The Forum | Liberal Arts

On This Date in Campus Freedom: Professor John P. McWhorter Receives Merrill Award

October 21, 2023 by ACTA

John P. McWhorter was the recipient of ACTA’s Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education on this date in 2022 because of his extensive scholarly work as a linguist at Columbia University professor and his trenchant social and political commentary. A regular columnist for The New York Times, John McWhorter also has written a best-selling book, Woke Racism, in which he outlined his perspective on the damaging nature of the current anti-racism rubric and its negative impact on higher education and the broader social fabric of America. He appears regularly on The Glenn Show podcast, hosted by Glenn Loury, who was one of professor McWhorter’s tribute speakers at the gala ceremony. John McWhorter’s prodigious contributions to the liberal arts earned him the Merrill Award, which he received on October 21, 2022.

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