Wesleyan in the News: March 2025

By: Mike Mavredakis and Phuc Ngo ’27

President Roth on Free Speech

President Michael S. Roth ’78 has appeared in several media outlets in recent weeks calling for the defense of democracy, free speech, and academic freedom in the face of challenges from the federal government.  

Roth was quoted in The New York Times on March 14 for story on universities as a target following the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student. “We at universities have not done enough over the years to pay attention to those groups — conservative groups, religious groups — around the country that are essential parts of a democratic culture,” Roth said. “The isolation makes us very vulnerable.” 

The New York Times also spoke with Roth for a piece on critics of President Donald Trump who have gone silent since his inauguration, fearing retribution from the administration. Roth said he continues to speak up “because it’s a scandal that the federal government is trying to keep people from speaking their minds.” 

Roth appeared on the “To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes” podcast to discuss his advocacy for free speech and academic freedom at a time when other institutions are enacting policies of institutional neutrality. “I’ve taken for granted American freedom, and right now, it’s so obvious we can’t take it for granted. So we have to speak up. Because that freedom could disappear,” Roth said. 

MSNBC interviewed Roth following Khalil’s detention and its implications for the right to free speech in America, as well as threats to federal funding for institutions that do not align with the Trump administration’s political policies. “The ecosystem of research and the creation of new knowledge in universities has been so powerful for American prosperity, American freedom, American ingenuity,” Roth said. “To have that disrupted by government overreach is a disaster for this country.” 

On March 5, Roth wrote a piece for The Los Angeles Times on his experiences teaching trans students. “My trans students have made me think hard about transformation and identity, about nature and convention, about character and performance.” 

Roth wrote a piece for Inside Higher Ed on free speech and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. “Free speech yields a healthy bounty if diversity and belonging are in the soil. It is also vital to ensure that access to speaking and the ability to be heard are open to all,” Roth wrote. 

POLITICO Magazine interviewed Roth on institutional neutrality policies at colleges and universities. “The infatuation with institutional neutrality,” he said, “is just making cowardice into a policy.” 

Roth also wrote about Khalil’s detention in Slate. “University presidents must speak out against this attempt to control the political culture of our campuses from the White House,” Roth wrote.  “Just as we should decry antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, we should insist that students and faculty have the right to make their voices heard about the issues of the day. Neutrality here is a betrayal of our academic mission.” 

Roth appeared on “The Briefing with Steve Scully” on SiriusXM on March 18 to discuss academic freedom in the Trump Era.

Roth was interviewed on MSNBC’s “The Beat” on Feb. 28 in a segment about the Trump administration’s call for colleges and universities to end diversity, equity, and inclusion-related programs. Roth implored viewers to continue to have conversations with those who disagree with them and to practice democracy. “We will learn more from each other if we have different points of view and different life experiences,” Roth said.  

The Washington Post spoke with Roth about the new administration’s ‘race-neutral policies.’ “It is a time of intense fear throughout the entire sector,” commented Roth. 

Roth also spoke with The Hill for a piece on threats to diversity initiatives. Roth argued against policies of institutional neutrality that some schools have adopted in recent years. “As educators, we need to say what we believe in,” Roth said.  

In an article on academia’s reactions to President Donald Trump, Inside Higher Ed highlighted Roth among the more outspoken university leaders. 

Roth also appeared on a recent episode of the “What Rough Beast” podcast to discuss the Trump administration’s “authoritarian coup” against universities. 

Other Headlines

Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Willette Burnham-Williams appeared in a Chronicle of Higher Education-curated compilation of responses from universities affected by Trump’s policies. “There is a truth that isn’t being spoken right now—that this [DEI] work has always benefited everyone,” Burnham-Williams said. “I am thinking about how we communicate that more effectively.” 

Assistant Professor of Government Justin Peck wrote a piece on Trump as a “transformative” president for TIME Made By History. Peck compared Trump to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, another transformative president, who took over the nation in a time of economic distress. “…Trump may be remembered as historically transformative—a man whose style, leadership, and program will impact the shape of our politics for decades to come,” Peck wrote. 

The Athletic profiled Wesleyan men’s basketball player Michael Astorino ’25 and his efforts to create name, image, and likeness (NIL) sponsorship opportunities for his teammates and other Division III athletes. Astorino co-founded an NIL agency at Wesleyan and has partnered with more than 15 brands. 

Diego Perez ’10, who writes under the name Yung Pueblo, recently published “How to Love Better,” a book that explores the complexities of connection. Perez was recently interviewed by The Boston Globe about his new book. 

Professor of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and Marcus L. Taft Professor of Modern Languages Susanne Fusso joined WNPR’s “The Colin McEnroe Show” to discuss Russian/Ukrainian proto-surrealist writer Nikolai Gogol. Fusso is both a scholar and translator of Gogol, having authored Designing Dead Souls: An Anatomy of Disorder in Gogol, published in 1993, as well as a new translation of The Nose and Other Stories, published in 2020. 

Associate Professor of the Practice in Education Studies Rachel Besharat Mann and Visiting Assistant Professor of Education Studies Gravity Goldberg co-wrote an article in The Conversation on the five ways in which K-12 schools have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. They found that “the overall trend in K-12 schools is one of mistrust,” specifically mistrust of teachers by administrators and parents. “If society wants a different outcome in the next five years,” they concluded, “it starts with trust.” 

Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Sciences Suzanne OConnell co-authored a piece in The Conversation on the heightened risk for flash flooding posed by increasing glacial melting. Europe’s Alps and Pyrenees, for example, lost 40 percent of their glacier volume from 2000 to 2023, OConnell wrote.

The Hartford Courant highlighted “Moon Bounce,” an upcoming musical performance examining the creative possibilities of reflecting signals off the moon. Scheduled for Wednesday, March 12 at the Van Vleck Observatory on Foss Hill, “Moon Bounce” was originally conceived by late John Spencer Camp Professor of Music Emeritus Alvin Lucier (1931–2021) and is a collaboration between Wesleyan’s Toneburst Laptop and Electronic Arts Ensemble and Wave Farm, a transmission arts organization based in New York. 

Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler co-wrote a piece for ABC News outlining five years of research by the Wesleyan Media Project tracking how media coverage of structural racism has changed since 2020. 

Renée Green ’81 will have her first major solo museum exhibition, “Renée Green: The Equator Has Moved,” in New York at the Dia Beacon, starting on March 7, according to the Dia Foundation. The exhibition will include her paintings from the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as newly commissioned works. 

Sotheby’s profiled art dealer, curator, and gallerist Jeffrey Deitch ’74 on his 50th anniversary in the art business. After studying economics and art history at Wesleyan, Deitch “managed to talk his way into a job at the influential John Weber Gallery,” before pursuing an MBA from Harvard Business School. On the future of art in “uncertain times,” Deitch said, “More than ever, we need the moral stance, the openness to change, the diversity of opinion that you get with art. I’m a total believer.” 

The Critic and Her Publics, a podcast sponsored by LitHub and New York Review of Books, released an episode on Feb. 25 with host Merve Emre, Shapiro-Silverberg University Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism and Shapiro Writing Center Director, in conversation with poet, memoirist, and critic Meghan O’Rourke. They discussed O’Rourke’s career as an editor, as well as the future of print, and of magazines more generally. On her ongoing work at the Yale Review, O’Rourke said, “Universities once valued these magazines […] as a real instantiation of all that’s excellent about the academy.” 

Another episode of The Critic and Her Publics was released on March 11, featuring Emre in conversation with Jackson Howard, a Senior Editor at publishing house Farrar, Straus and Giroux and a contributor for Pitchfork, among other magazines. Howard discussed handling projects with big names such as Judith Butler and shared advice for students looking to go into the publishing field. 

ArtDaily reported on two new exhibitions at the Pruzan Art Center. Engraving after 1900: A Technique in Its Time features artwork made through copperplate engraving, a rare and costly technique that, according to Donald T. Fallati and Ruth E. Pachman Curator of the Davison Art Collection Miya Tokumitsu, “has continued to be a source of novelty and creative exploration for modern and contemporary artists.” Meanwhile, The Fascination of Sugar highlights the social and cultural role that sweetness and sweeteners have played throughout history through an eclectic array of mediums. 

Peter Rutland, Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, spoke with Newsweek on talks between the United States and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia surrounding the war in Ukraine. Rutland said the situation needs a third-party mediator to break the stalemate. 

Rutland wrote about Trump, Putin, and the Ukraine War for Transitions, a magazine dedicated to political coverage of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, Turkey, and Eurasia. In the article, Rutland chronicles Trump and Putin’s Feb. 12 meeting and discusses the possible paths by which Trump could fulfill his promise of ‘swiftly’ ending the war in Ukraine. 

Rutland spoke with San Francisco radio station KCBS on their Ask an Expert program to unpack the recent meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as the Kremlin’s subsequent comment that U.S. foreign policy now ‘aligns’ with Russia’s vision. 

Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and Co-Director of WesDocs Tracy Heather Strain and University Professor of Film Studies and Co-Director of WesDocs Randall MacLowry received a Ford Foundation JustFilms grant to produce their documentary Survival Floating. The project, to be directed by Strain, uses archival materials to explore Black peoples’ complex relationships with water and the impact of racial discrimination on swimming.

Jennifer Tucker, professor of Technology, Law and Visual Culture and the founding director of Wesleyan’s Center for the Study of Guns and Society, also received a Ford Foundation JustFilms grant to produce a documentary Good Morning Buffalo. The project tells the story of father and daughter legal team taking on social media companies and the arms industry in the wake of a tragedy in Buffalo in 2022.