Bad Education: What they're saying about my new book
Bad Education: Why our universities are broken and how we can fix them
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Tonight, ahead of its official publication on Thursday, I’m launching my new book Bad Education: Why our Universities are Broken and how we can fix them.
This is a no holds barred polemic and part memoir about what I observed teaching and working in Britain’s universities for more than twenty years.
And what I argue is that our universities and the surrounding higher education system more generally have now been completely engulfed by a political crisis.
The book takes you into the very heart of this crisis, showing you just how bad things have become on campus and why, if we are serious about saving the West, we must also intervene to radically reform our universities and return them to their original mission —to the pursuit of truth, reason, knowledge, and good faith debate.
Here’s what some important people are saying about it:
“Buy this book. You could save yourself, your parents or children a lot of money”
—Douglas Murray, bestselling author of The War on the West
“A forceful rebuttal of everything that has gone wrong with our education system. Matt Goodwin will not surrender our august cultural heritage to imbeciles, cowardly conformists, and lunatics. ‘Culture war’ is often cited dismissively. Sorry, this is war, period, and the side with both humility and self-respect is destined to win.”
― Lionel Shriver
“If you want to know how our universities became woke madrassas, this is the book to read. But it isn’t just a litany of complaints. Matt Goodwin also has a concrete plan for turning them back into universities again. Essential reading for anyone who’s been wondering how Britain’s once great higher education sector became a dumpster fire”.
-- Toby Young, director of The Free Speech Union, associate editor of The Spectator
“Matt Goodwin's critique of today's universities is fierce, but it is well buttressed by empirical data. Anyone who cares about these culturally and politically crucial institutions should take careful heed of what he has to say”
—Nigel Biggar, CBE, Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology, University of Oxford, and Chair of The Free Speech Union
“Our universities increasingly resemble the pre-reformation Catholic Church, with academics as the new clerisy. They demand our submission to a corrupted faith and control access to the good life. But in Matt Goodwin they have met their Martin Luther who has resigned from the church and, in this book, publishes his excoriating contemporary 95 Theses. An urgent call for reformation”.
-- David Goodhart, author of The Road to Somewhere
“Wow, how refreshing, an academic who has the courage to cry ‘the Academic Emperor’s got not clothes on’. Using his own ‘lived experience’ as a professor, Matt Goodwin pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of institutional rot at the heart of UK universities. This is not motivated by a destructive nihilism but a love for the ideals of open inquiry, the pursuit of knowledge and academic freedom. And how these values can be restored. It is driven by a genuine affection for all those young, idealistic students who arrive on campus full of intellectual curiosity and ambitions to learn and are routinely betrayed & remodelled by contemporary fads for everything from EDI to Critical Race Theory. Hurrah for a dose of truth.”
—Claire Fox, Baroness Fox of Buckley, Director of the Academy of Ideas
“Goodwin’s manifesto-cum-memoir, Bad Education, takes aim at the ills of higher education. His powerful and persuasive, if exhausting, case will persuade you that our universities have a problem”.
― The Times
“More than anything else, argues Matt Goodwin, the cultural left sympathies of staff, students and bureaucrats are killing the golden goose of higher education in the West. Intolerant activists and administrators control the parameters of debate and cancel dissenters while subtler currents of political discrimination induce self-censorship and progressive conformity, strangling political diversity. Only democratic intervention from outside the university can save a noble institution that has been at the centre of western civilisation. Deeply personal and impeccably researched, Bad Education seamlessly blends ‘lived experience’, human tragedies and generalisable data into a rich, tight, fast-paced read.”
-- Eric Kaufmann, Professor of Politics, University of Buckingham
Obviously, not everybody loves the book.
Writing in the Financial Times, the paper of choice for the elite class, David Willetts, who has defended all that is wrong with our universities for decades, is not a big fan, although even he reluctantly acknowledged “there is clear evidence to support his [my] case” that free speech and free expression is now under threat in our universities.
And Sebastian Payne, who appears to change his mind according to whatever the elite class tell him to believe, was also not wholly supportive, though again even The Times notes the book will convince most people we do have a serious problem on campus.
And then, I suppose, will be all my former academic colleagues and university vice-chancellors who will simply hate the fact I have broken rank and called out the many glaring problems that are weakening, rather than strengthening, our once world-leading universities, including their shocking political bias and failure to prioritise the truth, knowledge, and scientific knowledge over extreme political dogma.
But to be honest with you I couldn’t really care less about all of that.
What I care about is what you think so if you can then do pick up a copy and hand it to somebody who is at university, is thinking of going to university, or is one of those Mums and Dads who might already be paying for somebody to go to university …
Because, as you know, I believe, strongly, that our country and the West more generally are in a real mess and this book is part of my ongoing effort to wake people up, especially our young people, and bring about real change before it’s too late.
Best wishes, Matt
p.s. normal Substack service resumes tomorrow!
What an array of brilliant reviews from people with brains instead of ideological mush who can only chant pre prepared mantras. Can’t wait to read it.
Matt as Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the cathedral door! Brilliant metaphor from David Goodhart. Can’t wait to read the book.