Joshua Dunn: Intellectual Diversity and Informed Patriotism

ACTA’s president Michael Poliakoff speaks with the distinguished scholar and education leader, Joshua Dunn, who took on leadership of the recently established Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in June, 2023. Professor Dunn was previously the executive director of the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where he was also professor and chair of the Political Science department. His book, From Schoolhouse to Courthouse – The Judiciary’s Role in American Education, offers an important view of the complex relationship between courts and education. His landmark study co-authored with Jon A. Shields, Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University, makes a strong case for why robust and uninhibited intellectual inquiry should be at the center of the American academy.