Two long-standing and related research interests of mine have been the production and reception of academic research and questions of methodological and theoretical rigor. These interests intersect with a general interest in norms and the informal and formal policing of acceptable and unacceptable scholarly behavior. I have written about some of the myriad challenges that erode the quality of scholarship, such as the structural and cultural causes of theoretical stagnation, the declining consensus over fundamental publication norms that became apparent to me as a co-editor of a major journal (discussed in 2023, 2025, and 2026), and misunderstandings about the appropriate standards by which to guide or evaluate qualitative research. While I have written about overlapping problems with academic research–that much of it is “boring, biased, and bad“–I have become increasingly focused on how scholars’ political considerations are transforming the norms and practices around the production and reception of research. While external political considerations are also important and influential, I’m more interested in pressures coming from academics themselves because these pressures are likely to outlast any given presidential administration and because they tend to get less attention than the more obvious forms of political interference.

Recent Work

In 2025-2026, I was a member of the ten-member Vanderbilt-WashU Commission charged with investigating the state of scholarly standards in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. I was a coauthor on the resulting Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences and the author of that Commission’s disciplinary report on sociology, The Status of Scholarly Standards in Sociology, both published in 2026. I published a short article on my Substack on my report; this article summarized my report, identified some limitations, explained some choices, and answered some criticisms. Both reports have been highly controversial, generating much media coverage, discussion, and criticism. Shortly after the main report’s publication, I participated in a panel hosted by Heterodox Academy (link to recording and transcript) to discuss it and an interview with Quillette, which also later reprinted a portion of my sociology report.

Before the Commission, I became known for my Theory and Society (2025) article, “Normativity is Not a Replacement for Theory,” which explored the consequences for theory of the “normative turn” across the social sciences using interdisciplinary punishment studies as a case study. I argued that there was a growing shift in parts of the field to replace “science logics” with “activist logics,” manifesting in different goals and rules for punishment scholarship. The article received a lot of attention. It was the most trending sociology article the week it was published (current article statistics–downloads and alt metrics–can be found here). It was also controversial and triggered an interview in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It was also the focus of a panel at the Law and Society Association annual meeting in May 2026. Two scholars have also written critical responses to my article (one published, one on arXiv). Nearly a year after my article was published, I wrote two Substack posts reflecting on the article and its reception. You can view a recorded talk I gave on the article and its reception here.

Motivated by my work with the Commission and my normativity article, I wrote an op-ed in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Why Scholarship Turns into Activism” (2026). This article lays out what I see as the major historical factors responsible for accelerating long-standing trends in academia. This article had a more modest impact, but was the subject of several critical responses published in Chronicle (here and here) and one supportive article in Inside Higher Ed.

Similarly motivated, I wrote another article in Theory and Society (2026) intended as a kind of update to my qualitative methods book to address the rise of scholars using political standards to evaluate research decisions and offering a methodological guide, “Appropriate research conduct in an age of political polarization: an intervention.” My article was included in the Free the Inquiry “Heterodox Research Roundup” in June 2026.

In April 2026, I was a short-term fellow at the Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression where I gave a talk on the politicization of academic research from within and without.

In February 2027, I will participate in a panel discussion on how we got here.

As a critic of certain trends in sociological scholarship and academia more generally, I have been asked to comment about the state of sociology and sociological research (e.g., March 2026, April 2026, June 2026).

Earlier Works

Although these recent projects and research questions have more explicitly centered the causes and consequences of politicization, reflecting what I see as a more explicit shift in academia and scholarship in recent years, my earliest works identified empirical, conceptual, and theoretical problems with scholarship tinged with political motivations:

My (2015) article criticizing the overidentification of prisoner “resistance” in the absence of sufficient evidence or conceptual clarity (see also my related work in 2017 exploring the consequences of prisoner misbehavior and my discussion of agency and structure undergirding prisoner behavior)
My reviews of several works of prison history in which scholars’ political biases shaped their interpretations and writing style (my 2017 review of Manion, 2019 review of Thompson, 2020 meta-review of prison historiography over time)
My (2017) review of scholarship on “penal state”/”carceral state,” noting a polysemy problem and the watering down of the concept, with an empirically driven theoretical intervention challenging the perception of a monolithic state (with Michelle Phelps)
My review of research on “carcerality,” criticizing the explosion of meanings for “carceral” beyond phenomena relating to prison and jail (written in 2023, forthcoming in 2026)
My (2024) discussion of how “positionality statements” increasingly omit reflexivity and essentialize race, gender, and other alleged markers of privilege.

Current Projects

I have several current mixed-methods projects that empirically investigate questions relating to the politicization of scholarship:

A study empirically investigating the correlation of funding, disciplinary affiliation, and period effects on measures of politization in scholarship
A study empirically investigating the relationship between poor-quality scholarship and markers of politicization in scholarship
A study empirically investigating the extent and characteristics of politically motivated interference into tenure/promotion cases

Academic Reform

In response to my work in these areas, a common question I am asked is how do we fix these problems (asked by those who see these developments as problems). Thus, I have also spoken and written more speculatively on questions of academic reform. These discussions are far more normative than empirical; my discussions are guided by what I see as fundamental principles about how academic work should proceed institutionally (e.g., motivated by and justified by their advancement of knowledge; a respect for academic freedom; a celebration of and commitment to viewpoint diversity). My discussions are also guided by insights from organizational theory, law and society, and what we know about the challenges of implementing reforms, but this work is primarily grounded in my personal opinions and preferences about central principles rather than empirical research on the efficacy of academic reform.

Viewpoint Diversity

I am a proponent of viewpoint diversity as a fundamental principle of university life and of scientific and scholarly inquiry, but not as a justification for hiring quotas relating to personal characteristics and protected statuses. I am also an active member of the Heterodox Academy and a member of their speakers’ bureau. I have written and spoken publicly about my views on viewpoint diversity:

My Substack post enumerating different definitions of viewpoint diversity
My Substack post compiling a list of sources relative to the debates over viewpoint diversity
My Substack post on why I think viewpoint diversity reforms won’t fix the problems with academia it’s intended to fix
A HeterodoxAcademy panel discussion (and transcript) discussing the results of a recent survey of faculty views on different kinds of diversity and how to encourage viewpoint diversity. (Also covered by The College Fix.)
A Heterodox Academy Summit on Academic Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity held at Columbia University for university administrators
An upcoming panel discussion on Pluralism, Viewpoint Diversity, and Institutional Neutrality hosted by the New School’s Center for the American Experience
An upcoming debate on how to implement viewpoint diversity (check back in Spring 2027)

Academic Reform Generally

I have also written and publicly commented on more general questions of academic reform and how to confront an apparently unprecedented period of multifaceted challenges (and opportunities) for universities.

A Heterodox Academy panel discussion on how to reform academia.
A Chronicle of Higher Education panel interview on “Can the Academy Reform Itself”
My Substack post enumerating what I see as essential guiding principles for reforming academia
My Substack post enumerating various reform strategies for fixing problems in academia
My Substack post enumerating several strategies for fixing a field or discipline
My Substack post summarizing the emerging consensus in summer 2026 following the Heterodox Social Science conference on next steps for academic reform
My Substack post speculating on possible futures for academia
My Substack post commenting on authoritarian tendencies in academia, especially the problem of guilt by association and a rejection of discussion and debate that involves politically sensitive claims and viewpoints