New college in Texas’ ‘Forbidden Courses’ open to strong reviews from students

The new University of Austin in Texas, which is set to open its first campus in Dallas in the near future, has begun offering a summer program made up of what the school calls “Forbidden Courses,” which opened last summer to rave reviews from students.

The program, which the University of Austin’s website describes as an opportunity for students to “explore the great questions of our time,” including topics like “science and religion, race, gender politics, Anglo-American grand strategy, our moral judgments, debates within conservatism, and the state of evolutionary biology.” Last summer, the school offered the first session of the Forbidden Courses.

The inaugural session hosted about 30 to 40 students who gathered in Dallas, near where the physical campus is planned, to attend a week of “small discussion-based seminars, lectures, and social activities” based on the “forbidden” topics. Some of the students spoke with Fox News this week about their experience. “There were so many different kinds of people there, like atheists and Christians and Republicans and Democrats and libertarians,” said one student, Jane Kitchen. She explained that with such a diverse group, “discussing anything turned into this really rich learning experience.” 

The University of Austin explains on its website that it offers the Forbidden Courses because “higher education has made it difficult to inquire openly into vexing questions with honesty and without fear of shame.” The school’s mission is to be “fiercely independent—financially, intellectually, and politically.”