Michael S Roth

"where all-male fraternities play an important role in social life..there are just too many horror stories waiting to happen. Forcing these organizations to admit women, as well as trans &nonbinary students, can mak[e] campuses safer for all..whatever their gender." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/o...

Read @aoscott.bsky.social on John Berger “What happens when that continuity is disrupted, when that sense of place, of home, of animals as a source of companionship and labor and food, is lost?” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/18/m...

Read @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social & remember Kojeve: “What is the value to human beings maintaining primacy over our own struggle, and how do we weigh it against the easing of that struggle? www.nytimes.com/2026/10/18/o...

Excellent Michael Roth piece on the obvious correlation (insurers know, as he notes) between fraternities & sexual assault/dangerous intoxication — and the vast improvement to campus life & safety that followed Wesleyan’s decision to make them go co-ed or shut down. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/o...

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/...

Congrats @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social prof @maazamengiste.bsky.social www.macfound.org/fellows/clas... @macfound.org

"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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

Wesleyan University’s @msroth.bsky.social from last week’s @realtimers.bsky.social. #highered

“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

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...

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...

"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...

“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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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-...

"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."

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-...

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...

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...

Trump “he has no enduring scale, beyond his own vanity, to judge what’s important or what’s right. And if some in his tiny circle of decision makers do, they lack the courage to tell him.” www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

"Authoritarianism doesn’t have to involve men in suits dragging people into cars...Orban showed that critics — or pockets of independence — can be rendered pliable by making them believe that the smart move is to affirmatively sacrifice some of their independence" @yale.edu wapo.st/3RW4HPo

Spoke with @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social alum @emilydreyfuss.bsky.social about #HigherEd #AI jobs, and #LiberalEducation Full episode @sfstandard.com @aacu.org @aceducation.bsky.social

Read @bardcollege.bsky.social prez @jabannandale.bsky.social "One fears that by the time US academic leaders understand the implications of our current retreat, the country’s leadership in higher education, like in so many other fields, will be lost." www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/even...

White House authoritarian vision for #HigherEd clear at @Smithsonian @SmithsonianSec notes “It scares me when people aren’t brave enough to face their history. And in some ways you have to face it anyway.” @historians.org @Aacu.org @theFIREorg.bsky.org @aaup.org www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/u...

On July 4 I’ll participate in a public reading of the Declaration, & I’ll thank my lucky stars that I live in a country where the links between learning & civic participation are broadly valued & where freedom of speech—linked to freedom of thought—is still cherished www.wesleyan.edu/about/news/2...

“I’m an original,” he said. “What I’m going to wear is something that says freedom.” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/04/u...

Read @jenszalai.bsky.social “After all, putting [cruelty]… first doesn’t have to mean that you give up imagining what could come after you denounce it. One can stare hard at reality as it currently exists and still propose a way forward.” www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/b... via @nytimes.com

Read @mollyjongfast.bsky.social “When Mr. Trump’s authoritarianism is all but underwritten by well-liked public figures and all but ignored by others, its toxic tenets start to look like politics as usual.” www.nytimes.com/2026/06/28/o...

www.wesleyan.edu/about/news/2... @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social

A basic educational idea (in France) “What counts most,” he said, “is an individual’s capacity to understand and grasp ideas.” www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/w...

Read @fieldsmeyer.com & @juliaangwin.com : “At precisely the moment conventional wisdom would say to retreat into the ease of a smaller, more cautious, more guarded life, people facing authoritarianism made their community bigger.” www.nytimes.com/2026/06/16/o... via @nytopinion.nytimes.com

Lobbying against Derrida and relativism, no doubt: “Every Ivy League institution reported increases in legal fees, lobbying bills or both….Vanderbilt’s chancellor, estimated his time in Washington had roughly tripled in 2025.” www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/u...

An extraordinary memory, a more extraordinary heart. “Each book of “Paradise Lost” was like a “gothic cathedral,” he said, that he could enter by closing his eyes. “I’ll tell you,” he added, “it’s very useful at the dentist.” @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/06/09/a...

No night before commencement at Wesleyan University is complete without President @msroth.bsky.social joining the band for a jam session under the tent!

"Practicing education..is like practicing democracy: Both are collaborative, experimental paths of improvement. Both depend on inclusion rather segregation. Both are very much now endangered. If we don’t defend education and protect democracy, we will lose them" www.wesleyan.edu/about/news/2...