Jonathan Butcher – författare

If you don’t like the idea of a boy who says he is a girl using the girls’ bathroom, are you out of step with the mainstream? If diversity, equity, and inclusion programs strike you as discriminatory, are you just racist? Are you a prude if you do not want sexually explicit books about “gender” in your child’s school library? “Experts” and the radical left want you to think that on these hot-button issues, Americans are split down the middle—polarized. They want you to think that at least half of your fellow citizens hold views that only yesterday everyone considered crazy. And they want to make you afraid of not being on the “enlightened” side.But it turns out that this polarization is a myth.With clarity and optimism, Jonathan Butcher dismantles the myth of a fractured nation, showing how our underlying agreement on character, virtue, and our shared sense of national identity can guide lawmakers and communities toward policies that help everyone have a chance at the good life and the American Dream. In a time when headlines scream of division and mutual antagonism, The Polarization Myth offers a refreshing perspective: Americans are more united than you think. Drawing from a survey of over 2,000 citizens along with robust research, Butcher uncovers a surprising consensus on today’s most contentious issues—from education and civics to race and gender.

Higher education is in crisis. To capture the full scope of the problem, The Heritage Foundation assembled college presidents, professors, and researchers from across the country to contribute their unique perspectives about the problems plaguing higher education and to offer solutions.Higher Education in America divides the challenges facing colleges and universities into three categories: economic, bureaucratic, and ideological. In the economic section, Preston Cooper, Kyle Washut, Andrew Gillen, and others discuss inflated college tuition expenses and the declining quality of education, the accreditation bottleneck, and more. George Harne, John Sailer, and Jonathan Butcher tackle the bureaucracy problem, drawing attention to DEI offices, a lack of vision among college leaders, and the ways in which alumnae can exert control over their alma maters. Carol Swain, Mark Bauerlein, Kenneth Marcus, and others describe how the Leftist capture of universities results in students being exposed to far fewer ideas—and the ideas to which they are exposed steering them away from the pursuit of truth and toward militant progressivism, anti-Western radicalism, and despair.The fourth section of this collection provides hope and solutions. Jay Greene, Kevin Roberts, Christopher Rufo, and others call on universities to demand excellence, recultivate a sense of purpose in the classroom, and reject ideological conformity. As Rufo writes in his conclusion, “The rot is comprehensive, but the remedies are powerful and identifiable.”This collection makes an essential statement about the need for change in higher education and contains a set of detailed, innovative ideas to help reclaim the American university.