The Government Gives Too Much Authority To Leftist Academics

[Kamaji]

The Government Gives Too Much Authority To Leftist Academics, And That Needs To Stop

By: Eugene Kontorovich
November 07, 2025

Highly politicized private groups are given fiefdoms within our government, and their left-wing views are not regarded as opinions, but facts.

When the International Association of Genocide Scholars jumped on the “Israel is committing genocide in Gaza” bandwagon, it revealed to many the extent to which one can’t “trust the experts.” But an ongoing spat between the Trump administration and numerous other professional academic groups shows how much excessive deference, and even statutory authority, has been given to such groups.

In May, President Trump fired all nine members of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation. HAC, as the body is known, was composed of academics from various fields. Its mission was to assist in producing an authoritative reference work, Foreign Affairs of the United States (FAUS), which collects and publishes primary documents in U.S. foreign policy, and is widely relied on by scholars, including myself.

All seats on the committee, which makes the declassification decisions necessary to put the volumes together, remain unfilled, and the last quarterly meeting was cancelled. The administration offered no explanation, but a look at the Historical Advisory Committee’s anomalous structure shows that removing the members is not enough. Congress must revise the entire process of staffing the committee.

Washington is rife with expert advisory committees, which allow agencies like the EPA and FDA to get structured input from people outside the government with particular technical expertise. HAC advises the Historian of the State Department on what documents to declassify for inclusion in FAUS, which has been published since the Civil War, with volumes published now covering events 30 years prior.

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Source:  https://thefederalist.com/2025/11/07/the-government-gives-too-much-authority-to-leftist-academics-and-that-needs-to-stop/

[The_Reader_David]

Any consultation by the government with scholars in any field, including the sciences, should be required to include a "red team" view from the most eminent and qualified experts who disagree with the consensus in their field.

[Hoodat]

Balance the budget, and you won't have this problem.

[Kamaji]

Any consultation by the government with scholars in any field, including the sciences, should be required to include a "red team" view from the most eminent and qualified experts who disagree with the consensus in their field.