{"id":68062,"date":"2025-11-18T11:51:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/?post_type=tribe_events&#038;p=68062"},"modified":"2026-01-27T15:09:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T23:09:58","slug":"brian-soucek","status":"publish","type":"tribe_events","link":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/event\/brian-soucek\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Soucek"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-aura-rendered-by=\"63054:0\">Like many universities nationwide, the University of Washington is facing threats to federal funding, which they rely on for fundamental research and development. The erosion of federal support means universities like UW are facing decisions on how to survive and move forward, especially as today\u2019s social and political climate becomes more divisive. UC Davis law professor Brian Soucek explores this pivotal moment in his book,\u00a0<em>The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p data-aura-rendered-by=\"63054:0\">One could argue that universities must remain neutral in society\u2019s contentious issues in order to uphold the neutrality of truth and knowledge. But can a university ever truly be neutral in today\u2019s social and political climate? Soucek argues that this promise is doomed to fail\u2014universities can\u2019t help being opinionated, and neutrality is an unattainable myth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p data-aura-rendered-by=\"63054:0\">Like many universities nationwide, the University of Washington is facing threats to federal funding, which they rely on for fundamental research and development. The erosion of federal support means universities like UW are facing decisions on how to survive and move forward, especially as today\u2019s social and political climate becomes more divisive. UC Davis law professor Brian Soucek explores this pivotal moment in his book,\u00a0<em>The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p data-aura-rendered-by=\"63054:0\">One could argue that universities must remain neutral in society\u2019s contentious issues in order to uphold the neutrality of truth and knowledge. But can a university ever truly be neutral in today\u2019s social and political climate? Soucek argues that this promise is doomed to fail\u2014universities can\u2019t help being opinionated, and neutrality is an unattainable myth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":68064,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","_tribe_events_is_hybrid":"","_tribe_events_is_virtual":"","_tribe_events_virtual_video_source":"","_tribe_events_virtual_embed_video":"","_tribe_events_virtual_linked_button_text":"","_tribe_events_virtual_linked_button":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_embed_at":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_embed_to":[],"_tribe_events_virtual_show_on_event":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_on_views":"","_tribe_events_virtual_url":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[55],"class_list":["post-68062","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tribe_events_cat-civics","cat_civics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/68062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/68062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68062"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=68062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}