Across much of the country, Republican officials are reaching into K-12 classrooms and universities alike to exert control over what can be taught. In Florida, Texas, and many other states, laws now restrict teaching historical facts about race and racism. Book challenges and bans are surging. Public universities are seeing political meddling in the tenure process. Advocates of these measures say, in effect, that education must emphasize only the positive aspects of American history. Nikole Hannah-Jones, the New York Times Magazine reporter who developed the 1619 Project, and Jelani Cobb, the dean of the Columbia University School of Journalism, talk with David Remnick about the changing climate for intellectual freedom. “I just think it’s rich,” Hannah-Jones says, “that the people who say they are opposing indoctrination are in fact saying that curricula must be patriotic.” She adds, “You don’t ban books, you don’t ban curriculum, you don’t ban the teaching of ideas, just to do it. You do it to control what we are able to understand and think about and imagine for our society.”
The Origins of “Braiding Sweetgrass”
Tessa Hadley on What Decades of Failure Taught Her About Writing
Talking to Conservatives about Climate Change
The Novelist Esmeralda Santiago on Learning to Write After a Stroke
Will the End of Affirmative Action Lead to the End of Legacy Admissions?
James McBride on His New Novel, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store”
Emily Nussbaum on the Culture Wars in Country Music
A Trip to the Boundary Waters
Regina Spektor on “Home, Before and After”
Colson Whitehead on “Crook Manifesto”
Adapting Robert Oppenheimer’s Story to Film, Plus Greta Gerwig on Becoming a Director
Donovan Ramsey on “When Crack Was King”
A Mysterious Third Party Enters the Presidential Race
How to Buy Forgiveness from Medical Debt
The Conspiracies of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Beyoncé Takes the Stage
Russia’s No-Good, Very Failed Coup, and Jill Lepore on Amending the Constitution
Jonathan Mitchell, a Prominent Anti-Abortion Lawyer, on Restraining the Power of the Supreme Court
A Year of Change for a North Dakota Abortion Clinic, and the Composer John Williams
Singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun, Plus Bryan Washington
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