Hillsdale College
Private liberal arts college; Hillsdale, Michigan; founded 1844; accepts no federal or state funding; under president Larry P. Arnn became the flagship educational institution of the New Right; Imprimis newsletter reaches 6 million+ subscribers; 40+ free online courses; charter school network; DC Van Andel Graduate School of Government; co-chaired Trump’s 1776 Commission
What It Is
Hillsdale College is a small liberal arts college (~1,500 students) that has positioned itself as the flagship educational institution of the New Right. It accepts no federal or state funding — allowing it to operate outside federal non-discrimination requirements and to maintain explicitly conservative and Christian educational norms. This independence is central to its brand and its marketing.
Connection to the Claremont Network
President Larry P. Arnn is a Claremont Graduate University PhD and student of Harry V. Jaffa, making Hillsdale an institutional extension of the West Coast Straussian network. The college’s curriculum and mission reflect Jaffaite commitments: the Declaration of Independence as founding document, Lincoln as the greatest American, natural law as the basis of the Constitution.
”Two Hillsdales”
Field identifies a structural duality at the heart of the institution: the residential campus and a vast online/outreach enterprise that operate on quite different logics.
The residential college: A genuine small liberal arts institution, ~1,500 students, where professors teach across disciplines in a classical curriculum. By many accounts, students receive a rigorous education.
The online empire: A New Right messaging and mobilization operation reaching millions of Americans with politically freighted content — framed as education but functioning as political formation. The content emphasizes the Founding’s natural-rights ideals while consistently minimizing the history of slavery and racial injustice.
Imprimis
Imprimis is Hillsdale’s monthly lecture newsletter. Under Arnn it grew from roughly 1 million to over 6 million subscribers by 2024, making it one of the largest-circulation conservative publications in America. Contributors range from Claremont fellows to Trump administration officials to hard-right culture warriors. The newsletter is free. Roger Kimball’s “January 6 Insurrection Hoax” piece (September 2021) — arguing that the January 6 attack was not an insurrection — ran in Imprimis.
Online Courses
Hillsdale has produced 40+ free online courses on the Constitution, American history, Western civilization, and related subjects. Delivered via email and YouTube, they have reached millions of Americans. As of 2024, only one of these courses was taught by a woman — a detail consistent with the college’s broader orientation toward traditional sex roles and masculine intellectual authority.
Charter School Network
Since 2010, Hillsdale has operated a growing network of charter schools across multiple states, extending its educational model — including its version of American history and civics — to K-12 education.
Washington DC Expansion
- 2010: Hillsdale opened the Kirby Center in Washington DC, a policy and events hub for hosting conservative speakers and training political operatives.
- 2019: Hillsdale opened the Van Andel Graduate School of Government in DC — a program explicitly designed to train conservative public servants for Republican administrations. A pipeline for New Right personnel directly into the executive branch.
The 1776 Curriculum
After the 1776 Commission Report was panned and removed from the White House website (but not before being downloaded millions of times), Hillsdale launched the 1776 Curriculum in July 2021 — a thorough K-12 lesson set on American history and civics, coinciding with its ongoing charter school expansion. By 2024 it ran to over 4,000 pages.
Director of K-12 education: Dr. Katie O’Toole — Larry Arnn’s daughter. O’Toole insisted the curriculum was not a response to the 1619 Project and not ideologically motivated: “We’re not telling students this is what you ought to believe. We’re telling them, here are the facts, here’s the information.”
Her “Letter to Teachers” introducing the curriculum articulates the Hillsdale philosophy: “truth is objective”; the Aristotelian good is the basis of right moral conduct; “human nature itself does not fundamentally change or progress”; people should be judged for actions and character. Its conclusion: “The more important thing in American history is that which has endured rather than that which has passed, that is, America’s founding principles which have outlasted and extinguished from law various forms of evil, such as slavery, racism, and other violations of the equal protection of natural rights.” And: “America is an exceptionally good country.”
The curriculum is, in Field’s assessment, better and more thorough than the 1776 Commission Report. But Adam Hochschild observed: “Thomas Jefferson’s name appears hundreds of times, but Sally Hemings’s never.” It also maintains the characteristically Hillsdale jabs against the New Deal, progressivism, and the “administrative state.”
The 1776 Commission
Arnn co-chaired Trump’s 1776 Commission (with Vanderbilt’s Carol Swain). The Commission’s executive director was Matthew Spalding, a Hillsdale DC staffer and student of Charles Kesler. The commission produced the 1776 Commission Report (January 18, 2021). Biden dissolved it on his first day in office.
Significance
Hillsdale’s significance lies in the combination of genuine institutional credibility (a real college with real faculty), mass reach (Imprimis, online courses, charter schools), pipeline into government (Van Andel School), and ideological coherence (West Coast Straussian natural-rights constitutionalism). No other single institution in the New Right combines all four. Field’s critique: the reach amplifies a tendentious, ideologically driven version of American history, and the “education” framing provides cover for what is effectively political formation.
Cross-References
- Claremont Institute — institutional sibling; shared intellectual lineage
- Larry P. Arnn — president; Jaffa student; co-chair of 1776 Commission
- Harry V. Jaffa — intellectual founder of both Hillsdale’s and Claremont’s traditions
- West Coast Straussianism — the philosophical framework Hillsdale teaches
- 1776 Commission Report — the Trump “patriotic education” report Arnn co-chaired
- Charles Kesler — fellow West Coast Straussian; his student Spalding ran the 1776 Commission
- Ideas First — Hillsdale’s mass outreach as Ideas First at scale
- The Claremonters — the movement Hillsdale helps staff and educate
- Christopher Rufo — parallel culture warrior whose anti-CRT work parallels Hillsdale’s “patriotic education” mission