ACLS President Joy Connolly responded to the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s coverage of the new “State of Scholarship” report released by Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis.
In her letter to the editor, published June 9, 2026, Connolly stated the article’s title, “Has the Left Ruined the Humanities?” was misleading and suggested it may be “clickbait.”
She also lamented the report authors’ choice not to consult with the professional societies representing the fields singled out for the harshest criticism in their report and called for more collaborative approaches.
Scholars are very skilled at analyzing, or as I often say, admiring problems and less skilled at designing and building consensus on solutions. This is why ACLS and our member societies, in our efforts to advance humanistic inquiry, are so deeply committed to working collaboratively on practical action to combat the rampant devaluation, de-funding, and censorship of knowledge today. ACLS President Joy Connolly
The Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences identifies anthropology as the single most extreme case of scholarly deterioration in the humanities and social sciences. The American Anthropological Association rejects that characterization, not out of institutional defensiveness, but on evidentiary and methodological grounds the committee itself would claim to care about.
