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
[unclosed ‘Gumby’ tag at “To single out […]]
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.
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.
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…
I notice when the mean people get together to discuss ‘cancel culture’ they never seem to mention Colin Kaepernick.
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.
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?
What free speech looks like:
APSU to pay $500,000 to professor fired, then reinstated over Charlie Kirk post
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.
@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.
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
Lonsdale is also the POS who wants to bring back public hangings.
Sure there’s plenty to blast Pinker for, but his quote seemed to nail it on the head:
That last part stung painfully. So on the nose.
@ 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 :
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.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-14/randa-abdel-fattah-threatens-defamation-proceedings/106227634
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).
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:
Then some Manhattan Institute statement that Boghossian signed onto along with Chris Rufo, Jordan Peterson, and some other asshats.
Tension increases:
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.
Look who is still on the UATX roster:
https://www.uaustin.org/our-people?duty=board+of+advisors
Richard Dawkins is still on the board of advisors. Didn’t get the memo I see.
https://www.uaustin.org/people/richard-dawkins
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.
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?
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.
@ 11 dangerousbeans
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”.
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.
Chrislawson @ 21
Thanks.
.
Regarding ensoulment and other spirit shenagians, just call this small kid to kick supernatural ass.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pot5jSMfUZQ
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.
I couldn’t work it out from the picture. When do fetuses get basted in the Good Lord sacred fluids? /s
Also fetuses can split after 13 days, and in those instances they become conjoined twins. Does god give them an extra ensoulment drenching, or does one of the conjoined get the sloppy seconds.
Since souls have no measurable affect or evidence in the real world and neither twins or souls are mentioned in the Bible who is to say that twins do not share a single soul. Or God provides the woman with a selection of souls, most of which wander away & have adventures when they are not needed. Just make up more theology to say what you want it to say. The job is not hard.
“Hello, is that Central Casting? Yeah, look, I know we asked for a standard corporate villain, but this guy you’ve sent us is too much. We were thinking ‘Goldman Sachs’, not ‘Umbrella Corporation’…”
I mean, what sort of monster wears a charcoal chalkstripe jacket with jeans? And I do believe those are single monkstrap apron stitched chukka boots, of all the ludicrous things… They have to be bespoke, because nobody in their right mind would dream of making such a thing otherwise. I bet he thinks he looks really cool.
They are interested to know when the soul enters the body so they can steal it and sell it to the person later in pieces with a life-long paymen plan. Or to the devil for some lump cash. By now these people have established themselves as so thoroughly evil, they might as well actually believe that.
Soul as a subscription model? Sounds like a great scam or black mirror ep. I’m surprised it hasn’t been tried (Don’t tell if it has, I’m not sure I could bear the stupid.).
Well, back in the day the catholic church sold indulgences which supposedly allowed people to shorten their deceased loved one’s ordeal in purgatory for money. See, they preached that the various saints had done so many good deeds that their was surplus good “karma” which could be auctioned off. The grift was always with the religious. That’s what happens when you sell invisible goods.
Hiran is the village atheist with an IQ of 150. Danny is the village idiot with an IQ of 50 How do souls and IQs interact?
When Kristian nationalist homophobic bigot Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced the project and that he was ponying up $6 million of taxpayer money, we knew it was a scam. Also, trying to fake people out by calling it the “University of Austin UTAX” when there is already a University of Texas at Austin, UT, was a deliberate marketing ploy to give this Babble College a whiff of legitimacy. They should have called it Heritage Hillsdale Liberty Bob Jones Freedom Eagle Patriot College. Face it, a “degree” from this outfit will get you a job at McDonald’s or Secretary of State; it’s a coin toss.
All these people and that ‘institution’ are Just more reasons why the 1 star of the lone star state is their rating: 1 out of 5 stars.
Hemidactylus @16: Did Dawkins join the board before or after he had that massive stroke?
Also, trying to fake people out by calling it the “University of Austin UTAX” when there is already a University of Texas at Austin, UT, was a deliberate marketing ploy to give this Babble College a whiff of legitimacy.
Sort of like the “University of Chicago” being founded by a pluto-capitalist to kinda-sorta look like a regular state or city college.
So, this texass ‘institution’ is just as legitimate as ‘prager u’?!
anat@18:
Honestly, ‘ensoulment on first breath’ is probably the version of the idea that has the closest relationship to anything vaguely approaching science anyway.
My understanding is that, until the infant starts breathing on its own, there just isn’t enough oxygen in the bloodstream to actually power most of the brain, especially the more energy-hungry parts of the cerebral cortex. So, at the very least, full sapience isn’t possible until after breathing starts.
Another reason why the 1 star of the lone star state is their rating: 1 out of 5 stars:
It’s Texas Governor Hot Wheels. Abbott is in a wheelchair because he ran under a tree that was being cut down. He sued. Everyone. He lives comfortably on a $500,000/year settlement plus his salary as Governor and his pension from the State. Abbott has never worked a day in his life outside of the government. Governor, Supreme Court, Attorney General.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/1/19/2364203/-Texas-Governor-Worst-Slogan-Ever?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
I just found another comic on texass intellectual giants:
https://featureassets.gocomics.com/assets/40d2df90d494013ebadd005056a9545d?optimizer=image&width=992&quality=85
It’s rather sad because there are two honest businesses we deal with in Austin, tx
The answer to the “ensoulment” conundrum is obvious: when twinning occurs, the soul divides along with the body! Really, these Christians do lack imagination.
I don’t have a soul and this universe does not seem to have souls. Also, I don’t have a twin in this universe. Which indicates to me that the multiverse exists and that evil twin of mine exists in the one alternate universe that has souls, and he stole mine, that thieving fucker…
… those that don’t recognize this as such need to recharge their sarcasm meter.
The whole ensoulment aside is a bit ridiculous given the more important bullshit with UATX.
The most important argument for soul ever made:
Checkmate.