Campus Reform reports that in 2025, New York University's LGBTQ+ center hosted a "Quench: Decriminalizing Sex Work" event. The University of Oregon put on a "Trans & Nonbinary Clothing Closet," and Oakland University in Michigan held an annual "Transgiving' dinner for "trans students and allies."
Adam Kissel, a visiting fellow for higher education reform at The Heritage Foundation, says these institutions have effectively broken from truth.
"These projects seek to normalize what is not normal," he summarizes. "Colleges should seek and teach the truth, and the truth is that there are only two sexes, male and female. There is no third category."
He believes universities should focus on the life of the mind, what he calls "the highest things."
"These projects focus on the lowest perversions of the body, from the waist down rather than from the neck up," Kissel laments. "These events represent the failure of colleges to fulfill their educational mission, so it's no surprise, with events like these, that colleges keep sinking lower in the public esteem."
Multiple national surveys, including from Gallup and Pew, show that public confidence in U.S. colleges and universities has declined notably over the past decade. Large majorities believe the system is headed in the wrong direction, especially due to concerns about cost, student debt, and political bias.
Some recent polls show a modest rebound from the historic lows, but overall public esteem remains well below where it stood 10 years ago. So many colleges have abandoned their intellectual mission for an activist mission that Kissel predicts it will be a generation before reformers can turn it around.
"What we've seen in too many colleges is a coddling of students and their personal desires rather than trying to lead them into higher things," he reiterates. "It's going to be a challenge for trustees and legislators and regulators to persuade universities to go back to their core mission of educating human beings and citizens in a healthy way."
