FEATURED
Institute’s work centers around ‘academic excellence in advancing the ideas and tenets of liberty’
For four decades now, the Independent Institute has been fostering and promoting great minds on the ideas of freedom, liberty, and the dignity of every human being.
Based in California, the scholarly research and public policy institution is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Its CEO, Mary L. G. Theroux, shared some reflections with The College Fix last week about its history and future.
Her late husband, David Theroux “founded Independent because he saw a need for an institute that would be well-received and influential within mainstream intellectual communities — in the academic world, in the media, in many other intellectual markets—as well as in the popular culture of the public square,” she told The Fix.
Today, the institute has become a place for prominent conservative and freedom-minded scholars to share their research and thoughts through the institute’s newsletter and The Independent Review, its quarterly academic journal. The publication features articles by prominent scholars on economics, political science, law, history, philosophy, and sociology.
The institute also has dozens of senior and research fellows from universities across the U.S.
One of its missions is its student programs, which sprung from Theroux’s “deep appreciation for the need for students to be enriched by the ideas of liberty,” his wife told The Fix.
The institute offers students opportunities to write for it, invite a scholar to their campuses and clubs to speak, and participate in its essay contest, which encourages thoughtful discussion of topics like social justice, the pandemic, egalitarianism, capitalism, and higher education.
David Theroux started his liberty-minded work as a student himself. He was involved in Young America’s Foundation and became friends with Leonard Read of the Foundation for Economic Education and F.A. Harper of the Institute for Humane Studies during college.
During graduate school at the University of Chicago, he organized lectures by Austrian economists, including Friedrich Hayek. Soon after graduating, he helped start student programs for the libertarian Cato Institute in San Francisco.
The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. affected much of David Theroux’s work with the Independent Institute, his wife told The Fix.
“[After 9/11,] we saw many organizations and people we had thought shared our commitment to the sanctity of individual life, liberty, and responsibility embrace a collectivist response,” Mary Theroux said.
“Because of our roots in Robert Higgs’ work … we also knew the attacks would be exploited by government to grow in ways never before imagined. Accordingly, we issued our Statement on the Terrorist Attacks and launched our Center on Peace and Liberty,” she said.
The center, one of several under the institute, believes that national security must be balanced with American’s fundamental freedoms. Its goal is to “promote lasting peace and security while safeguarding traditional American values such as civil and economic liberties, privacy, freedom of opportunity, limited government, and the rule of law.”
A C.S. Lewis fan, Theroux also started the C.S. Lewis Society of California following 9/11. Lewis, perhaps one of the most well-known Christian authors of the 20th century, was a professor of English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge universities.
While separate from the institute, the society has a similar mission and goals. Its purpose includes offering events, publications, and other resources “that advance deeper understanding of the enduring philosophical, cultural, historical, literary, spiritual, social, and economic issues of mankind.”
“[We] saw supposed adherents to liberty advocating for actions antithetical to its foundational principles, and at the same time saw many Christians leaning into ‘social justice’ and other misdirected movements,” Mary Theroux told The Fix. “We knew that the principles of liberty and a free economy had been born from the study of Christ’s teachings.
“With Lewis’ renewed popularity with the release of the Narnia films, David saw an opportunity of leveraging his writings to help reconnect those in the liberty realm to its foundations in Christian thought, and Christians to Christ’s liberty-affirming teachings,” she said.
As for Lewis’s writings reaching students today, Theroux told The Fix his work is relevant now “more than ever.”
“Lewis was incredibly insightful and deeply understood human nature in writings that seem extremely prescient today,” she said.
When asked about the changes she has seen in higher education over the last four decades, Theroux said the most obvious is “the decline in academic standards and integrity.”
“We have been at the forefront in warning of the subversive impact of government’s growing involvement in education … as well as against the trend towards ideological faddishness over academic rigor,” she told The Fix. “…We had hoped in pursuing those initiatives, however, to serve not as prophets but to forestall the trends.”
As for the future of Independent, Theroux said, “We believe there remains a need for an institute that strongly adheres to academic excellence in advancing the ideas and tenets of liberty.
It will “continue to cultivate an enterprising culture for identifying issues and opportunities where we believe Independent can make a differentiated impact,” she said.
“[Our] methodology will continue unchanged, while we continuously seek to apply independent thinking to issues that matter and create transformational ideas for the changing, pressing social and economic challenges,” Theroux told The Fix.
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