Sustainability: Higher Education's New Fundamentalism

Peter Wood

“Sustainability” is a key idea on college campuses in the United States and the rest of the Western world. To many, sustainability is just a new name for environmentalism. But the word has come to mean something much larger: an ideology that demands new limits on economic, political, and intellectual freedom as the price that must be paid to ensure the welfare of future generations.

This report is the first in-depth critical examination of the sustainability movement in higher education. The movement, of course, extends well beyond the college campus. But the college campus is where the movement gets its voice of authority, and where it molds the views and commands the attention of young people.

Download the report (pdf): Sustainability: Higher Education's New Fundamentalism

See also:

Executive summary 

Press release: National Association of Scholars Report Shows Campus Sustainability Movement Restricts Debate, Harms College Finances

Sustainability FAQs

Image: © Andrew Burton/Getty Images

  • Share

Most Commented

December 16, 2025

1.

DOJ Does Away with Disparate Impact Theory

Disparate impact theory is on the Trump administration’s chopping block, signaling a move away from discriminatory government policy practices....

March 3, 2026

2.

The Ayatollah’s Friends are on Your Campus

The U.S. strike on Iran and the foreign funding shaping how universities respond to it....

March 11, 2026

3.

Bad Faith Noncompliance: Virginia Schools Flout Supreme Court and Trump with DEI ‘Rebrand’

Trump’s EOs and the Supreme Court make DEI illegal—but colleges keep rebranding it to dodge the law....

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

February 21, 2014

2.

Taking Care

Is art worth dying for? The Monuments Men considers the value of good art and its purpose in preserving a cultural heritage....

October 17, 2018

3.

Hamilton: An American Musical - Its National Influence as Art

William Young finds much to praise in the hit musical....