8 Unforgettable Lessons from the American Freethought Movement to Revive Your Intellectual Independence

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0400

Showtime. It’s 1879, and the hall in New York is packed well past legal capacity. People are sitting in the aisles, propping themselves against the back wall, leaning in because they don’t want to miss a syllable. The man gripping the lectern is tall, with a voice that lands like a friendly check. His name is Robert Ingersoll, and he has just announced the title of his lecture: Some Mistakes of Moses.

Cracking: Why Free Inquiry on Campus Needs a Deathbed Reprieve

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0400

It was a scene they all pretend we’m not repeating. A tenured professor of political theory—call her Dr. A—waited for a zoom call to load. The email subject line was polite, almost corporate: “A pre-circulated draft for your consideration.” The committee of her own faculty peers had one request, two actually: 1) cut the seminar text on campus speech codes because it “openly sympathized” with a controversial public figure’s book; 2) withdraw the op-ed she’d written about foreign policy before the chair had to sign it. Nothing was forbidden. Nothing was explicit. A pen hovered near a signature of a document that had already been internalized.

Free-Speech on Rational America

8 Unforgettable Lessons from the American Freethought Movement to Revive Your Intellectual Independence

Cracking: Why Free Inquiry on Campus Needs a Deathbed Reprieve