As part of the research for a book that I am writing on civic education, I recently interviewed Dr. Matthew Spalding, the dean of the Van Andel School of Government of Hillsdale College, the conservative Christian institution that has supplied much of the intellectual heft for the war against “woke” education. I wanted to talk to Spalding about The 1776 Report, a highly patriotic account of America’s founding principles which the Trump administration had commissioned as a counter-blow to The 1619 Project, which places slavery and racism at the heart of the American story. (I find both insupportable and tendentious.) Spalding was the document’s chief author. I had been pursuing Hillsdale officials for the six months since I had written to Larry Arnn, the university’s president. I had done so in my own peculiar way, which often involves the hope that I can disarm with candor. “I will say, not to be coy,” I wrote, “that I do not share Hillsdale’s politics, but I do share a good deal of your pedagogical principles.” That was true: Hillsdale also runs a network of “classical” charter schools, which use an old-fashioned Great Books curriculum to which I am very much drawn. I share Hillsdale’s view of how to teach, though not of what to teach. And since even the most cursory Google search would have revealed my politics, I felt that it was in my interest to admit the obvious and then use whatever credit I would gain for honesty to demonstrate my bona fides. In the ensuing months I sought to persuade Hillsdale’s chief of communications, sincerely, that I was the liberal most likely to give Hillsdale a fair shake. Apparently I succeeded. As I prepared to interview Dr. Spalding, I was feeling rather proud of myself for having trolled the waters so laboriously and finally hauled in a prize fish. More would come; this was to be the first of a series of interviews.
Is There Any Excuse for Honesty?
