#delegitimize

By: Peter Boghossian

Published: Sep 16, 2025

The Oxford Union

The Oxford Union is the most venerable, prestigious debate society in the world, with previous presidents including prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson. George Abaraonye, the Oxford student president-elect of the Oxford Union, is poised to fill those shoes. Abaraonye recently commented on the murder of Charlie Kirk, posting to Instagram: “Charlie Kirk got shot loool.”

It is difficult to imagine such heartless depravity. Indeed, even thinking in such a way is a monstrous departure from every norm of human decency. And to imagine that Abaraonye is poised to lead the Oxford Union would, in years past, be unthinkable. But we are in 2025 and Abaraonye is of African descent, making disciplinary actions more difficult due to accusations of racism.

In response to Abaraonye’s despicable post and his subsequently advocating violence, the Oxford Union stated the president-elect will be disciplined for “inappropriate remarks.” He will, however, not be dismissed from his position.

This decision fills me with rage. And yet, it is the correct decision. Not because of any high-minded appeal to free speech, or my opposition to cancel culture, but because Abaraonye is a symbol of the derangement, ideological capture, and degeneracy of the entire university system. Debating in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and expressing glee at the murder of someone with whom he disagrees, Abaraonye is the figurehead that Oxford deserves and a perfect symbol for our university system writ large.

Claudine Gay, Harvard, and Plagiarism

I’ve argued for years that serial plagiarist Claudine Gay should have been kept in her position as the President of Harvard University. (Also, see my interview with Bruce Gilley.) Gay, who even plagiarized the acknowledgements in her dissertation, was found innocent of plagiarism even before the investigation.

Like Abaraonye, Gay was a conspicuous stain on the university and its integrity. She was also a perfect symbol of endemic corruption. And like Abaraonye, she is a public disgrace. And also like Abaraonye, she was the ideal person to head one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Just as if Gay were to have remained as president, with Abaraonye leading the Oxford Union, Oxford delegitimizes itself. When Oxford is delegitimized, its influence wanes to the degree that it is delegitimized. And if we are to have any hope of saving Western society, we must stop the source of corruption at its source: The university system. Abaraonye is a useful tool to that end.

Burn the University System to the Ground

Interviewer: “You don’t really mean burn the entire university system down, do you?” Me: Yeah, I do. Burn it to the ground.

With the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Overton window has moved. More and more people are aware of the grave and even existential dangers posed by our academies and what must be done about them. (To understand why universities are becoming cults, see here.)

For over a decade, I’ve been arguing that the university system is irredeemably corrupt. (For more, see my letter of resignation.) It cannot be saved. Academics who have jobs for life have manufactured entire bodies of literature that are not merely untethered from reality but overtly hostile to the building blocks of civil, functioning societies. Universities, and much of the madness they launder through the peer-reviewed system, are inimical to creating good citizens, forming sane public policies, and sustaining the traditions of the West.

Here's one thing you can do to combat the madness seeping out of the universities and infecting the entire society: Explicitly support beacons of corruption and degeneracy who lead morally bankrupt institutions. There are few better ways to delegitimize academic institutions than to help them delegitimize themselves. As the ancient saying goes, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” In other words, allow opponents to fully commit to their errors. Any attempt to intervene could potentially help them correct course and avoid negative consequences of their actions. In fact, keeping Abaraonye shows not that they’ve made a mistake in judgment, but that they cannot course correct. It will herald their downfall.

Fin

In one of the last texts I received from Charlie, he told me he was lending me his adamant support. Charlie was a devout Christian and was well aware that I am an atheist. He also knew that we have strong disagreements about a range of issues, and yet he was supportive. He was a fundamentally good, decent, noble, and honorable man. And so it was fitting that an honorable man lead an honorable institution.

So too is it fitting that a dishonorable man, a morally ill man, lead a corrupt institution. In fact, it should be no other way. The world must know that moral sickness is taught and supported in Western universities, and that course correction is not possible.

There’s a kind of beauty in retaining Abaraonye; a reciprocal perfection. A deranged, morally sick young man leading a morally deranged, ideologically beholden institution. It should be no other way.

--

Peter Boghossia: Demean dialogue for long enough, the only thing people have access to is violence. There's no other option. You either have a conversation about your problems or you start killing everybody or, you know, destroying stuff.

But these are the people who have not allowed conversation. So, of course, this is going to come back to bite them. That's the snake eating its own tail. That's these lines of literature when they're teaching these kids. The whole thing is an ideology mill. All of it. All of it. 100% of it.

Their primary function and their primary function of people who teach there is to discharge some deranged ideological mission. What we have is a situation that is dr-- that is literally teaching people that the foundations of western civil society are cancerous and poisonous and that thinking has metastasized throughout the system.

So my solution is burn the whole thing down. My solution is that we need to build new things. We need to build new institutions. So this I'm going to burn a tremendous number of bridges when I say this. I'm just going to tell you because I'm just is going to be blunt.

Dave Rubin: You're in a burning mood.

Boghossian: I'm-- I'm in a burning-- I've been in a burn mood for quite a while now.

Q: Obviously by saying burn them all down, we don't we're not actually talking about physically burning them down. What is it that you suggest we do?

Boghossian: If you have an entire set of institutions that actually teach people to hate other people and to be racist, anti-racism is racism, and to destroy the meritocracy and to destroy the whole civilization, it's not clear to me why it would be a bad thing if those institutions stopped functioning at a rudimentary level. And and I will fully admit right from the get-go-- was just at Dartmouth in a talk and someone said, rightly so, and I'll admit this from the get-go. Yeah, it takes time and money to build new institutions.

Until these universities and institutions get their together, people should not go there. They're teaching them things that are simply false.

Q: So you have no hope that this problem can be corrected, that these institutions can start becoming more worthwhile again?

Boghossian: It's-- no. So, not only do I have no hope, but if you want any kind of hope, you have to burn them down.

So, I don't think they're salvageable. Um, so you have bodies of literature that are corrupt. You have the raison d'etre of the institution which has been perverted. You have individuals who are ideologues who do not teach for truth. I mean, look, think about the struggle sessions, the DEI. The whole university architecture is predicated on this idea of finding and hunting down people who don't agree with the narrative particularly on race, gender, and things with an identity level salience. These are not the institutions that you and I went to. So I do not think it can be saved. I could unequivocally no.

Q: I mean I guess in so many ways you could have stayed there and said let me try to save it but you realized there's there is no saving to be done.

Dem claims of ‘voter suppression’ in Georgia debunked: New data show registration, voting INCREASED under Kemp

(National Sentinel) False Narrative: The Democrat Party and its allies in the Left-wing ‘establishment’ media are working overtime to destroy Americans’ trust in our institutions and particularly in our election system as they push one lie after another in order to delegitimize Republican victories.

For example, during the recent post-midterm election chaos in Georgia, Democratic…

Revenge of the Nerds

Earlier this month, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a damning report: Sidelining Science Since Day One—How the Trump Administration Has Harmed Public Health and Safety in Its First Six Months. The value of science to policy making has been recognized in the United States at least since 1863, when President Lincoln, at the height of the Civil War, signed into law a bill establishing the…