Stanley Kurtz

Senior Fellow

Stanley Kurtz is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Beyond his work with Education and American Ideals, Mr. Kurtz is a key contributor to American public debates on a wide range of issues from K–12 and higher education reform, to the challenges of democratization abroad, to urban-suburban policies, to the shaping of the American left’s agenda. Mr. Kurtz has written on these and other issues for various journals, particularly National Review Online (where he is a contributing editor).

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Stanley Kurtz is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. On a wide range of issues, from K–12 and higher education reform, to the challenges of democratization abroad, to urban-suburban policies, to the shaping of the American left’s agenda, Mr. Kurtz is a key contributor to American public debates. Mr. Kurtz has written on these and other issues for various journals, particularly National Review Online (where he is a contributing editor).

Mr. Kurtz has published two influential books on President Obama’s political history and policy agenda: Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism (Threshold) and Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities (Sentinel). He has also led the campaign to reform federal subsidies to academic programs of “area studies” under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, and has co-authored model campus free speech legislation adopted by several states.

Mr. Kurtz’s latest book, The Lost History of Western Civilization (National Association of Scholars), offers both a critique of deconstructionist history and a new way of looking at America’s cultural conflicts. (A free pdf of the book can be downloaded here.)

Mr. Kurtz received his undergraduate degree from Haverford College and his Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard University. He later taught at Harvard, winning several teaching awards for his work in a Great Books Program. He was also Dewey Prize Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Chicago.

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College Board Capitulates on African-American Studies . . . Maybe

Stanley Kurtz

This is going to end up as an historic victory for those pushing back against woke.

Articles

National Review Online / January 25, 2023

AP Teacher’s Guide Proves DeSantis Right in African-American Studies Clash

Stanley Kurtz

DeSantis was right to block this course. Indoctrination in socialism and CRT have no place in Florida schools.

Articles

National Review / January 23, 2023

DeSantis: AP African-American Studies Program, as Written, Violates Florida Law

Stanley Kurtz

Yet again, DeSantis is setting the mark for other states.

Articles

National Review / January 18, 2023

DeSantis’s Triumph, Kemp’s Test

Stanley Kurtz

If we are going to save the culture, it will take serious pushback against the powers that be.

Articles

National Review Online / December 27, 2022

The Missing Link in American History

Stanley Kurtz

The square, boring, long-overlooked 19th century Midwest turns out to be the missing link in American history.

Articles

National Review Online / November 21, 2022

Stealth CRT in Biden’s Budget

Stanley Kurtz

Republican elected leaders need to wake up and stop being fooled by superficially appealing proposals like community schools and “civics.”

Articles

National Review Online / October 31, 2022

Neo-Marxing the College Board with AP African American Studies

Stanley Kurtz

APAAS clearly proselytizes for a socialist transformation of the United States, although its socialism is heavily inflected by attention to race and ethnicity.

Articles

National Review Online / September 13, 2022

Arizona’s Campus Disaster Can Be Stopped

Stanley Kurtz

For too long, we’ve granted a blinkered ideological minority a power over our public universities that is not rightly theirs.

Articles

National Review Online / August 23, 2022

Salman Rushdie and the Decline of Western Civilization

Stanley Kurtz

Surveys now show that up to two-thirds of students approve of shouting down campus speakers, while almost a quarter believe that violence can be used to cancel a speech.

Articles

National Review Online / August 15, 2022

University Accreditation: The Unknown Clash

Stanley Kurtz

Conservatives lost the commanding heights of the culture for many reasons, but failure to fight back against the leftist education establishment, even where we held the levers of power, is surely among the most important.

Articles

National Review Online / August 11, 2022

Schools Slide Down the Gender Identity Slope

Stanley Kurtz

The economy may still be at the center of our politics, but the culture war’s share seems to grow each year.

Articles

National Review Online / August 2, 2022

Responding to Defenders of the Federal Civics Bill

Stanley Kurtz

The wording of the current version of the Civics Secures Democracy Act has been tweaked a bit, yet the substance remains the same.

Articles

National Review Online / August 2, 2022