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UATX is crumbling fast

I do not trust this article about the chaos at the university of Austin, UATX. The author’s premises are unsound.

The inaugural year of the University of Austin, or UATX as it’s known, had been marked by the frenzy and occasional chaos that one might expect from a start-up aimed at disrupting American higher education. The audacious experiment — the construction of a new university ostensibly based on principles of free expression and academic freedom — had drawn the interest and participation of a star-studded cast of public intellectuals, academics and tycoons.

It was not ostensibly based on principles of free expression and academic freedom. That is a lie. It was populated with a class of disaffected professors who were mad that their right wing views, misogyny, and racism were not getting the love they wanted from existing universities. Free speech was their excuse, but what speech was not allowed? That universities did not like demeaning black students, digging up the graves of Native Americans, harassing women on campus, White Nationalism, hating diversity, or kicking Palestinian students off campus? Those were the issues that motivated the early fans of UATX.

It was built by a couple of billionaires to justify their views, and it was rabidly endorsed by Bari Weiss, who also promoted the Intellectual Dark Web, and is now in the process of destroying the credibility of CBS News. It’s not at all about free speech, and is entirely about propping up a dying authoritarian ideology. Jesus, they’ve even got a bust of Bari Weiss proudly displayed in their library. I can’t take them seriously.

As for their star-studded cast, the author of this article tries to list them, and has to admit that the faculty “lean” right…more like they’re all lying on the floor, clutching their appendix.

The list leaned right, to be sure. Loury, who is Black, zealously opposes affirmative action. Mamet had called Trump “the best president since Abraham Lincoln.” Hock served as chairwoman of an organization called Texas GOP 2020 Victory. Several of the academics had experienced backlash for taking conservative positions. These included Dorian Abbot, a geophysicist who’d had a planned lecture at MIT on extraterrestrial life canceled over his views on DEI; Peter Boghossian, who’d resigned from Portland State University in part because of the institution’s response to his sending hoax articles to academic journals; and University of Sussex professor Kathleen Stock, who’d faced protests over her allegedly transphobic views, which she disputed.

To single out just one of these rogues, Kathleen Stock. She has said that trans women are still males with male genitalia, many are sexually attracted to females, and they should not be in places where females undress or sleep in a completely unrestricted way; she’s a trustee of the LGB Alliance; she has declared that there are only two immutable sexes, man and woman, erasing the existence of people who don’t fall into her binary categorization. Yet she claims she is not transphobic. The author is intentionally ignoring the evidence that UATX was a right wing project all along. His article is full of material that I would use to argue that it was not a credible source from the very beginning.

For instance, here’s an image used in one of their courses (not a science course; I don’t think they have any of those).

OK, we’re done. It’s not possible to defend the intent of the founders of UATX; it’s a house of cards built on a foundation of garbage.

It is true that it seems to be disintegrating, though. There have been prominent defections, included by some actually prominent professors, so it’s collapsing into a dungheap of aggrieved losers. There has lately been a huge conflict at the university.

The night before, the campus had hosted a dinner and conversation between the prominent conservative historian Niall Ferguson and Larry Summers, the former Harvard University president and Treasury secretary. Later, that evening, the billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel would deliver the first of a series of lectures on the Antichrist. People at UATX had grown accustomed to fast-paced action.

But in the afternoon, all of the professors and staff were summoned, quite unusually and mysteriously, to a closed-door meeting. It had been called by Joe Lonsdale, a billionaire entrepreneur who’d co-founded the data analytics company Palantir Technologies with Thiel. Together with Ferguson and the journalist Bari Weiss, Lonsdale had been a driving force behind the creation of UATX and was a member of the board of trustees. But he wasn’t often present on campus, and it was almost unheard of for a member of the board to summon the staff, as Lonsdale had.

The campus was quiet that Wednesday, the first of the spring term. The college, which operates under a quarter system, doesn’t schedule classes on Wednesdays, and so no students would be around to see the staff coming and going from the conference room in the elegant, former department store where UATX had made its home. Through the window, one could see the huge American flag in the atrium, illuminated by a skylight in the ceiling. It was a warm, pleasant day in Austin, but Lonsdale’s mood didn’t match the weather.

“Let’s get right into it,” he said. Then, with heightened affect, Lonsdale explained his vision for UATX — a jingoistic vision with shades of America First rhetoric that contrasted rather sharply with the image UATX had cultivated as a bastion of free speech and open inquiry.

“It was like a speech version of the ‘America love it or leave it’ bumper sticker,” one former staffer told me, and if you didn’t share the vision, the message was “there’s the door, you don’t belong here.” Like many of the people I spoke with for this story, the staffer was granted anonymity for fear of reprisal. “It was the most uncomfortable 35-to-40ish minutes I’ve ever experienced. People were shifting uncomfortably in their seats.”

One attendee described the contents of Lonsdale’s speech as essentially a right-wing version of the Statement of Faith you’ll find at places like Answers in Genesis. You have to subscribe to four principles to work at UATX:

“That all staff and faculty of UATX must subscribe to the four principles of anti-communism, anti-socialism, identity politics, and anti-Islamism (this is the first time I heard of these four principles);

“That ‘communists’ have taken over many other universities and that he, Joe Lonsdale, would stay on the board for fifty years to make sure that no ‘communists’ took over UATX (the identity politics crowd and some Islamists are a threat, but the Marxist-Leninist menace in 2025?)”

Oooh, I guess the identity politics crowd are a threat similar to the Red Scare of the 1950s. To work at UATX you now have to swear on the ghost of Joe McCarthy now, I assume.

Remember, this university that the author claimed was built on a virtuous foundation of Free Speech was actually established with the big money of a billionaire and the propaganda of a Zionist apologist for the Trump administration. That billionaire was…Joe Lonsdale. The mask is off. Many of us could see right through it on the day this lie of an educational institution was announced.

Never trust a billionaire. They all lie.

Typical American Psycho

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Comments

  2. drdrdrdrdralhazeneuler says

    I honestly thought at first that the “ensoulment” picture was humorous.

    People should realise that right-wing oppression is no better than left-wing oppression. It is certainly true that someone who openly declares that he wants to discriminate against political opinion should not be in charge of any government data anywhere.

  3. raven says

    The night before, the campus had hosted a dinner and conversation between the prominent conservative historian Niall Ferguson and Larry Summers, the former Harvard University president and Treasury secretary.

    It is indeed a collection of the worst people in the USA.

    Niall Ferguson is a complete idiot.
    His main claim to fame was defending the Iraq war long after it was obvious that it was a major failure. He is a neocon and British imperialist.

    Larry Summers was kicked out of Harvard for a lot of things but his long standing misogyny was a big part of it. Summers doesn’t think women are very bright.
    Women think Summers is a hater to be avoided.

  4. Alan G. Humphrey says

    From that Ensoulment image, “Raises the question: if there’s only one soul at conception, which twin receives it?”

    Obviously, the evil one, the thieving fucker…

  5. Reginald Selkirk says

    ostensibly based on principles of free expression and academic freedom

    I notice when the mean people get together to discuss ‘cancel culture’ they never seem to mention Colin Kaepernick.

  6. Jean says

    Their definitions:

    Freedom: you’re free to say, think and look the way we do and only this way.

    Free speech: we can say whatever we want and you can’t stop us, you have to listen to us and you can’t complain or rebut any of it.

    And any harm that comes from not following and respecting this is entirely justified, including death.

  7. garnetstar says

    So, the fascist right-wingers were stupid and naive enough (looking at you, Bari Weiss) to believe that the Big Billionaire wanted to buy “unfettered free speech” (meaning, their own particular hateful and rigid ideology?) They were all that sunk into and blinded by their resentment and idiology?

    Seems so. As PZ says, from day one, most people not so blinded did, and do, understand how capitalism works: big billionaires buy things to advance their own person strict and restrictive (not to mention, dictarorial and insane) power-agenda, to which all must adhere or be banned (See: Twitter)

    Poor fools! /s. No pity at all for those who steadily stare at a fantasy of indulging their evil and hateful wishful thinking instead of attending to the facts on the ground.

    Isn’t there some line in Shakespeare excoriating such idiocy? “He who pays the piper calls the tune”, or something?

  9. indianajones says

    The idea that there could be a credible and fact based compromise position between a theologian and a biological viewpoint un-held by biologists, that this was put on paper by someone who then said said to themselves ‘Job done, beer o’clock!’, is hilarious to me.

  10. chrislawson says

    @9– QFT.

    I notice that the “Religious View” only describes the conservative Christian perspective, with a weasel “many” to fake-acknowledge other beliefs without describing any of them.

    That image is copied straight from the Wikipedia entry on ensoulment — no problems there, it’s under a CC license — but the Wikipedia page has a good summary of the religious controversies around ensoulment in its first 2 paragraphs. That is, the author hasn’t honestly reflected on the source material.

    Even the so-called “Compromise” is wrong. The vast majority of biologists don’t accept ensoulment at all, and most of those who do acknowledge that it is a non-scientific belief. Besides, there’s no “compromise” position a tenet and its skewering refutation.

    Even worse, all the views described, including the “biological”, are written to imply that 14 days is the magic moment…which just happens to be the earliest most women will know they’re pregnant. This is just fake science to support a crude anti-abortion agenda.

  11. dangerousbeans says

    Remember when the threat of people being attracted to women in women’s spaces was focused on cis lesbians? You would think a “trustee of the LGB Alliance” would

  13. Hemidactylus says

    Sure there’s plenty to blast Pinker for, but his quote seemed to nail it on the head:

    “Dissociation was the only choice,” Pinker told me in an email. “I bristled at their Trump-Musk-style of trolling, taunting, and demonizing, without the maturity and dignity that ought to accompany a major rethinking of higher education.” Furthermore, Pinker added, “UATX had no coherent vision of what higher education in the 21st century ought to be. Instead, they created UnWoke U led by a Faculty of the Canceled.”

    That last part stung painfully. So on the nose.

  14. StevoR says

    @ 10 chrislawson : Spot on. Biblically as Betty Bowers explain here – 1 min 45 secs mark (under 5 mins total length) the soul apparently waits for a month – after birth -before “ensouling.” Leviticus 27.6. I’d take Betty Bowers expertise over the UATX mobs anyday.

    @5. Reginald Selkirk : “I notice when the mean people get together to discuss ‘cancel culture’ they never seem to mention Colin Kaepernick.”

    Yes and others such as Yassmin Abdel-Magied :

    An essay originally published by the Griffith Review in April 2017 was reprinted in The Guardian on 6 July, along with a short introduction describing the extremity of the behaviours to which she (Abdel-Magied -ed) had been subjected. She had been trolled relentlessly after her Q&A appearance and Anzac Day post, including being sent videos of beheadings and rapes with suggestions that the same should happen to her. She was subjected to daily death threats on social media as well as abusive telephone calls, forcing her to change her phone number, move house and delete social media accounts.[57][58] She later said that she had become “Australia’s most publicly hated Muslim”.[5]

    Some continued to threaten her publicly, including on National Radio; “She has fled the country and is blaming all of us,” Prue MacSween said. “She says she’s been betrayed by Australia and didn’t feel safe in her own country. Well actually she might have been right there, because if I had seen her I would have been tempted to run her over mate.”[59]

    Other commentators said that she had been the victim of “character assassination”, Islamophobia[60] and her feminism.[61] Susan Carland likened the media frenzy after the Q&A incident to a witch-hunt, saying that The Australian ran four front pages as well as 26 editorials and opinion pieces, and every major news site in the country had run at least one piece on it. The Murdoch-owned Newscorp media had been particularly vicious in their attacks.[62][63] Writer Randa Abdel-Fattah wrote “Abdel-Magied has come to represent everything that Islamophobia hates – but actually loves – about ‘the Muslim problem..’

    Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yassmin_Abdel-Magied#Controversy_(2017)

    Oh and, of course, recently here Randa Abdel-Fattah herself was “disinvited” from the Adelaide Writers Week Festival in a move that badly backfired, seeing her books sell out locally, the Writers festival collapse as other artists pulled out in solidarity and her suing our state Premier for some of his comments against her.

    Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah says her lawyers have threatened defamation proceedings against South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas following his public commentary about her scheduled appearance at Adelaide Writers’ Week. In a social media post, Abdel-Fattah said her lawyers on Wednesday issued a concerns notice on Mr Malinauskas under the Defamation Act. She described the premier’s commentary as a “vicious personal assault”.

    Abdel-Fattah was removed from the Adelaide Writers’ Week line-up last week — a controversial decision that led to the board’s resignation and the cancellation of the event.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-14/randa-abdel-fattah-threatens-defamation-proceedings/106227634

  15. Hemidactylus says

    There were many threads woven through that article. Odd that Leo Strauss may have been a flashpoint. He was a grandaddy of neocon ideology. Not full fashy like Carl Schmitt, but had a negative impact on conservativism before MAGA went full friend/enemy and state of exception (Minnesota may become a pretext).

    A faction competing with Kanelos’ included Lonsdale and several of his allies. Their view is difficult to categorize, and no two people described the lines of division the same way. Some framed it as a battle between the conservatives and the libertarians. Others saw it as the classicists versus the tech bros. But one name came up far more often than any other: Leo Strauss.
    […]
    Kanelos’ view of the academy emphasized pluralism and the individual’s search for truth. On the other side, the Straussians weren’t quite so agnostic. They had a view of the common good they wanted to assert.

    Also some rifts between UATX and both the Mill Institute and FIRE, the former for being too soft on DEI and the latter for defending Harvard.

    A key quote:

    “When we were no longer aligned with FIRE and the Mill Institute, I knew that we were fucked,” Conlin said.

    Then some Manhattan Institute statement that Boghossian signed onto along with Chris Rufo, Jordan Peterson, and some other asshats.

    Tension increases:

    In a last-ditch effort of sorts, Rauch, Haidt and Strossen organized a call with Carvalho. The discussion didn’t inspire confidence in the group, said someone with knowledge of the call who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. Carvalho basically told them that UATX was a right-wing project, and that they’d known this when they signed up. But that wasn’t what any of them had believed.
    […]
    Haidt and Rauch quietly separated from UATX shortly thereafter. Neither responded to a request for comment.

    So they managed to alienate both Pinker and Haidt. Not a good sign there. Boghossian as far as I can tell is still on the bandwagon.

    He’s still on the website:
    https://www.uaustin.org/people/peter-boghossian

    Pinker and Haidt have other gigs.

  17. Hemidactylus says

    Looking more closely at the UATX board of advisors they do have one trans woman, economist Deirdre McCloskey. I wonder if she will stick around.

  18. anat says

    Of course religious Jews don’t count towards the ‘religious view’. It is not an uncommon thought among Jews that the soul enters the body when the newborn starts breathing. And of course those who ask the ‘which twin gets the soul’ are going to say – what is a soul and what evidence is there that it exists?

  19. birgerjohansson says

    If Jeff Yass and other far-right billionaires want to burn their ill-spent money on hobby projects that go nowhere it is better than donating to / bribing politicians, or buying up media to propagate their views.

    Let them make a UATX in every state, or other vanity projects. Tell them to invest in bringing fourth cryogenics technology. It will never result in preserving humans after death but at least might produce tech to store organs for transplantation.

  20. Silentbob says

    @ 11 dangerousbeans

    Remember when the threat of people being attracted to women in women’s spaces was focused on cis lesbians? You would think a “trustee of the LGB Alliance” would

    Stock identifies as a lesbian, having come out after a decades long marriage to a man and having two sons.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Stock#Personal_life

    To be clear, not doubting her. Just saying it’s weird to say, “many are sexually attracted to females, and they should not be in places where females undress or sleep in a completely unrestricted way”.

  21. chrislawson says

    birgerjohansson@19–

    Agree on your cryogenics point, hard disagree on UATX.

    The very existence of these pseudo-universities involves wealthy donors swinging money about to achieve political aims such as getting accredited by the state, lobbying for recognition, appointing only mouthpieces, and so on. UATX’s biggest donors are Trump-adjacent billionaires with histories of targeted political spending.

  23. Hemidactylus says

    Yeah if you’re trying to present yourself as a heterodox alternative you want to cultivate ties with Pinker and Haidt and not jettison FIRE. Serious own goal! Dawkins is too addled to matter one way or the other and ideologue Boghossian is too much of a joke. Fuck that guy.

    Pinker seriously dissed UATX in the crucial quote in my @13: “Instead, they created UnWoke U led by a Faculty of the Canceled.” I might not like him but give him kudos for that burn (indirectly on Boghossian). That quote belongs on a highlight reel for that “university” and a t-shirt.

    Taciturn Haidt not so much, but at least he also bailed on that shitshow.

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