Free Speech Frauds

The school, founded in part by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and then-ex New York Times journalist Bari Weiss, promised to upend the traditional university model, which its founders believed had become unwelcoming of dissenting opinions and open inquiry. And proud to never accept government funding, UATX announced earlier this year that a massive donation from libertarian billionaire Jeff Yass would make tuition free forever.

But quietly, it appears that things in anti-woke paradise are not what they seem. According to an analysis from the Chronicle of Higher Education, many of the people who joined UATX at the beginning of the project have departed, either by choice or due to public disagreements with the school's trajectory. Among the group of nearly 20 university employees that have left UATX this year were individuals in vital roles including the president, the provost, the executive director of admissions, and operations staffers.

Some, like former senior vice president Mike Shires, told the Chronicle that they were simply ready to move on after launching the university. "My commitment to the university was that I’ll help you figure out how to build this thing," he told the outlet. Shires left UATX in May of this year. 

But others exited over ideological disagreements with the school's direction. Ellie Avishai, the co-founder and director of the Mill Institute (an educational organization working with UATX), was asked to leave the university after posting an article about diversity initiatives on LinkedIn. In that post, Avishai wrote, "we can have criticisms of DEI without wanting to tear down the whole concept of diversity and inclusion." Avishai told The Canadian Jewish News that this content upset higher-ups at UATX.

For the large majority—notably including Weiss, a leading champion of Israel’s war on Gaza—Trump’s reign of terror has apparently been less objectionable than the irritating undergraduate and entry-level scolds of the 2010s.