Move over, gender studies: the conservative tide coming for US universities

Deeming universities too leftwing, outside donors and state governments are sponsoring curricula that center the classics, Christianity and the great books' of western civilization

A small conservative revolution has swept the humanities at some US colleges and universities. Its vanguard are new programs, called centers or institutes, that have begun cropping up at schools in recent years. Often funded by outside donors or earmarks from state governments, the programs tend to bear names featuring words such as civic", freedom" or classical".

These centers do credible teaching and research, and are usually not explicitly political. But their goal, to counter what conservatives see as hegemonically leftwing teaching, arguably is.