Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
President of Wesleyan University. (grand)father, husband, author, professor. Defender of academic freedom, liberal education and democracy.
Michael Scott Roth is an American academic and university administrator. He became the 16th president of Wesleyan University in 2007. Formerly, he was the 8th president of the California College of the Arts (2000–2007), associate director of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, and Director of European Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He was also the H.B. Professor of Humanities at Scripps College, where he was the founding director of the Scripps College Humanities Institute. .. more
Psychology
30%
Philosophy
26%
Opinion | How the Elite Behave When No One Is Watching: Inside the Epstein Emails
www.nytimes.com
Read @anandwrites.bsky.social “the emails depict a group whose highest commitment is to their own permanence in the class that decides things. When principles conflict with staying in the network, the network wins.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/o...
Pop Culture Got Stale. Counterculture Went Right-Wing.
www.nytimes.com
Read @jenszalai.bsky.social quote @wdavidmarx.bsky.social “This long-term project to rebrand conservatism as cool and transgressive succeeded precisely because we removed cultural invention as a potential countervailing force.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/b...
www.nytimes.com
The White House has "given viewpoint diversity a bad odor..not because the federal government was looking for ideological diversity, but because they’re looking for loyalty...How do you negotiate with a partner who’s willing to actually destroy what we do well?" www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/o...
Opinion | ‘We Need to Be Worried’: Three University Leaders on the Fate of Higher Education in the Trump Era
www.nytimes.com
Given the extortionist tactics of the administration, I ask "How do you negotiate with a partner who’s willing to actually destroy what we do well?" @nytopinion.nytimes.com @thefireorg.bsky.social @aacu.org @aceducation.bsky.social @mollyjongfast.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/o...
Opinion | The Lesson We Teach Schoolchildren About the Holocaust Is Wrong
www.nytimes.com
“the branding of political opponents as extremists and foreign agents collapses all distinctions between opposition and enmity, turning political contest into a struggle for survival and disagreement into an existential threat.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/o...
Tell Students the Truth About American History
We owe it to Americans of all ages to be honest about the country’s past, including its contradictions.
www.theatlantic.com
[email protected] “The ability to connect the past &present is one of the most crucial functions of learning history. A curriculum that ignores these connections promotes a kind of lie by omission. We owe it to our young people not to lie to them anymore
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Reposted by Erika Franklin Fowler, Robert C. Richards, Michael S. Roth
At Wesleyan University’s “Dialogue for Change: From Conflict to Action” seminar Anna Deavere Smith and @msroth.bsky.social explored how remembering the past and embracing critique sustain democracy and education. “We can’t go forward unless we remember, unless we confront these ghosts.” #HigherEd
Opinion | The ‘Groyperfication’ of the G.O.P.
www.nytimes.com
Yes, @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social, not a new question but a challenging one for those who only celebrate "critical thinking": "If you don’t believe in the establishment and you don’t believe in any norms, how do you decide what to believe?" @lioneltrolling.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/o...
Conscription for Peace
What peaceful equivalent of war could generate the same sense of urgency and solidarity? William James had an answer.
www.commonwealmagazine.org
"a compulsory..conscription program in which the children of both the rich &poor would spend part of their youth serving the community—would be a thoroughly democratic way to address inequality & rechannel the energies that feed the war machine" Ihttps://www.commonwealmagazine.org/conscription-peace
Why I Am Resigning
A federal judge explains his reasoning for leaving the bench.
www.theatlantic.com
Mark Wolf “I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom… The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
This Poem About Monet’s “Water Lilies” Reflects on the Powers and Limits of Art
“Monet’s ‘Waterlilies,’” by Robert Hayden, reflects on what art can (and can’t) do in tumultuous times. Our critic A.O. Scott shows you why he loves it.
www.nytimes.com
Read AO Scott: “Art can’t save us from anything, but we need it as a reminder of something better” www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Opinion | The New Right’s New Antisemites
Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation flounders in the Tucker Carlson-Nick Fuentes fever swamps.
www.wsj.com
Anti-antisemitism is out, and now traditional Jew hatred is back. www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...
Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders
Crazy how much some media has normalized the idea that voters are taking a risk if they elect governors/mayors who will defy Trump. That he’ll threaten their funding, etc.
Try to imagine, say. Greg Abbott being asked if he’s worried that Biden will punish Texas over his lawsuits.
Try to imagine, say. Greg Abbott being asked if he’s worried that Biden will punish Texas over his lawsuits.
Same thing is true for leaders of colleges & universities
Opinion | How to Be a Good Citizen of a Bad Country
www.nytimes.com
Read @mashagessen.bsky.social “To be a good citizen of a bad state, one has to do scary things... It is weighing leaving against staying, moral obligation against fear, flying under the radar against taking a risk — and opting for the risk.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/o...
Crazy how much some media has normalized the idea that voters are taking a risk if they elect governors/mayors who will defy Trump. That he’ll threaten their funding, etc.
Try to imagine, say. Greg Abbott being asked if he’s worried that Biden will punish Texas over his lawsuits.
Try to imagine, say. Greg Abbott being asked if he’s worried that Biden will punish Texas over his lawsuits.
Opinion | I Thought Graham Platner Was Finished. What I Saw in Maine Changed My Mind.
www.nytimes.com
How to organize against authoritarianism “the slow, patient work of talking to one’s neighbors is the only answer. The starting point for both winning an election and fighting fascism were the same, he said: building networks of people in local communities.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/o...
"If we are to have any hope that good ideas will win and bad ideas will lose, we need a wider range of viewpoints… viewpoint diversity is valuable because it disrupts the greatest..enemy of free inquiry, orthodoxy, which intimidates dissenters into silence" www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...
Americans Think Trump Is Overreaching With His Higher-Ed Compact
Most don’t want the federal government setting colleges’ policies, a new Quinnipiac poll reveals.
www.chronicle.com
My take:“We would do well to remember that American civil society has long been the guardian of our freedoms..Leaders in civil society must be steadfast in opposition to extortion under the guise of dealmaking” @aacu.org @aaup.org @thefireorg.bsky.social @cato.org www.chronicle.com/article/amer...
How Politics Is Changing the Way History Is Taught
www.nytimes.com
We at @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social are developing a civics course for high schools to address what @danagoldstein.bsky.social describes here as fear of teaching young people how to think about American history www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/u...
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 26
President Michael S. Roth on CNN This Morning
Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth '78 appeared on CNN
players.brightcove.net
Spoke with @audiecornish.bsky.social about how White House wants schools to sign loyalty oaths…an anathema to American values & what has made #HigherEducation great. @cnn.com @aacu.org @aceducation.bsky.social @thefireorg.bsky.social @sykescharlie.bsky.social players.brightcove.net/225767975400...
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 24
Opinion | The Rot Creeping Into Our Minds
www.nytimes.com
Read David Brooks “Yes, Trump is launching an assault on democracy. But what worries me more is what has happened over the last few decades to the rest of us. There has been a slow moral, emotional and intellectual degradation” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...
Reposted by Kevin Carey
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 22
Opinion | What’s Lost When Liberal Arts Schools Close
www.nytimes.com
Read @kevincarey1.bsky.social on the importance of preserving liberal arts colleges www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/o...
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 21
The Civil Rights Movement Changed America. We Glorify It at Our Peril.
www.nytimes.com
“Long civil rights historiography seeks not merely to extend timelines or diversify our memory but to excavate submerged political possibilities…and to understand the conditions under which they were abandoned or foreclosed.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/b...
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 19
Opinion | Trump Is Dragging Us Down to His Level
www.nytimes.com
Read @Davidfrenchjag.bsky.social “Every year, this cultural trend reinforces itself. Decency becomes rarer, and decent people feel more isolated.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/o...
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 18
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 16
Thank you
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 15
What’s a College President to Do in the Trump Era?
Not going on bended knee to Washington would be a good start.
www.thebulwark.com
“the enormous power of the federal government is being deployed [for]establishing loyalty to the leader in Washington. The assault on higher ed is part of a broader campaign against institutions in civil society whose legitimacy has not depended on the White House” www.thebulwark.com/p/colleges-u...
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 15
Join a Loyalty Club for Higher Education—While You Still Can!
Another way to show devotion to the nation and to truth.
www.thenation.com
My take on the invitation to join the President’s Loyalty Club: “Those who resist the new Gleichschaltung will argue that faculty and students should never have to sacrifice their freedom and autonomy to align with the leader in the White House.” @aacu.org www.thenation.com/article/poli...
Reposted by Cathy N. Davidson
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
· Oct 13
This Sukkot: A Time for Peace
A time for seeking and a time for losing,
A time for keeping and a time for discarding;
A time for ripping and a time for sewing,
A time for silence and a time for speaking;
A time for loving and a time for hating;
A time for war & a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes
A time for seeking and a time for losing,
A time for keeping and a time for discarding;
A time for ripping and a time for sewing,
A time for silence and a time for speaking;
A time for loving and a time for hating;
A time for war & a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes