There’s no doubt that higher education has been infiltrated by ideology — more specifically, by leftist ideology. However, Patrick Gray believes that higher education can be saved — and the University of Austin is a prime example.

The University of Austin is a new school that has proclaimed a dedication to freedom of thought and discourse. The school was co-founded by ex-New York Times journalist Bari Weiss.

Gray, who will be a professor at the school, tells James Poulos of "Zero Hour" just why he has faith in it.

“We’ve been overwhelmed by student response. We’ve brought in students from super high-end institutions — you know, Oxford, the Sorbonne, Harvard, you know, Yale — coming in wanting to take classes with us,” he tells Poulos.

The school will offer classes called “Forbidden Courses,” which will focus on classes that your average institution wouldn’t offer.

Gray offers an example of one of the courses, which is on science and religion. He explains that the course delves into whether the two can be reconciled, what they have in common, and how they’ve influenced each other over time.

Other courses include questions about reactionaries, the biology of gender, and conservatism.

Poulos is curious how academics like Gray plan to “protect” students “without just kind of getting sucked into 'safe space' culture all over again.”

“When we look at kind of the very rapid rise of a quasi-totalitarian identity politics throughout universities, that is a response to a vacuum, a power vacuum, and a lack of direction,” Gray explains. “Rather than saying we’re going to guarantee that anyone is free to do absolutely anything, total freedom of expression, we are going to have a clearly defined mission.”

Gray says the school plans to make sure that mission is not political.

“Our mission is to arrive at the truth.”

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