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Russell Brand, Tom Homan, Alan Dershowitz, Dr. Judith Butler & more take New College’s stage to discuss today’s most complex and pressing issues.

SARASOTA, FL, UNITED STATES, February 14, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ — New College of Florida, ranked the No. 1 Public Liberal Arts College by Washington Monthly (2024), proudly presents the 2025 Socratic Stage Dialogue Series, a premier national forum dedicated to intellectual debate, free speech, and civil discourse.

The Spring 2025 speaker series will feature an extraordinary lineup of influential scholars, authors, policy experts, and thought leaders addressing topics from media and medicine to law, immigration, and the future of higher education. Key speakers include Russell Brand, Tom Homan, Alan Dershowitz, Dr. Judith Butler, Dr. Scott W. Atlas, Chad Wolf, Steven Donziger, Dr. Stanley Fish, Mollie Hemingway and other highly anticipated speakers who will tackle the most pressing issues of our time.

“At a time when open dialogue is under threat, the Socratic Stage at New College is where real conversations happen,” said New College President Richard Corcoran. “We believe that the only way to move society forward is through open, honest, and often challenging discussions. New College is committed to fostering intellectual courage, fearless inquiry, and civil discourse and bringing the most interesting and important conversations to the mainstage.”

2025 Socratic Stage Series

New College will host eight major events in Spring 2025, held on campus at Sainer Auditorium, unless otherwise noted. Select discussions will be livestreamed on YouTube and X (formerly Twitter), and ticketing will be available at NCF.edu/SocraticStage.

A Conversation on Gender: Culture and Academia | Dr. Judith Butler & Dr. Stanley Fish | February 18

A Conversation on the Value of Liberal Arts Education Today | Dr. Joshua T. Katz, Tom Steiner & Dr. David Rancourt | February 25

Defeat, Hope, and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible | Dr. Jacob L. Wright | March 6

The Politics of Medicine: Who Controls the Future of Medical Education? | Dr. Scott W. Atlas & Dr. Stanley Goldfarb | March 8

Borders, National Sovereignty, Rule of Law: What’s Next for U.S. Immigration Policy? | Tom Homan & Chad Wolf | March 20

Thinking without Permission: A Conversation with Russell Brand on Free Speech, Censorship, and Cultural Power | Russell Brand & Mark Famiglio, Chairman, Sarasota Film Festival | Date and Location to be announced!

Truth, Bias, and Power: How the Transformation of America’s Media is Reshaping Society | Dr. Scott W. Atlas, Ben Domenech & Mollie Hemingway | May 6

Justice or Politics? The Weaponization of Law in Modern America | Alan Dershowitz & Steven Donziger | May 22

Also announced this week, Alan Dershowitz, one of the most prominent legal minds of our time, will serve as New College’s 2025 Commencement Speaker, underscoring the institution’s commitment to free inquiry and civil debate.

For more details, ticketing, and livestream access, visit NCF.edu/SocraticStage.

For more details on the 2025 Commencement Ceremony, event logistics, and media access, visit: NCF.edu/Commencement.

About New College of Florida

Founded in 1960, New College of Florida is a top-ranked public liberal arts college and serves as Florida’s Honors College. Recognized for its academic excellence, rigorous inquiry, and commitment to free expression, New College offers more than 50 undergraduate majors, graduate programs in Applied Data Science and Marine Mammal Science, and a growing NAIA athletics program.

Famed Legal Scholar to Address Graduates on Free Speech and the Rule of Law

SARASOTA, Fla. – New College of Florida is proud to announce that Alan Dershowitz, one of the nation’s most influential legal scholars and defenders of civil liberties, will deliver the 2025 Commencement Address at Florida’s Honors College in Sarasota.

Dershowitz, a constitutional lawyer, Harvard Law professor emeritus, and best-selling author, has played a pivotal role in some of the most significant legal debates of our time. His career spans more than 50 years on the Harvard Law faculty, the authorship of over 40 books on law, free speech, and constitutional rights, and decades of advocating for justice, due process, and the First Amendment.

“New College is a place for bold ideas and fearless debate,” said New College President Richard Corcoran. “We are thrilled to welcome Alan Dershowitz to Sarasota for our 2025 Commencement.”

The New College 2025 Commencement Ceremony will be a landmark event for Sarasota, taking place on May 23, 2025, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the scenic Bayfront Lawn of the Historic Ringling Mansion College Hall.

As one of Sarasota’s premier intellectual and cultural events, the New College Commencement draws students, faculty, families, and thought leaders from across Florida and beyond. The ceremony celebrates academic excellence while reinforcing New College’s commitment to free inquiry, rigorous scholarship, and the pursuit of truth.

Dershowitz’s speech marks a defining moment in a year dedicated to exploring free speech and the future of American democracy. As a nationally recognized advocate for civil liberties and legal scholarship, his address will challenge graduates to engage with complex ideas and participate in shaping the nation’s future.

With a growing reputation as a hub for academic and civil discourse, policy debate, and leadership development, New College continues to attract top-tier speakers and scholars, reinforcing its place among the most distinguished liberal arts institutions in the country.

In addition to delivering the 2025 Commencement Address, Dershowitz will also participate in the 2025 Socratic Stage Dialogue Series, a nationally recognized platform for free speech and civil discourse at New College. As part of the series, he will speak on May 22 in a highly anticipated discussion titled: “Justice or Politics? The Weaponization of Law in Modern America.”

For more information on the Socratic Stage Series, upcoming speakers, and livestream access, visit NCF.edu/SocraticStage.

For more details on the 2025 Commencement Ceremony, event logistics, and media access, visit: NCF.edu/Commencement.

About New College of Florida

Originally Posted to: mindthecampus.org

By: David Rancourt, PhD & Mariano Jimenez Jr.

Beautiful Game

There has always been something special about college football. From the passion to the pageantry, this game exemplifies the true spirit of America—a force so powerful it can unite total strangers and divide close families. Tribal to its very core, football fans of all ages perform rites and rituals, embrace their team’s icons, and hope and even pray for victories.

Despite all its fanfare, what is most special about this game has always been its effect on the men who play it.

As young boys from all walks of life join local leagues to learn fundamentals and tactics, coaches and players alike will agree that football, more than anything else, is about the development of character, understanding each man’s role on a team, and learning to make the sacrifices necessary for success. Players also learn that in this brotherhood, the only color that matters is that of the jersey on your back.

Football makes America better and stronger by instilling great values in the men who play the game.

Virtue Lost

Though purity remains in the youth and high school ranks, the virtue of the game is being destroyed at the college level.

Words like dedication, commitment, loyalty, team, sacrifice, and hard work have been lost for short-term gains of money and fame. Recruiting has morphed from “what a better man a boy will become by playing for Coach Integrity at State U,” to nothing more than a bidding war.

Today’s talent auction pits the checkbooks and desire to win of D1 schools against one another to pay unproven and often ridiculously demanding 18-year-olds to sign what are now single-season letters of intent.

Of course, everything is temporary, no matter how good or bad the player turns out to be. At any time during the season, if things get difficult or coaches bench a player for well-deserved reasons, the player can simply quit, enter the transfer portal, sign a new deal elsewhere, and be celebrated again at the arrival of their next school. Even great players in seemingly perfect situations are fair game for bidding wars. The unlimited transfer portal represents the essence of America’s tragic obsession with immediate gratification, eliminating virtues like commitment and resilience, teaching short-term gain over long-term development.

This is emblematic of a society that embraces shots for weight loss, pills for pain relief, and celebrities who are famous for nothing other than being famous.

What Caused This Mess?

As much as Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and the Transfer Portal have been detrimental to the game, watch as unionization, salary caps, and administrators clamoring for state funds to pay players further erodes all that makes the game special. NFL style management structures and private equity have now also entered the equation, proving that college football is little more than a minor league for the NFL.

Though unfair, it would be easy to blame the players for their newfound greed and selfishness. However, after decades of everyone else making money off their backs, must we wonder where student-athletes developed their thirst for money and fame? The blame lies squarely, emphatically, and precisely with the leaders of our universities who allowed and enabled all of this to happen.

Though no single person or entity is to blame for this decades-long escalating arms race, all parties involved bear some burden of responsibility, one of these authors included. As higher education in America has come under harsh review for many deserved reasons, the popularity of college football allowed it to escape critique, preventing a meaningful evaluation of how tepid, weak leadership and the siren’s song of greed and victory created this football monster.

Exploited for years by shrewder, better-informed agents pitting schools against one another for the services of overpaid coaches, university presidents and trustees were blinded by the adulation brought by victories. Few athletic directors possessed the experience necessary to evaluate the risk of complex multi-year contracts and buyouts properly. Colleges abandoned decades-long conference affiliations, aligned by academic and regional interests, to lure more money from big television payouts from other conferences. This created national mega-conferences that were great for television but terrible for traveling fans, student-athletes, and budgets.

A Better Way

Fans who long for a purer version of college football have options.

The Ivy League still has amateur student-athletes playing exciting, competitive games. These student-athletes don’t have tutors spoon-feeding them and typically attend in-person classes with their peers. The Ivy League does not pay players, has no affiliated collectives, and has no athletic scholarships. It also requires student-athletes to meet high admissions standards and earn meaningful degrees. National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics member colleges also have high-quality intercollege sports, played by student-athletes who typically expect to turn pro in something other than the sport they play.

Principled leaders must take a stand and call for an end to collectives and all other monetary payments from universities to student-athletes.

NIL may be the law of the land, but if colleges prohibit NIL payments as conditions for playing at a specific school, then the market will sort out who is worth what at no cost to institutions. The transfer portal must be reformed so that there are limits and consequences to transferring. Four-year eligibility limits must return along with an admissions mandate that all student-athletes fit within reasonable academic tiers met by all other admitted students. The academic standards don’t need to be those of the Ivy League, but there should be higher standards and demands for in-class learning so student-athletes can receive an education comparable to their non-athlete peers.

Until leaders of National Collegiate Athletic Association universities develop the courage to find their intended purpose again and say enough to this madness, they will continue to shine as beacons of shallowness and hypocrisy, sadly advancing the belief that all that matters in this world is winning, money and fame, ignoring their mottos, mission, purpose, and obligation to society to educate students to be prepared to take on the world, not the NFL.

The article below presents excerpts from a guest commentary authored by New College President Richard Corcoran that was originally published in the Wall Street Journal on May 27, 2024. The full commentary is available at WSJ.com (pay wall).

It might be customary to have a prominent entrepreneur speak at the commencement of a renowned institution like Princeton or Harvard, but it was a notable honor to have Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade, step on stage at New College of Florida. Some students, unfortunately disagreed, interrupting his speech with scattered boos and chants. Nonetheless, civil discourse and free speech will prevail at New College.

…

That students intermittently disrupted the proceedings was a disheartening reflection of the prevailing intolerance for diverse viewpoints in today’s society. But that illiberal attitude hasn’t and won’t rule New College.

…

The school made meticulous preparations to protect students’ right to enjoy a normal commencement and the speakers’ to address the crowd freely. Commencement organizers made contingency plans for the possibility of protests, deploying law enforcement and surveillance to ensure that disruptions wouldn’t overshadow the event’s significance.

…

Mr. Ricketts remained composed as he delivered his address, though a momentary pause betrayed his concern.

“They don’t care,” he confided to me in a brief side discussion, the microphone inadvertently capturing his words, later revealed in video footage of the event. “I hate it, but they really don’t care what I have to say.”

In the aftermath, supporters of the student protesters expressed concerns about potential repercussions for their behavior. I reaffirmed New College’s unwavering commitment to fairness and due process.

…

In the final exchange inadvertently captured on the mic, Mr. Ricketts and I acknowledged the broader significance of our actions. It wasn’t merely about New College but about upholding the principles of free speech and civil discourse in an increasingly polarized society.

“We will win, Joe,” I declared.

Mr. Ricketts echoed the sentiment, “You will win.”

In a world often fraught with discord, I believe New College’s unwavering stance can be a beacon of hope—a testament to the inseparability of freedom of expression and the pursuit of truth.

–

Additional Details on Student Disciplinary Referrals

Here is a question for every humanities teacher: what do we do about Aristophanes, Catullus, Milton, the Earl of Rochester, Byron, Thackeray, Wagner, D. W. Griffith, and other creators of great art but dubious morality? Nobody doubts the cinematic genius and historic technical influence of Griffith, but who can watch the lurid race portrayals of Birth of a Nation without wincing?

It’s a question that educators and arts advocates don’t like to face. When I worked for a few years at the National Endowment for the Arts, I often heard someone say that participating in art as a creator or as a spectator improved a person’s moral character and civic virtue. I heard the same kind of thing down the hall at the National Endowment for the Humanities: studying literature, languages, philosophy, and art history made for better people.

It’s still a common faith. I just picked up the latest issue of a university’s alumni magazine, which had a forum on the school’s renewed investment in the humanities. Two of the contributors explicitly linked the humanities to social justice aims, affirming that such creations foster tolerance and sensitivity. When the humanities decline, the argument goes (enrollments and majors have, indeed, plummeted), so do socially conscious attitudes. Students head to STEM and business fields where enduring questions of humanity, meaning, and purpose go unaddressed.

They’re mostly correct about those other fields, but only partly so about the humanities. The reason is simple. Yes, the novels of Dickens and comedies of Shakespeare encourage thoughtful minds and good conduct. Do Byron’s poems (“Some have accused me of a strange design, / Against the creed and morals of the land”) and Nietzsche’s philosophy (“The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it”) do the same? Can we guarantee that 19-year-olds will read them with a critical eye and not become disciples of those cynical ironists? Byron and Nietzsche are eloquent, witty, worldly talents—that’s what makes them so treacherous.

They’re not the only ones. The tradition is packed with bad influences. The very people who insist on the moral value of art don’t like what these works hand to impressionable minds. More examples:

Aristophanes’ play The Assembly of Women, which dramatizes the ludicrous disaster that follows when women obtain political power.
Paradise Lost, which assigns to Eve a forever inferior position relative to Adam, as is proper according to Milton.
Wagner’s great opera Tristan and Isolde, which trades in the dangerous lie that erotic love can be transcendent and has won fanatical admirers ever since (including Nietzsche, Proust, T. S. Eliot, and Salvador Dali).
And the opening sentence of Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon reads, “Since the days of Adam, there has hardly been a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it.”

Misogyny, misanthropy, bigotry, false hopes, poor role models . . . they’re all over the place. Great literature and art have as many wrong lessons as does human history. In fact, literature and art may be worse than real affairs precisely because of the necessity of invention. André Gide once stated, “It is with good sentiments that bad literature is made” (“C’est avec les beaux sentiments qu’on fait de la mauvaise littèrature”), and he was right.

Again, the question: What do we do with these morally questionable works?

Answer: Teach them. Teach them as you would the morally unquestionable works. The humanities classroom doesn’t favor the benevolent hero of one novel over the anti-hero of another novel. Aesthetic traits come first and last.

If the teacher does have a moral aim, it is to instill disinterestedness, which is the capacity to suspend moral, social, political, and personal judgment of the work of art, to experience it as art, to see and hear and imagine it fully, to enter the mind of Richard III and the cadences of Beethoven’s Fifth, to contemplate the form of a sonnet or the perspective of a painting before you settle on the work’s meaning.

This is, indeed, an achievement for the student, and it is forced upon the student by objects uncongenial to his sensibility. To exert the labor of understanding first, to get to know a fictional character, a philosophical argument, or a piece of music whose genre is unfamiliar before judging it right or wrong is a worthy habit, a mark of humanitas. It broadens the mind, curbs the kneejerk response, and instills patience and savvy. The dicey works do it as well as do the positive ones. We should mix the hypocritical Tartuffe with the selfless David Copperfield, the irresponsible Pinkerton (Madame Butterfly) with the noble Violetta (La Traviata), the solemn St. Paul with the irreverent Gibbon (in his chapters on the early Christians), knowing that some students may leave class with the wrong ideas.

That’s the risk of good art. It’s why Socrates banished poetry from the city. I like Nietzsche, I like reading him, including the outrageous sallies. I can disagree with the sense and enjoy the expression. Genius sometimes goes wrong and is nonetheless genius.

–

Mark Bauerlein is a Trustee at New College of Florida.

The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the New College Trustees, faculty or staff. New College of Florida promotes a climate of free expression and tolerant civil discourse according to the principles set forth in the State University System Free Expression Statement and the Board of Governors Civil Discourse Final Report.

Welcome to the new NCF.edu! New College was named the top public liberal arts college in America by Washington Monthly in 2023. Our rigorous classical education and robust environment of student life, intercollegiate athletics, and support systems for college success and career development make New College an ascendant choice for success-driven students. Learn more about your future at New College. Visit NCF.edu/Admissions today!

Dr. Stanley Fish and Dr. Mark Bauerlein addressed an audience of nearly 200 in Sainer Auditorium on April 10, marking the highest attended Socratic Stage Dialogue Series event. You can watch a full recording of the event online.

SARASOTA, Fla. — New College President Richard Corcoran proudly announces that esteemed entrepreneur and philanthropist Joe Ricketts will be the commencement speaker at this year’s graduation ceremony on Friday, May 17, 2024. Ricketts will deliver his address to a valued assembly of graduates and their families amidst the serene backdrop of the Sarasota Bayfront, adjacent to College Hall and the Historic Ringling Mansion.

A titan in the business realm, Ricketts boasts over 35 years of experience in building one of the largest brokerage firms, TD Ameritrade, recently sold to Charles Schwab. His visionary approach to recognizing market opportunities in the deregulated discount securities market, coupled with innovative technologies and distinctive marketing strategies, propelled TD Ameritrade into a global financial juggernaut after its inception as First Omaha Securities in 1975.

Beyond his illustrious business achievements, Ricketts is also celebrated for his family’s ownership of the Chicago Cubs, culminating in the end of the franchise’s century-long title drought with a historic World Series win in 2016. However, his impact extends far beyond the financial sector and realm of sports, as evidenced by his dedication to philanthropy and entrepreneurship.

Earlier this year, Ricketts embarked on a groundbreaking venture in Sarasota, announcing New College as the first institution in the nation to adopt a distance-learning curriculum from Ricketts Great Books College. This innovative initiative enables students worldwide to access a rigorous liberal arts education, with many eligible for scholarships that will allow them to graduate with little to no debt, thanks to Ricketts’ generous philanthropy.

“Joe Ricketts believes in the kind of education we hold dear at New College, a liberal arts education exploring the good, the true, and the beautiful,” Corcoran said. “Graduates of New College leave with the indelible lessons of how to think critically for themselves and not what to think by others. It has been a marvelous experience working with Joe over the last several months to provide a platform for students everywhere to learn timeless lessons from some of history’s greatest thinkers. We are honored to have him address our graduates this May.”

Some of Ricketts’s other notable ventures in entrepreneurship and philanthropy include Opportunity Education Foundation and Quest Forward Learning, The Cloisters on the Platte Foundation, Straight Arrow News, Village PieMaker, High Plains Bison, The Ricketts Conservation Foundation, and The Ricketts Art Foundation.

Ricketts is a native of Omaha, Nebraska, and a graduate of Creighton University. He resides in Little Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with his wife of 60 years, Marlene.

New College’s commencement ceremony remains an exclusive affair, reserved for graduates and their invited guests.

For further insights into the transformative collaboration between New College and Ricketts Great Books College, please visit NCF.edu/Worldwide.

SARASOTA, Fla. — New College of Florida welcomed principals and headmasters from esteemed private and public charter schools on February 22-23 for a transformative two-day engagement centered around the essence of classical liberal arts education. The event served as a platform for meaningful dialogue on the ethos of traditional liberal arts and its significance in shaping future leaders.

The two-day gathering hosted K-12 educational leaders on New College’s Sarasota Bay waterfront campus and embraced discussions on the challenges and opportunities inherent in contemporary learning paradigms and the future of higher education.

“It was a privilege to host academic leaders from diverse educational institutions and showcase firsthand the vibrant intellectual community happening at New College,” remarked President Richard Corcoran. “One of New College’s priorities is to nurture intellectual inquiry and personal growth for our students while preserving the critical thinking that a classical liberal arts education provides.”

The event featured members of the New College administration and guests, including Jeremy Tate, founder of the Classic Learning Test (CLT). Discussions included New College’s academic landscape, its world-class faculty and curriculum in Data Sciences, Marine Mammal Sciences, Economics, and Psychology, along with personalized educational opportunities, financial aid initiatives, and campus enhancements.

Highlighting recent milestones, New College marked its largest incoming class in 2023 and expects to exceed all admissions goals year on year. Additionally, New College is pioneering its distance-learning program and the introduction of a classical great books degree program in collaboration with Ricketts Great Books College. Notably, the Board’s approval of the Master’s of Marine Mammal Science program for 2024/2025 underscores New College’s commitment to excellence in graduate education.