America has entered a cultural moment where opinion outweighs evidence, and loudness overshadows learning. Expertise, once a cornerstone of democracy, is now ridiculed and sidelined in favor of uninformed conviction. For African American institutions, the stakes are especially dire: HBCU scholars and policy experts are drowned out in a society that prizes noise over nuance. Loud and wrong has become the new standard, while quiet and learned is treated as elitist. If America continues to dismiss expertise, African American institutions must hold even tighter to it, weaponizing knowledge as a form of power and protection in a world where freedom itself depends on truth. Continue reading →