The New York Times Magazine: “Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong?”
As more children across the country are diagnosed with A.D.H.D. and medicated for it, Paul Tough shows how a more hopeful, changeable view of A.D.H.D. is emerging from the science: symptoms often fluctuate, and outcomes can improve when environments fit people better, not only when brains are medicated. Drawing on deep and rigorous research, he highlights growing interest in treating A.D.H.D. as a continuum shaped by biology and context, not a fixed binary label, and shows how we can redesign classrooms, workloads, and supports so more people can thrive.
The New Yorker: “A Tumultuous Spring Semester Finally Comes to a Close”
After a bruising year for higher ed, Jelani Cobb, the dean of Columbia Journalism School, argues the clearest lesson is that universities can’t respond to political pressure as if it’s a normal negotiation. He traces a recurring American cycle of government intrusion into campus life, then shows what institutions can do differently now. And he tells the story of one Howard University president’s refusal to let politicians dictate learning, drawing a connection to our contemporary moment—because “without free inquiry there is no basis for a university to exist.”
The New York Times: “Harvard Derangement Syndrome”
“In my 22 years as a Harvard professor, I have not been afraid to bite the hand that feeds me,” writes public intellectual Steven Pinker (Rationality). “So I’m hardly an apologist for my employer when I say that the invective now being aimed at Harvard has become unhinged.” In this essay, which sparked dialogue across the media, Steven makes a reform-minded case for proportionality: Harvard has real problems, but the fix is diagnosis-and-repair, not burn-it-down punishment that cripples research and undermines democratic norms.
