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West Virginia University just launched something rare: a center built to teach Western civilization, the American founding, and free speech without apology. It has already drawn national media attention, some of it hostile.

In this episode, Tony sits down with Dr. Patrick Lee Miller, director of WVU's new Washington Center for Civics, Culture, and Statesmanship, to separate the reporting from the reality. Dr. Miller pushes back directly on recent coverage that mocked the center's low enrollment, explaining the bureaucratic hurdles behind those numbers and why the criticism misses what is actually happening on the ground. He argues the media's hostility says more about the institutions doing the reporting than about the center itself.

The conversation goes further, into Dr. Miller's own journey from student leftist to post-liberal thinker, the philosophical roots of the American founding, and the center's mission to teach ideas the modern academy often avoids. Tony and Dr. Miller also dig into the curriculum itself, including a course on evolution and human nature, where they find real points of disagreement and work through them in good faith.

A conversation about building something new in higher education, and why some people would rather see it fail before it starts.

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