At University of Austin (UATX), students are encouraged to speak their minds amid concerns campuses elsewhere have become too polarised.
Welcome to the “anti-woke” university, writes The Telegraph’s US correspondent, Susie Coen – promoted as the antidote to groupthink on college campuses, “and where it is almost impossible to be cancelled”. She continues:
In a seminar room on the third floor of a former department store, things become heated as a group of 16 students passionately debates the upcoming presidential election.
Donald Trump supporters joust fervidly with their liberal counterparts during a discussion where nothing is off limits, no opinion is too uncomfortable, and nobody is at risk of being ostracised if they offend.
Between the freshly painted walls, students are encouraged to vociferously disagree with each other, there is no Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and invoking violence is the only thing that could see someone no-platformed.
Having opened five weeks ago, UATX claims to be a place where students and faculty “have the right to pursue their academic interests and deliberate freely, without fear of censorship or retribution”.
Protection from censorship is one of the things that attracted student Olivia Antunes, 18, to UATX, after she was warned by older friends about the polarising atmosphere on college campuses.
“I’m a very outspoken person, so I was like, I don’t think that’s gonna work for me, because if I say something that a professor doesn’t agree with,” she says.
“I was worried… a paper could get penalised if I’m on a different, opposite side of the spectrum politically than they were”, says Ms Antunes, who describes herself as someone who “leans conservative”.
She was also worried other students could have “dragged [her] through the mud” on social media if she said something they didn’t agree with (phones are banned from classrooms at UATX).
“That’s just not the sort of people who are here. The debates in class have gone a little crazy, really, but never disrespectful”, she says from a leather armchair after finishing her “knowing, doing, making wisdom” seminar.
As a member of the class of 2028, Ms Antunes is one of the university’s “founders,” who, in exchange for risking their futures by taking a punt on a brand new, unaccredited college have their $130,000 tuition fees fully funded.
While UATX was last year granted permission to grant degrees, it cannot become accredited until it graduates its first class.
Pano Kanelos, UATX’s president, came up with the idea to start a new university with former New York Times journalist Bari Weiss three years ago while lamenting the state of “ideologically monocultural” higher education.
He says he is delighted with how the first semester is going.
“Students are excited, they’re engaged, they’re working so hard, and we have a very rigorous curriculum… you can just see the intellectual sweat, they’re just working so hard, and they love it”, he says.
UATX, which boasts the tagline “dare to think” says it offers students an education which “seeks to free the mind from ephemeral dogmas and biases”.
In their final two years they specialise in either the arts, STEM or economics, politics and history.
Senior staff from Musk’s SpaceX and The Boring Company have been involved in developing the school’s engineering programme.
Students also undertake the four-year Polaris Project where they are tasked with designing a project to build, create or discover something that “meets a pressing human need”.
Classes run every weekday apart from Wednesday, to give students time to study.
Worth reading in full.
