Fall 2023 Dunbar Lecture - Peter Boghossian

“My University Sacrificed Ideas for Ideology. So Today I Quit. The more I spoke out against the illiberalism that has swallowed Portland State University, the more retaliation I faced.”

Philosopher Peter Boghossian is a vocal critic of the culture of the American university, arguing that our higher education system has turned toward illiberal ideology, free speech suppression, low standards, and “wokeness.”

After witnessing students refuse to engage with different points of view and seeing professors accused of bigotry for teaching male, European authors, he stirred the academic hornet’s nest by publicly questioning the new values dominating the university, asking what the evidence was for needing “trigger warnings,” why the lens of race consciousness should dominate the role of educators, and why “cultural appropriation” was supposed to be immoral. Noticing how many students had become afraid to speak openly and honestly, he spoke out strongly against the ideological indoctrination of college students. He also began to publish deliberately garbled, ridiculous articles in academic journals to show how questionable the standards were in fields dedicated to “grievance studies”.

The more he spoke out, the more retaliation he faced. He was harassed, charged with a Title IX violation (for which he was found innocent), spit on, threatened, and had his office vandalized.

Eventually he resigned from his university.

Boghossian now speaks to a wide public on these issues. He has over 100,000 YouTube subscribers, over 200,000 Twitter followers, recently started a project criticizing NPR as absurdly biased (All Things Re-Considered), and has appeared on numerous national television, radio, and podcast programs.

The Dunbar Lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Patrick Hopkins at hopkipd@millsaps.edu.

The Dunbar Lecture series was founded by Jack Dunbar in honor of Millsaps philosophy professor Robert E. Bergmark.