wrote Buckley.  Ironically, since academic open-mindedness was hostile to traditionalism, Buckley charged the university with a sort of close-minded relativism. The problem was not that the collegiate mind needed to be freed, exactly, but rather that the limits imposed needed to be politically equal . Even today, conservative efforts toward rebalancing political perspectives on college campuses are shaped by the arguments pioneered by Buckley in God and Man at Yale . This is especially true in Claremont. In a piece  published by the Duke University Press, Ellen Messer-Davidow explained that Buckley’s National Review  “laid the foundations for everything that followed” by creating “a recognized forum for conservative ideas” and a model of conservative cultural production on college campuses.  In the 1980s , the Institute for Educational Affairs, a conservative tax-exempt group, began a program to fund conservative student newspapers across the country, dubbed the Collegiate Network, in an effort to bust the liberal trust on higher education that Buckley first described in 1951. In 1988, CMC’s own Claremont Independent  was listed  among the 53 original newspaper grant recipients. In 1995, the operation of the Collegiate Network was taken over by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI)—an organization where Buckley served as the inaugural president in 1953. Binder and Wood, in Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives , saw the ISI’s mission as relatively straight-forward: to promote conservative values on college campuses and create opportunities for “the best and the brightest” conservative minds to “redress the widespread image of conservatives.” While it could seem ironic that the self-avowed Claremont Independent  is dependent, at least in part, on a conservative-aligned influence network, this relationship is well within the bounds of Buckley’s conception of academic freedom first articulated 75 years ago: Academic freedom is not a matter of eliminating all  ideological constraints, but rather a matter of making them equal .  Resolving the Tension: Capitalism and Conservatism Whereas Buckley began his career confronting “atheistic socialism,” it soon became necessary to establish an ordering of conservative values. Buckley appealed to a new conservative tent under a banner of moral authority. Only with the right moral virtues would capitalist economic freedom be worthwhile.  Not all on the Right responded positively to Ayn Rand’s 1957 bestseller defense of capitalism, Atlas Shrugged —among the detractors was William Buckley. “For William Buckely,” writes Professor Farber , “conservatism without the traditional religious faith that placed individual acts, even those of the finest capitalists, in God’s mighty hands, was an empty and even vile thing.” Rather than shrink from the tension between capitalism and conservatism—which would have been easy given that Rand’s primary target was the socialist Left and not the conservative Right—one of Buckley’s best National Review  writers, Whittaker Chambers, sought to confront it head-on . Rand’s sin was the prioritization of materialism, “productive achievement”, over all other values, which Chambers readily admitted “scarcely differs from the same world seen in materialist view from the Left.” Materialism on the Right would lead to the domination of America by the technocratic “industrial-financial-engineering caste.”  The picture of a laissez-faire capitalist system painted by the National Review  was surprisingly dystopian: A society built on “technological achievement, supervised by … a managerial political bureau,” argued Chambers, “can only head into a dictatorship.” While dictatorships fly different banners, Chambers observes “embarrassing similarities between Hitler’s National Socialism and Stalin’s brand of Communism”. By centering the “Randian man” in the same manner as Marx centered the “Marxist man”, the society endorsed by Rand’s rebuke of socialism would make the same moral mistake as the Communists: without the checks and balances of religion, man will build a self-centered dictatorship in a Godless world. The ordering of religious morality before economic freedom would ultimately pay off. Farber explains , that while not all  conservatives bought into Buckley’s “religiously transcendent, intellectually demanding ethos”, for “those who wanted a morally potent, spiritually engaging, intellectually rigorous conservatism, without any hint of backwater Bible-thumping, the National Review  provided the goods.” The Descent: Burned by the Spotlight While Buckley kept appealing to populist sentiments at an arm’s length, Buccola explains  that much of his success was “accelerated by the fact that he proved to be a compelling presence on television.” Often, these appearances would take the form of debates with liberal intellectuals and writers — “Conservatives loved seeing such an articulate defense of their views.” In this period, Buckley’s relentless advocacy paired with a restraint from personal attacks often led his ideological opponents to begrudgingly admire him. He was sharp but cool and collected. In 1962, Buckley began one of his most popular rivalries with the famous Left-leaning writer Gore Vidal by writing a column defending conservatism next to a column where Vidal was attacking it.  During the 1968 Republican and Democratic conventions, Buckley and Vidal were to spend ten nights debating each other on live television on the merits and demerits of liberal and conservative political tracks. This was a showdown of two, sharp-tongued political juggernauts which had been building in the public sphere of television and newspaper columns for years. But as Robert Gordon explained in Politico , “Within minutes of their first conversation, these high-minded individuals took the low road”— instead of a dialogue, they sought to make each other bleed.  William F. Buckley Jr. mid-debate with Gore Vidal (credit: Vox) It wasn’t until the penultimate debate that this feud had finally boiled over. After Vidal called Buckley a “crypto-Nazi”, Buckley — in a surprising moment of disinhibition — responded with venom: “Now listen, you queer , stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face”. Since this moment, Gordon argues , “it’s been downhill.” This highly televised event served as a model for the intellectual bloodsport we see across today’s media landscape. This was not lost on Buckley. In the 2015 documentary about the Buckley-Vidal debates,  Best of Enemies , one person close to Buckley remarked that this moment changed him — his outburst undermined his sense of uprightness and he felt ashamed by his actions. When asked about the debates with Vidal in an interview, Buckley simply responded, “Does TV run America? There is an implicit conflict of interest between that which is highly viewable and that which is highly illuminating….” In an age characterized by a dizzying fusion of information and entertainment, we would be wise to keep Buckley’s admonition in mind.

Riley teaches us that we must first recognize our flaws to experience the true joy of forgiveness. On Wednesday, Inside Out 2  became Pixar Studio’s highest grossing film , bringing in over $1 billion in revenue. Inside Out 2  is also the top grossing movie of the year and the fourth highest grossing animated film of all time. Since 2020, Pixar has struggled to produce box office hits (Credit: TheWrap) Since Pixar’s 2020 flop Onward , the studio has struggled  to please audiences, with no film earning over $200 million until Inside Out 2 . While some have declared Inside Out 2  to be a continuation  of Pixar’s slump, the film’s box office success, amazing animation, stellar score, and standout storytelling say otherwise. Director Kelsey Mann delivers a story that speaks powerfully to the human condition—spoilers ahead. The film introduces new features to the landscape of Riley’s (Kensington Tallman’s) mind. The five cardinal emotions—Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira)—discover a belief system (represented by an aquifer) at the core of Riley’s mind. Memories (represented by marbles) placed in the aquifer create beliefs (represented by strings). These beliefs cohere into Riley’s “sense of self,” depicted as a plant. Initially, Joy, the chief emotion and the protagonist of Riley’s psyche, curates the set of memories that enter the belief system. Joy keeps “good” memories—like Riley assisting the game-winning hockey goal—and relegates “bad” memories—like Riley earning a penalty that almost cost her team the game—to the “back of the mind.” In the words of Joy, “We keep the best and... toss the rest!” As a result, Riley develops a stunted sense of self. Riley expresses her sense of self in her own words—"I'm a good person.” This declaration reeks of a pelagian naiveté—Riley only thinks that she is a good person because Joy has suppressed the memories of her bad actions. When Riley hits puberty, several new emotions arrive, including Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Anxiety, with her eerie planning capabilities, quickly establishes herself as the ringleader of the new emotions. Anxiety claims her job is to protect Riley from “the scary stuff she can’t see.” When Riley’s best friends and hockey teammates Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) tell her that they will be attending a different high school, Anxiety reveals an unseen danger—a friendless four years of high school. Anxiety plans for Riley to abandon Grace and Bree to make friends on the varsity hockey team. When Joy interferes, Anxiety banishes the cardinal emotions from headquarters and sends Riley’s original sense of self to the back of the mind. As the cardinal emotions embark on a journey to rescue Riley’s former sense of self, Anxiety, like Joy before her, begins curating beliefs for Riley. While Joy curates declarative beliefs (“I'm a really good friend”), Anxiety curates conditional beliefs (“If I'm good at hockey, I'll have friends”). To fulfill Anxiety’s conditions, Riley commits several transgressions—she lies, excludes her friends, and sneaks into the coach’s office. Anxiety eventually cultivates a new sense of self for Riley. With echoes of Riley’s former sense of self in the background (“I’m a good person”), Riley develops a new sense of self that makes your stomach drop—”I’m not good enough!” Taken one way, Anxiety’s sense of self is false—Riley’s worth does not hinge on her hockey successes. Taken another way, Anxiety’s sense of self is damningly true. After all, at the back of Riley’s mind is an Everest of failures and immoral actions that Joy has quarantined from Riley’s understanding of herself. While Anxiety reckons with Riley’s flaws, Joy has a similar reckoning as she excavates Riley’s former sense of self from the mountain of bad memories. Joy realizes that the only way back to headquarters is to create an explosion and ride an avalanche of bad memories to the belief system. Amid the avalanche, Joy experiences a quasi-baptismal moment of submersion, overwhelmed by the deluge of Riley’s flaws and need for redemption. Meanwhile, Anxiety attempts to redeem Riley through her own efforts. Anxiety desperately tries to score three goals in a scrimmage to impress the coach and earn a spot on the varsity roster. Anxiety, consumed by this monomaniacal endeavor, has Riley steal the puck from her teammate and collide with Grace, earning Riley a two minute trip to the penalty box. As Anxiety works herself into a frenzy and causes Riley to have a panic attack, Joy surfs to the belief system on a tidal wave of bad memories, which begin to sprout beliefs. Upon arrival at headquarters, Joy admonishes Anxiety, saying, “You don't get to choose who Riley is.” But this admonition also convicts Joy, who realizes that she, like Anxiety, had been trying to dictate who Riley was. Joy discovers that she cannot make Riley good by her will alone. Recognizing her mistake, Joy discards Riley’s former senses of self and allows a new one to grow with bad memories in tow. As the bad memories flood Riley’s sense of self, Riley for the first time gains a painful consciousness of her fallen nature. But this consciousness ultimately equips her to ask for—and receive—unmerited forgiveness from her friend Bree and her (aptly named) friend Grace. This beautiful act of forgiveness allows Riley to experience unalloyed joy, which Pixar represents as sparkles beckoning Joy to the control console. After Riley’s redemptive experience, her mind is once again governed by Joy, but a transformed Joy—a joy aware of Riley’s inadequacy and need for forgiveness. Inside Out 2  teaches an important lesson for children of all ages—we must first recognize our flaws to experience the true joy of forgiveness.

CMC ranked 1st among colleges in student comfort expressing ideas. Photo Credit: WordPress This morning, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) published their 2025 College Free Speech Rankings . After plummeting  to 73rd in the rankings in 2024, Claremont McKenna College (CMC) regained their 2023 ranking of 6th in the country for free speech. The rankings leverage FIRE’s college speech code ratings  as well as College Pulse survey data  from 57,609 students. For the past several years, FIRE has granted  CMC a “Green light” speech code rating, meaning that the college’s policies “nominally protect free speech.” The data include 103 respondents from CMC. Across colleges, CMC ranked 1st in student comfort expressing ideas, 100th in willingness to disrupt campus speaking events, 44th in openness to difficult conversations, 9th in perceived administrative support for free speech, 3rd in tolerance for controversial speakers, and 10th in willingness to self-censor. According to the data, CMC has about 5 students who identify as liberal for every student who identifies as conservative, which is in line with historical data . FIRE also notes that since 2019, CMC administrators have “sanctioned” 3 scholars for speech-related controversies. According to FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire Database , Professors Chris Nadon, Eva Revesz, and Robert Faggen all received administrative backlash for use of the n-word in their classrooms. Other Claremont Colleges fared much worse in the rankings, with Scripps ranked 123rd, Harvey Mudd ranked 153rd, Pitzer ranked 180th, and Pomona ranked 242nd.

BY HENRY LONG IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MIAMI HERALD Throughout his term as Florida governor, Ron DeSantis has signed several K-12 public education reforms into law. The Parental Rights in Education Act , known colloquially as the Don’t Say Gay Bill, grants parents more power to prevent their children from learning about certain topics in school. The Individual Freedom Act , also known as the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E) Act, prohibits the teaching of specific ideas related to race. Another law adjusts the requirements for the acceptance and retention of books in school libraries. Republican governors across the country are taking similar steps to adjust K-12 public school curricula. As such, it might be enlightening to examine Supreme Court precedent related to these kinds of K-12 public education cases. The Supreme Court has generally recognized that state and local authorities have broad discretion over educational curriculum—within certain constitutional limits. Some of the earliest Supreme Court education cases reveal these limits. In Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Bartels v. Iowa (1923) , the Supreme Court ruled that state laws proscribing the teaching of foreign languages were unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. According to the Court in Meyer, “the purpose of the legislation was to promote civic development by inhibiting training and education of the immature in foreign tongues and ideals before they could learn English and acquire American ideals.” In his majority opinion, while Justice McReynolds did not question “the State’s power to prescribe a curriculum,” he wrote that “no emergency has arisen which renders knowledge by a child of some language other than English so clearly harmful as to justify its inhibition.” The Court has also been clear that a state’s jurisdiction over the curriculum can be limited on Establishment Clause grounds. In Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) , the Court found an Arkansas statute prohibiting the teaching of evolution to be unconstitutional under the First Amendment since the law was found to be religiously motivated. On behalf of the majority, Justice Fortas wrote that “a State’s right to prescribe the public school curriculum does not include the right to prohibit teaching a scientific theory or doctrine for reasons that run counter to the principles of the First Amendment.” The Court also ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) that a Louisiana law prohibiting the teaching of evolution unless accompanied by the teaching of creationism was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Justice Brennan, on behalf of the majority, wrote that “because the primary purpose of the Creationism Act is to endorse a particular religious doctrine, the Act furthers religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.” In a concurrence, Justice Powell clarified that “nothing in the Court's opinion diminishes the traditionally broad discretion accorded state and local school officials in the selection of the public school curriculum.” The Supreme Court has also identified limits to compulsory student speech under the First Amendment. While the Court found that a compulsory pledge of allegiance was constitutionally acceptable in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) , they reversed their decision just three years later in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) . In the latter case, Justice Jackson, on behalf of the majority, wrote that “Boards of Education . . . have, of course, important, delicate, and highly discretionary functions, but none that they may not perform within the limits of the Bill of Rights.” Thus, the Court has repeatedly affirmed the broad discretion of state and local authorities in matters of educational curricula—provided that their discretion remains within constitutional bounds. Supreme Court precedent on the removal of books from school libraries is more complicated. The Court has only faced one case on this issue— Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico (1982) . In the case, the school board removed books it characterized as “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy.” The final ruling was messy—the Court only came to a plurality and not a majority decision. The plurality, led by Justice Brennan, acknowledged that while schools have broad discretion over the acquisition of new library books, “the First Amendment imposes limitations upon a local school board’s exercise of its discretion to remove books from high school and junior high school libraries.” While schools could remove books from libraries if they were “pervasively vulgar” or of questionable “educational suitability,” the plurality held that schools could not remove books in a “narrowly partisan or political manner.” The plurality based their conclusion on a “right to receive ideas.” Justice Blackmun, in his partial concurrence, denies that students have any such right. Justice White’s partial concurrence sided with the majority on the ruling but dismissed its constitutional pontification as unnecessary. Regardless of these disagreements, however, Pico demonstrates that schools’ power to remove books is not unlimited. Supreme Court precedent has repeatedly affirmed the discretionary authority of state and local officials to dictate K-12 public school curricula. These precedents mean that as governor, DeSantis has broad leeway to mandate the teaching of certain topics and bar the teaching of others in a K-12 public school classroom. That said, there are limits to this authority. Opponents of DeSantis’s laws have already filed and may continue to file lawsuits under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and others may file suits challenging DeSantis’s laws as unconstitutionally vague . The courts have already blocked the portions of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act that apply to public colleges and universities. Many of the legal decisions will hinge on how the laws are enforced—both by DeSantis’s Department of Education and by teachers in the classroom. If the application of the laws violates students’ due process rights, limits student expression of certain viewpoints, or is conducted in a narrowly partisan manner, courts might object on constitutional grounds. Ultimately, while DeSantis’s K-12 education laws are no doubt controversial, it remains to be seen whether they will be found unconstitutional.

In 2018, the CMC Board of Trustees published a memo detailing their Open Academy commitments to “freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and effective dialogue.” As part of this commitment, the Board vowed to strengthen “student recruiting, faculty and staff hiring, curricular offerings and syllabi choices, invited speakers and engaged formats at the Athenaeum that both bring and take full advantage of viewpoint diversity (whether it derives from experience or belief systems or any combination of the two).” Put simply, the Board committed to recruiting more ideologically diverse students and faculty. The question is: does the data reflect the Board’s commitment to viewpoint diversity? CMC’s oldest available viewpoint diversity data is from the Salvatori Center’s 2016 political attitudes survey, which was conducted 2 years before the 2018 Open Academy memo. According to the data, 53 percent of CMC students identified as liberal, 25 percent as moderate, and 21 percent as conservative, with a liberal-to-conservative ratio of 2.5 to 1. While not perfect, this breakdown reflects a fairly ideologically diverse student body for an elite liberal arts institution. Seven years later, despite the Board’s intervening commitment to viewpoint diversity, ideological diversity at CMC has declined sharply. According to 2024 survey data from CollegePulse and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), 58 percent of CMC students identify as liberal, 20 percent as moderate, and 12 percent as conservative, with a liberal-to-conservative ratio of almost 5 to 1. Over these seven years, the conservative population at CMC was cut in half . In the 2018 memo, the Board pronounced that “since its founding, CMC has been a leader in ideological diversity.” Now, if you compare CMC to its peer institutions, CMC is no longer a leader in this regard. In FIRE’s 2024 data, 6 out of the 21 predominantly liberal private colleges with enrollments under 2,000 students had a lower liberal-to-conservative ratio than CMC: Washington and Lee University, DePauw University, Amherst College, Davidson College, Connecticut College, and Berea College. While CMC is still more ideologically diverse than many of its peer institutions like Pomona and Pitzer, CMC is no longer a leader among liberal arts colleges in regard to its ideological diversity. This summer, I attended the Summer Honors Academy, an academic program at the American Enterprise Institute, which is nonpartisan but known as a center-right institution. According to the organization’s website , “the program gathers students from diverse ideological backgrounds for substantive dialogue and debate about the most pressing issues facing the country and world.” Every year, AEI publishes the political attitudes of its participants. In 2023, 48 percent of AEI students identified as conservative, 12 percent as moderate, and 30 percent as liberal, with a conservative-to-liberal ratio of just over 1.5. It’s disappointing that an ideologically oriented organization can attract a greater modicum of political diversity than CMC, a non-ideological liberal arts college purportedly committed to viewpoint diversity. As a disclaimer, given the small sample sizes, the possible response bias, and other difficulties, no political attitude survey of the CMC student body will be perfect. Some have critiqued FIRE’s methodology and rightly indicated the difficulty of drawing conclusions from the data. That said, the data seem to paint a bleak picture of the outlook for ideological diversity at CMC. Political ideology ratios are also a blunt metric for viewpoint diversity. Geographic, religious, socioeconomic, and ethnic diversity likewise enrich campus discourse. Regardless, political diversity is probably the best proxy we have for viewpoint diversity. If the Board truly values viewpoint diversity at CMC, they must renew their commitment and address the sharp decline in students who identify themselves as conservative. In the board’s own words, “freedom of expression without an equal commitment to viewpoint diversity is of little value.”

Claremont McKenna College, by virtue of its esteemed Robert Day School of Economics, renowned Soll Center for Student Opportunity, and prestigious Robert Day Scholars program, has garnered a reputation as perhaps the pre-professional liberal arts college. Is this a fundamental contradiction of terms? Could a CMC education be at odds with the liberal arts? First and foremost, what exactly are the liberal arts? The term “liberal” in “liberal arts” is derived from the Latin word libertas , which translates to “freedom.” But what kind of freedom? Historically, the “liberal arts” stood in contrast to the “servile arts,” which encompassed education in trades like masonry. Institutions focusing on vocational, trade, and technical education fall under the servile arts, as would pre-medicine and pre-law undergraduate programs. While the servile arts are important and often overlooked, their objectives and methodologies differ markedly from those of the liberal arts. In my Classical Philosophy course this semester, we read Plato’s Republic , a staple of most liberal arts curricula. In the book, Socrates describes three types of goods: those valuable for their own sake, those valuable for their consequences, and those valuable both for their own sake and for their consequences. Socrates places knowledge in the category of goods valuable for their own sake and for their consequences. While the servile arts are concerned with the aspects of knowledge that are useful for other purposes, the liberal arts are concerned with knowledge insofar as it is intrinsically valuable. This summer, I took a course about the liberal arts under (married) Baylor Professors David and Elizabeth Corey. In a 2013 article , David Corey explains that “only at a great liberal arts college do we find people engaged in history, science, physics, music, and art as ends in themselves , not as a prelude to a job or a stepping stone to ‘success.’” Elizabeth Corey likewise laments how modern colleges too often sideline liberal education to promote predetermined practical or political purposes. Under these premises, the CMC ethos seems somewhat anathema to the liberal arts. According to its mission, CMC seeks to “prepare its students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership,” suggesting that a CMC education is but a prelude for a future career rather than an end in itself. CMC’s unofficial motto is “learning for the sake of doing,” implying that the ultimate purpose of a CMC education is the future doing rather than the present learning. The unofficial motto also raises an important question: Learning for the sake of doing… what? A liberal arts education is meant to answer these questions—not assume them from the outset. Another professorial couple under whom I studied, Ben and Jenna Storey, argue that “many institutions today have forgotten that liberal education itself was meant to teach the art of choosing, to train the young to use reason to decide which endeavors merit the investment of their lives.” In other words, liberal arts education is not simply deliberation about means. If a student has a particular goal, call it X, a liberal arts education is not about showing the student the most effective way to accomplish X. Rather, a liberal arts education involves a deliberation about ends that will challenge the student to defend and possibly reevaluate her original goal X. This is why the growing lack of viewpoint diversity at CMC is so alarming. If most of a student’s peers have similar beliefs about value, purpose, and meaning, the student loses out on opportunities to learn about competing conceptions of the good life and might leave CMC with some of her most fundamental beliefs unchallenged. CMC’s official motto, “ crescit cum commercio civitas ,” translated as “civilization prospers with commerce,” runs counter to the liberal arts project in a more subtle way. Claremont Independent columnist Charlie Hatcher writes , “as a student seeking a liberal education, I oppose any effort for my college to take an institutional stance on political issues. To do so would be an offense to the university’s truth-seeking mission.” But that is exactly what CMC’s motto does: take an institutional stance on a political issue. The motto makes debatable claims about the nature of civilizational flourishing and the value of commerce. Regardless of whether you find this particular position objectionable, it seems an affront to the liberal arts for a college to assert it dogmatically. As someone who loves both the unique character of CMC and the special project of the liberal arts, the tension between the two is difficult for me to reconcile. And certainly, there are professors, students, and administrators at CMC who are genuinely interested in the liberal arts project. But I think that CMC education might be improved by an increased emphasis on the intrinsic rather than extrinsic value of knowledge and a greater willingness to ask and answer questions about fundamental values.