Trust in HIgher Education

Elite academia leans heavily to the left.

Report of the Yale Committee  on Trust in Higher Education

 It should come as no surprise that trust in higher education has fallen most among those Americans who identify as Republican or conservative. According to Gallup, the percentage of self-identified Republicans who expressed “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education declined from 56 percent in 2015 to 26 percent in 2025, while confidence among Democrats fell more modestly, from 68 to 61 percent.42 In one national survey, only 19 percent of Republicans expressed “quite a lot” of confidence that the nation’s leading research universities “teach students neutrally and without political bias.”43 

The complaint that colleges and universities lean left is hardly new. William F. Buckley, Jr., made much the same case about Yale in 1951.44 Yet something distinctive has happened in recent decades. In 1989 approximately 40 percent of the nation’s faculty identified as liberal, 40 percent as moderate, and 20 percent as conservative. By 2014, those numbers had shifted to 60 percent liberal, 30 percent moderate, and 10 percent conservative.45 Of course it is not just the faculty that has changed. The political system has changed too. Fifty years ago, the Democratic and Republican parties were less ideologically divided than they are today. As the parties resorted, so did the partisan preferences of many professions, including within higher education. 

42 Jeffrey M. Jones, “U.S. Confidence in Higher Education Now Closely Divided,” Gallup, July 8, 2024; Jones, “U.S. Public Trust in Higher Ed Rises From Recent Low.” 43 Ken Goldstein, “Yale public opinion studies: September 2025 national, state, and local studies,” presentation, November 19, 2025. 44 William F. Buckley, Jr., God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom (Regnery, 1951). 45 Samuel J. Abrams, “Mind the Professors,” The American Interest, March 10, 2017. 

The Shadow Docket's Origin Story

Many posts have discussed the judiciary.

  Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak at NYT:

Just after 6 p.m. on a February evening in 2016, the Supreme Court issued a cryptic, one paragraph ruling that sent both climate policy and the court itself spinning in new directions.

For two centuries, the court had generally handled major cases at a stately pace that encouraged care and deliberation, relying on written briefs, oral arguments and in-person discussions. The justices composed detailed opinions that explained their thinking to the public and rendered judgment only after other courts had weighed in.

But this time, the justices were sprinting to block a major presidential initiative. By a 5-to-4 vote along partisan lines, the order halted President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, his signature environmental policy. They acted before any other court had addressed the plan’s lawfulness. The decision consisted of only legal boilerplate, without a word of reasoning.

At the time, the ruling seemed like a curious one-off. But that single paragraph turned out to be a sharp and lasting break. That night marks the birth, many legal experts believe, of the court’s modern “shadow docket,” the secretive track that the Supreme Court has since used to make many major decisions, including granting President Trump more than 20 key victories on issues from immigration to agency power.

Since that night a decade ago, the logic behind the Supreme Court’s pivotal 2016 order has remained a mystery. Why did a majority of the justices bypass time-tested procedures and opt for a new way of doing business?

The answer would remain secret for generations, legal experts predicted. “We’ll never know (at least, until our grandkids can read the justices’ internal papers from that time period),” Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown, wrote in a newsletter in February marking the anniversary of the order.

The New York Times has obtained those papers and is now publishing them, bringing the origins of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket into the light.

The 16 pages of memos, exchanged in a five-day dash, provide an extraordinarily rare window into the court, showing how the justices talk to one another outside of public view.

 

Problems at Federal Agencies

 Many posts have discussed federal employment and bureaucracy.

Thomas Frank at Politico:

President Donald Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

He approved just 23 percent of disaster funding requests from states with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators since returning to office 14 months ago. For states with a Republican governor and two Republican senators, it’s the opposite — Trump has approved 89 percent of their requests.

There has never been such a sharp partisan disparity in the approval of federal disaster funds since FEMA was created in 1979, according to a review of 2,500 natural disaster declarations by POLITICO’s E&E News.

The denials have blocked Democratic-led states from getting a total of $250 million in disaster aid that would have been approved by every previous president including Trump in his first term, E&E News found.

Trump rejected most of the requests even after FEMA had documented that the damage met its financial threshold to warrant receiving federal aid.

 Sarah Fitzpatrick writes at The Atlantic about FBI Director Kash Patel:

Several officials told me that Patel’s drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C., while in the presence of White House and other administration staff. He is also known to drink to excess at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends parts of his weekends. Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights, six current and former officials and others familiar with Patel’s schedule told me.

On multiple occasions in the past year, members of his security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated, according to information supplied to Justice Department and White House officials. A request for “breaching equipment”—normally used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings—was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors, according to multiple people familiar with the request.

Some of Patel’s colleagues at the FBI worry that his personal behavior has become a threat to public safety. An FBI director is expected to be available and focused on his job—especially when the nation is at war with a state sponsor of terrorism. Current and former officials told me that they have long worried about what would happen in the event of a domestic terrorist attack while Patel is in office, and they said that their apprehension has increased significantly in the weeks since Trump launched his military campaign against Iran. “That’s what keeps me up at night,” one official said

Democratic Decline in 2025

Previous posts have discussed authoritarian moves by the executive branch.

Jonathan Schulman and Richard Wike at Pew:

The health of America’s democracy declined in 2025, according to new evaluations from organizations that have long tracked how well democracies around the world are working.

The assessments come as most Americans say democracy in the United States used to be a good example for other countries to follow but has not been in recent years, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. And roughly seven-in-ten Americans are dissatisfied with the way their democracy is working. (Read more below.)

The new ratings of America’s democracy come from three organizations:The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute surveys scholars and country experts to rate countries on elements of democracy including free and fair elections, checks and balances and civil rights.

Freedom House publishes the yearly Freedom in the World report, which rates countries on political rights and civil liberties and is based on the views of local experts.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) publishes the annual Democracy Index, which rates countries on electoral processes, governance, civil liberties, political participation and political culture.

 

Hegseth Fake Bible Verse

Many posts have discussed patriotism and the role of religion in American life.

Charlie Nash at Mediaite:

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth read a fake Bible quote from Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 movie Pulp Fiction during a prayer service at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

Discussing the Sandy 1 rescue mission of a downed pilot in Iran this month, Hegseth (as first flagged by A Public Witness, a religion-themed Substack) urged his audience to join him in a prayer, which he claims was delivered at the beginning of the mission.

“This prayer was recited by Sandy 1, which is one of the Sandies, to all Sandies, all those A-10 crews, prior to all CSAR missions, but especially this CSAR mission, which happened in real time,” Hegseth said. “They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17.”

He continued:

So the prayer is CSAR 25:17 and it reads, and pray with me please, “The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Amen.”

While the prayer didn’t sound very much like Ezekiel 25:17, which — in the King James Bible — simply reads, “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them,” it did bear a strong resemblance to a fake version of Ezekiel 25:17 quoted by the actor Samuel L. Jackson in Tarantino’s 1994 crime movie Pulp Fiction, just before his character shoots a man to death.

🇺🇸🚨‼️ SUPER CUT: Secretary of War Hegseth reads a US Air Force version of the fictional Bible verse from Pulp Fiction.

Whether this is awesome or stupid is up to you. pic.twitter.com/5HuFz8dcrD

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 16, 2026

Getting Local News

 Many posts have dealt with media problems.

From Pew:

Americans turn to a range of sources for their local news, and while some traditional local news sources such as TV and radio remain common, growing numbers get local news in other ways.

About two-thirds of Americans (65%) say they at least sometimes get news from their local TV news station – down slightly from the 70% who said the same in 2018, though this remains one of the most popular sources of local news. Americans’ use of local newspapers is decreasing, too: 36% of U.S. adults say they get news from their local daily paper at least sometimes in 2025, compared with 43% in 2018.

Rising shares of Americans are getting local news at least sometimes from online forums or discussion groups (52%, up from 38% in 2018), as well as from local government agencies or officials (40%, up from 30%).

The sharpest growth in usage came from other online-only sources. As of 2025, 42% of U.S. adults say they get news at least sometimes from a source that publishes online only (and was not included in any of the other categories), more than double the share that used these sources in 2018 (15%).

Whisper Network

Many posts have discussed social media. 

Melanie Mason and Jeremy B. White at Politico:

Five months before Arielle Fodor, better known on social media as “Mrs. Frazzled,” helped set in motion the downfall of Rep. Eric Swalwell, she was singing his praises on Instagram.

“You know how I love to tell you when I meet a politician who acts like a normal human and not a robot!” she posted the day after the California Democrat launched his campaign for governor. “Eric is that.” 

It was a fairly anodyne post for Fodor, a prodigious professional poster. But it drew an unusual response: Three people privately warning her that Swalwell was no good.

Those messages were the embers of a firestorm that in short order incinerated Swalwell’s campaign, and is now engulfing what remains of his political career.

Swalwell suspended his campaign Sunday, days after multiple news outlets reported on allegations that he sexually harassed women, had sexual relationships with subordinate staff and, in two cases, committed sexual assault. Swalwell has denied accusations he had nonconsensual sex with anybody, though he acknowledged “personal failings.”

The broad contours of Swalwell’s alleged behavior, if not the specifics, did not come as a surprise to many working in and around politics, especially in Washington. The 45-year-old cable news darling and Trump antagonist had developed a reputation for unsavory and sometimes unwanted behavior toward women. Those warnings were shared in whisper networks but rarely traveled outside the circle of political insiders.

That is, until Swalwell sought a promotion to lead the nation’s most populous state and a pair of content creators worked to spill that open secret into public view. His breakneck undoing is a testament to the striking power of a new media ecosystem in which influencers with huge audiences can not only publicize politicians, but control the political conversation. Their growing clout has thrust campaigns into a new digital Wild West, where long-buried allegations and unsubstantiated rumors can find their earliest stages of vetting, a warning for politicians at all levels, including in the run-up to 2028.

On paper, it was a lopsided matchup. Swalwell had a national profile and support from many in the Democratic Party apparatus. Fodor and another content creator, Cheyenne Hunt — along with behind-the-scenes help from Hunt’s friend, a woman who alleged she had been personally harassed by Swalwell and still remains anonymous — had their keyboards and iPhone cameras.