Below are links to some recent bylines by Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth.
October 14, 2025 - The Nation
Join a Loyalty Club for Higher Education—While You Still Can!
In the decade or so after the end of World War II, higher-education leaders across the country collaborated with Senator Joseph McCarthy’s effort to rid the land of communists. For example, the president of the University of California, Robert Sproul, underscored that there was no constitutional right to a job, and if faculty wanted to exercise free speech by aligning with America’s enemies, then they would be fired. If you wanted to be paid to teach, you signed a loyalty oath. [ Read More ]
October 13, 2025 - The Bulwark
What’s a College President to Do in the Trump Era
For generations, conservatives have criticized programs that offer favors to people in ways that increase their dependence on the government. Now we have a president who wraps himself in the cloak of conservatism while insisting on obedience from those institutions and their leaders who depend on his largesse.
[ Read More ]
September 16, 2025 - The New York Times
Affirmative Action Is Dead. What Should Universities Do Now?
Authoritarians use fear to stifle dissent; they make a spectacle of punishing some to ensure the obedience of all. Yet, as Driver writes [in The Fall of Affirmative Action], “it is precisely when universities are most under siege that they must safeguard their core commitments.” The siege is well underway, and one can only hope that university leaders, faculty members and students will consult this worthy book as they work to ensure that those commitments survive. [ Read More ]
September 12, 2025 - Inside Higher Ed
Education as Freedom
We want to learn to think for ourselves in the company of others, leaving behind a dependence on authority. Authoritarians would see us impose immaturity upon ourselves. As the new school year begins, we in higher education must redouble our efforts to model and defend the enlightenment ideals of education and freedom—while we still can. [ Read More ]
August 6, 2025 - Time
What Jewish Tradition Teaches Us About the Violence in Gaza
The Torah is clear enough. Even in a time of war, even when conditions are most brutal, Jews are commanded to observe restraint, to practice proportionality. The rabbis expanded on this notion over the centuries. The commandment of bal taschit prohibits wasteful destruction and is especially relevant in military conflict because in the fog of war humans can feel justified in destroying anything in their paths. [ Read More ]
July 16, 2025 - Politico
Why I’m Rooting for Harvard, Just This Once
Nothing good will come from forcing schools as different as Hillsdale and Harvard, the University of Texas and the University of Virginia to conform to the president’s image — any president’s image — of what higher education should be. [ Read More ]
July 2, 2025 - MeidasTouch Network
A Message from a University President: Jim Ryan’s Questions
Jim Ryan understood his university’s mission, and he worked with “honesty, integrity, trust and respect” to further it. The success of the DOJ’s cynical demand that he resign for doing his job is a sad indication of the level of vindictiveness coming from the White House. [ Read More ]
Read older bylines here.