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James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions

James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions

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The James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, often called simply the James Madison Program (abbreviated JMP) or the Madison Program, is a scholarly institute within the Department of Politics at Princeton University espousing a dedication "to exploring enduring questions of American constitutional law and Western political thought."[1] The Madison Program was founded in 2000 and is directed by Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University.[2]

Quick Facts Abbreviation, Named after ...

While the James Madison Program states it is welcoming of all ideological tendencies, it is widely considered a conservative institute that "exists to further conservative viewpoints on campus."[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] Commentators tend to point to its predominantly conservative donors and fellows, and platforming of "far-right and extremist individuals."[3][5][7]

History

The Madison Program was founded in the summer of 2000 via a charter with the Department of Politics at Princeton University.[10] Early funders included Steve Forbes, the John M. Olin Foundation, and the Bradley Foundation.[11] Early speakers included liberal scholars James E. Fleming of Fordham University and Stanley N. Katz of Princeton University, and conservative ones, including Robert Bork; Christopher DeMuth, then-president of the American Enterprise Institute; Lynne Cheney, chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the first Bush administration; and William Kristol, then-editor of The Weekly Standard.[11]

The Program celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2010 with a lecture from columnist George Will.[12] Summer 2020 marked the 20th anniversary of the Program.

Academic programs

Politics departmental track

The Program sponsors the track in "American Ideas and Institutions" for undergraduates concentrating in Politics at Princeton. The track includes courses from American politics, political theory, and public law to allow students to "further and demonstrate their understandings of the three branches of the federal government and the values, ideas, and theories that underlie them and are animated by their workings."[13]

Undergraduate Fellows Forum

The Program is host to the Undergraduate Fellows Forum, a program for Princeton undergraduates to engage with fellow students on American political institutions and constitutionalism.[14] Undergraduate Fellows have included conservative as well as some liberal and socialist students, and founded such programs at Princeton as a podcast called "Woke Wednesdays"[15] and the third undergraduate chapter of the Federalist Society.[16]

James Madison Society

The Madison Program is host to several Visiting and Postdoctoral Fellows at Princeton every year and past Visiting Fellows become part of the James Madison Society. It consists predominantly of conservative academics, but also includes some liberal and socialist public figures.

More information Notable members of the James Madison Society, Name ...

Reception

Conservatism

In 2006, Max Blumenthal wrote in The Nation that the Madison Program is not like the Center for Human Values at Princeton or the Remarque Institute at New York University, but rather serves as "a vehicle for conservative interests." Blumenthal writes that the Madison Program uses "funding from a shadowy, cultlike Catholic group and right-wing foundations" to support right-wing politics at Princeton University, even becoming "the blueprint for the right's strategy to extend and consolidate power within the university system."[5] Similar institutions at Georgetown University, New York University, and Williams College have used the Madison Program as a template for their operations.[18] In 2017, the North Carolina-based think tank NC Policy Watch reported that the James Madison Program is funded and operated by conservative philanthropists and academics to promote conservatism in higher education, and that the University of North Carolina Board of Governors considered the Madison Program a "model."[7]

In 2016, Jane Mayer wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education noting that the Madison Program was founded with funds from the conservative John M. Olin Foundation and that the program's founding serves as part of a broader strategy for conservative billionaires to infiltrate higher education in the United States.[19] Her piece was cited by Greenpeace as demonstrative of dark money being used to deceptively promote conservative perspectives and downplay the fossil fuel industry's role in climate change.[20]

In 2019, journalist Emma Green wrote in The Atlantic that the James Madison Program serves as a conservative hub for right-wing students and academics within the "largely apolitical or vaguely liberal" politics of the Princeton University community.[4]

In 2023, Jewish Currents writers Dahlia Krutkovich and Sarah Rosen noted that the James Madison Program "is known for bringing right-wing figures to campus" and criticized its invitation of Ronen Shoval, who founded the ultranationalist Im Tirtzu, which has been described as being involved in campaigns against political progressives, academics, and anti-Zionists and having similarities to fascist groups.[6] Krutkovich and Rosen also criticized the arrival of Shoval due to his fabrication of his academic background and his calls to curtail academic freedom and freedom of speech in Israel.[6] Princeton University students and others in the Jewish community protested Shoval's arrival as well as the 2023 Israeli judicial reforms at the Center for Jewish Life on campus.[6][21]

Student publications at Princeton University such as The Daily Princetonian, Nassau Weekly, and The Princeton Progressive have described the James Madison Program as a conservative institute that "exists to further conservative viewpoints on campus" and where "Princeton's conservatives can receive cues about the status of their movement."[3][9][8] Similarly to other journalistic outlets, student journalists have pointed to its predominantly conservative donors and fellows, and platforming of "far-right and extremist individuals."[3] However, The Princeton Tory has claimed that the program "promotes political discussion and scholarship without favoring any political ideology."[22]

Director Robert P. George claims the Program is not conservative, but rather "seeks to bring competing points of view together to lift the intellectual debate on campus."[23]

Religion

In the 2007 book Faith in the Halls of Power, D. Michael Lindsay praised the Madison Program for enabling cooperation between Catholic and Evangelical Christians.[24]

Engaging with opposing views

On March 14, 2017, Robert P. George and Cornel West issued a joint statement via the Madison Program to encourage citizens to engage with people of opposing views. The statement was opened to signatories from the public; as of March 2019, there were more than 4,000 signatories.[25] Outlets noted its significance due to the juxtaposition of George's Christian conservative views with West's democratic socialist and radical democratic views.[26]

References

  1. [1]
    "Home - James Madison Program". web.princeton.edu.
  2. [2]
    Kirkpatrick, David D. "Robert P. George, the Conservative-Christian Big Thinker".
  3. [3]
    Rahin, Rooya; Shapiro, Dylan (May 18, 2023). "What you need to know about Princeton's James Madison Program". The Daily Princetonian. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  4. [4]
    Green, Emma (2019-12-29). "It's a Weird Time to Be Young and Conservative". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2023-08-30. Instead, students at Princeton who lean to the right have helped build a robust suite of conservative groups, most prominently the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, an expansive academic center overseen by the prominent scholar Robert P. George.
  5. [5]
    Blumenthal, Max (2006-02-23). "Princeton Tilts Right". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2023-08-30. George has brought his conservatism to bear at Princeton through the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, an academic center he founded in 2000 "to sustain America's experiment in ordered liberty." On the surface, the program appears modeled after institutions like Princeton's Center for Human Values and New York University's Remarque Institute. However, it functions in many ways as a vehicle for conservative interests, using funding from a shadowy, cultlike Catholic group and right-wing foundations to support gatherings of movement activists, fellowships for ideologically correct visiting professors and a cadre of conservative students. George's program has become the blueprint for the right's strategy to extend and consolidate power within the university system.
  6. [6]
    Krutkovich, Dahlia; Rosen, Sarah (June 8, 2023). "The Israeli Far Right's Man in Princeton". Jewish Currents. Retrieved 2023-08-30. Shoval wrapped up a yearlong appointment as a lecturer in politics at Princeton last month, and will hold the role of associate research scholar at the university's James Madison Program for American Ideals and Institutions—which is devoted to the study and promotion of conservative ideas—through the summer.
  7. [7]
    Killian, Joe (December 18, 2017). "A look at the conservative origins of the UNC Board of Governors' "model" for a new academic center". NC Newsline. Retrieved 2023-08-30. If your interest was piqued by the UNC Board of Governors' reception of Professor Robert George last week – and their affection for his conservative James Madison program at Princeton – you may want to read up on the program, its funders and the movement to create more conservative centers across the country.
  8. [8]
    Glover, Austin (2022-12-19). "The State of Conservatism at Princeton". The Princeton Progressive. Retrieved 2023-08-30. indeed, conservatism is alive and well at Princeton University. Instead of appearing in the classroom, however, it manifests itself online, through student groups like the Tory, and in print, via posters put up by the James Madison Program advertising its public lectures.
  9. [9]
    Barkhorn, Eleanor (2004-10-14). "The Lonely Conservative". Nassau Weekly. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  10. [10]
    Nieli, Russ (2005). "Enhancing Intellectual Diversity on Campus--The James Madison Program at Princeton". Academic Questions. 18 (20): 27. doi:10.1007/s12129-005-1003-3.
  11. [11]
    Merritt, J.I. (8 October 2003). "Heretic in the Temple". Princeton Alumni Weekly. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
  12. [12]
    Princeton Alumni Weekly (8 December 2010). "Madison Program marks 10th anniversary". Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  13. [13]
    "Program in American Ideas and Institutions". Princeton University Department of Politics. Princeton University. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  14. [14]
    "Undergraduate Fellows Forum | James Madison Program". jmp.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-26.
  15. [15]
    Sterenfeld, Ethan (2017-12-03). "Nothing Recycled". Nassau Weekly. Retrieved 2018-12-26.
  16. [16]
    "Students, faculty create Federalist Society chapter at the University". The Princetonian. Retrieved 2018-12-26.
  17. [17]
    "James Madison Society | James Madison Program". jmp.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-26.
  18. [18]
    Kirkpatrick, David D. (2009-12-16). "Robert P. George, the Conservative-Christian Big Thinker". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
  19. [19]
    Mayer, Jane (2016-02-12). "How Right-Wing Billionaires Infiltrated Higher Education". The Chronicle of Higher Education. ISSN 0009-5982. Retrieved 2018-12-26.
  20. [20]
    "Dark Money: To Charles Koch, Professors Are Lobbyists". Greenpeace USA. 2016-01-28. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  21. [21]
    Eng, Janny; Rupertus, Annie (March 29, 2023). "Protestors flock to Princeton to oppose Israeli judicial reform as controversial lecturer speaks". The Daily Princetonian. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  22. [22]
    Byler, David (2010-12-02). "Conservative Groups on Campus | The Princeton Tory". The Princeton Tory. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  23. [23]
    "Conservative Princeton professor promotes civil discourse at UNC". newsobserver. Retrieved 2018-12-26.
  24. [24]
    Faith in the halls of power: how evangelicals joined the American elite, D. Michael Lindsay, Oxford University Press US, 2007, p. 86
  25. [25]
    "Sign the Statement: Truth Seeking, Democracy, and Freedom of Thought and Expression - A Statement by Robert P. George and Cornel West". James Madison Program. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  26. [26]
    Flaherty, Colleen. "Rejecting 'Campus Illiberalism'". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 2023-08-30.

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