Reform must be built on merit, courage, & principle, not nepotism, ideology, & secret handshakes. Affirmative action for anyone is bad. Demanding loyalty oaths & unquestioning docility while selecting for personal connections & membership in certain networks is even worse.

Civic schools must reject the prestige-thirst that nearly led UF to hire Santa Ono. Academia has enough CRT, decolonial, & DEI activists. Instead, we must hire fearless scholars immune to group think & social pressure, & unwaveringly devoted to colorblind equality & free speech.

Schools devoted to leadership must model integrity, accountability, & openness to feedback. They must not be led in authoritarian, tyrannical ways. They should honor university policy & at least basic norms of self-governance. They should reject bullying, retaliation, & deceit.

Schools devoted to civil discourse must exemplify it, starting at the top. They must welcome disagreement, not punish it. They must prize rigorous Socratic questioning, not coddle mediocrity. They must nurture & reward civility, not slanderous sophistry & lazy ad hominem attacks.

Civic schools must boldly engage the West's greatest texts & our most important questions. Not just in a class or two but across the curriculum. A redecorated status quo or a silo for conservative careerism is utterly impotent to reform academia, cultivate virtue, & change lives.

I thought civic schools were our best shot at renewing higher ed. That may still be true. But we stand poised between two futures: Aristotle or Nietzsche. Power is essential. But without virtue, power is not enough. Not if the aim is real, lasting reform and a truly common good.

@DavidDecosimo Could you clarify or explain in more detail exactly what happened? It's difficult for a reader to evaluate what happened here or why. It sounds like you may be talking about specific disagreements among those who agree in the broad project of "civic schools"

@DavidDecosimo I hope you land on your feet quickly. As a father helping his son look at universities my biggest fear is ending up at a place that values woke values above merit. But where?

@DavidDecosimo @gummibear737 adjustments needed to be made after the TCU loss

@DavidDecosimo What? Lee Roberts signed off on this?

@DavidDecosimo Terrible news. “Without explanation” sounds to the law a lot like “without cause.” That can’t be legal.

@DavidDecosimo Sorry to hear this development. Much seems up to readers to infer. Socratic questioning and using certain texts across the curriculum sound like large lifts. I’m curious why these are your focus. Why is uniformity better than decentralization? Why is this uniformity the best?

@DavidDecosimo Why do we need so many Deans.. ?

@DavidDecosimo @POTUS he needs a position in your administration

@DavidDecosimo UNC was one of the schools called out for racist admissions- how quickly they slip back into their ways.

@DavidDecosimo I see why you got canned. Good luck to you.

@DavidDecosimo Get a lawyer and sue them for firing you based on parental leave.

@DavidDecosimo Wow I'm so sorry!!! Will you be able to keep your tenured position?

@DavidDecosimo UNC is lost. Chapel Hill campus allowed out of control Palestine protests to loudly take over the entire campus. They allowed the people responsible ride open pickups with Al Quada flags flying behind them absolutely terrorizing everyone. Disgusting.

@DavidDecosimo Based on your thread here I can see why you were fired. You make too much sense and don't buy into leftist Marxist ideology. A better school will gladly have you. This says way more about UNC than it does about you.

@DavidDecosimo Shocking. Just terrible. I'm so sorry. Their loss. What a thing to do, particularly at the beginning of the academic year. Not that it would have been acceptable at any time.

@DavidDecosimo UNC’s ambitions transcend civics such as mere states and nations, but its capacity falls well short of those ambitions. Many such cases

@DavidDecosimo @TheFIREorg help this man

@DavidDecosimo See this, @JohnDSailer?? In your backyard.

@DavidDecosimo Really sorry to hear this.

@DavidDecosimo David, I’m so very sorry to hear this.

@DavidDecosimo Sorry to hear this. You allude to MacIntyre, and he warned that in a corrupt culture virtue makes one systematically unfit for “success”. In the long run your family may be blessed by this. Peace!

@DavidDecosimo @gummibear737 SWMNNA Straight white males need not apply

@DavidDecosimo This hurts my heart for our great state and for the higher education community as a whole. I pray that you will soon be placed in a higher education institution that will allow you to teach and guide truth to the full capacity that you need to do it. We need more university

@DavidDecosimo This is very interesting. I once taught at a “classical” high school affiliated with a famous classically inclined university. Lots of nepotism and hiring mostly from approved academic pedigrees. Sad if that is the norm in the broader civic school movement too.

@DavidDecosimo I am so deeply sorry to hear this.

@DavidDecosimo @elonmusk this man was fired for exercising his free speech.

@DavidDecosimo 😢 the kind of mind parents yearn to teach their children.

@DavidDecosimo Please keep us updated--so many stand with you. I'm so sorry to hear what's happened.

@DavidDecosimo @CivilRights

@DavidDecosimo Wow they really took last night’s loss seriously.