In Race Matters, Cornel West anticipates a dilemma that continues to shape American intellectual life. He observes that the massive growth of the Academy over the past several decades, fueled by significant federal investment in higher learning, has transformed it into a “world in itself” and the primary custodian of the nation’s intellectual talent. Because of this insularity, West argues, even radical critiques emerging from within the Academy often remain confined to academic terms rather than cultivating genuine linkages with struggles beyond institutional walls. In other words, the Academy risks becoming a closed environment, an echo chamber where critical thought is contained, professionalized, and redirected inward, rather than fueling broader democratic and social movements.

I believe that these observations by West strike at the heart of contemporary concerns regarding the role of the scholar in America today, especially during a time of democratic backsliding, divestment of federal funding from higher education, and censorship of free speech. Students have faced arrest and even had their international student visas revoked for protesting. Legislatures target faculty for addressing histories of race, gender, sexuality, and U.S. foreign policy. And as universities become increasingly exposed to the harmful executive orders of the Trump administration, one must ponder: What does it mean to be a scholar when the university itself is in crisis? And how can intellectuals orient themselves in ways that sustain democratic engagement rather than producing scholarship for scholarship’s sake?

With the latter, this would concern re-imagining scholarly work as a praxis—a living practice rooted in solidarity with communities affected by sociopolitical ills. It requires scholars to step outside the insular confines of academic discourse and engage directly with the democratic struggles of their compatriots, co-producing knowledge that not only critiques existing structures but also contributes to building more inclusive forms of civic life.

One might think W.E.B. Du Bois offers an important historical model for how the scholar should do this, one that would especially appeal to West, since he marks a crucial antecedent in the pragmatist tradition. Du Bois wrestles with questions similar to these throughout his public life, offering us a collection of scholarship that bridges the gap between thought and action. For that reason, he is a vital figure to consider. Du Bois believes that “To tap this mighty reservoir of experience, knowledge, beauty, love, and deed we must appeal not to the few, not to some souls, but to all [souls].” This notion undergirds his belief in the efficacy of a fully developed democratic infrastructure. Therefore, he understands that his orientation as an intellectual, especially as a Black intellectual, carries a vital responsibility to serve both as a social critic and communal catalyst. This notion raises another question: How might Du Bois help us imagine a more just and courageous intellectual praxis? 

To address these queries, we must acknowledge that scholarship cannot be confined solely to the protection of academic spheres whose legitimacy is already fraying. The survival of intellectual life depends on the courage of scholars to embrace a public vocation. In my view, this vocation entails three commitments: to speak truth to power, to immerse oneself in communities beyond the university, and to safeguard the fragile infrastructure of democracy during times of sociopolitical turmoil. 

Speaking truth to power is not a rhetorical flourish but a moral necessity. It means refusing to soften or obscure the realities of oppression even when institutions may punish moral clarity. Du Bois provides a model here. In essays such as “The Souls of White Folk,” he names whiteness as an ideology of conquest and exposes the historical misinformation that lies at the heart of Western civilization. When he reflected on the death of his infant son, Burghardt, in The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois refused to narrate grief in sentimental terms; instead, he indicted the cruelty of a nation that left Black children freer in death than in life itself. Truth-telling of this sort in Du Bois’s scholarship is not academic performance, but rather a refusal to allow power to define the terms of knowledge. Today, when books are banned, dissenting speech is silenced, and educational television programs are losing funding and could potentially be replaced by PragerU, a conservative misinformation outlet, scholars who choose honesty take on risk. However, the decision not to speak the truth is itself political, as it indirectly allows falsehoods to go unchecked. 

Moreover, scholars ought to immerse themselves in communities beyond the university, recognizing themselves as accountable not only to the profession but also to the public, whose lives are shaped by policy, law, and culture. Du Bois demonstrated this through his Atlanta University Studies, in which he operated as a co-participant, a public intellectual in community with teachers, pastors, reformers, and laypeople to map the grassroots infrastructure of Black civil society. Du Bois notes, “Very few books on the Negro problem…have not acknowledged their [authors’/writers’/scholars’] indebtedness to our work [Du Bois/the Atlanta University Studies team/laypeople],” an explicit declaration that recognizes the intellectual labor and epistemic credibility of Black folk who animated these studies. He embedded his scholarship in the lifeworlds of the very folk he aimed to uplift. Our moment requires a similar scholarly praxis.

In the face of mass protests against deportations, climate catastrophe, and assaults on civil liberties, scholars cannot retreat into the safety of the seminar room. They must learn from, work with, and be accountable to the people whose struggles may animate the very scholarship we produce within the scope of democratic life. Knowledge that does not emerge from and return to these communities risks becoming merely a commodity in the academic marketplace.

To address this challenge, scholars can engage in various forms of community-engaged research that focus on the barriers and goals of those in need. These practices may include listening sessions with community members, co-designing projects with grassroots organizations, and sharing research results with communities through policy briefs, open-access archival materials, and teach-ins at community centers, churches, or local schools. Moreover, scholars may be called to be active participants in public life, which can include testifying at city council hearings or lending expertise to legal defense campaigns, ensuring that their work and vocation do not solely analyze the issues impacting democratic life but actively work to transform and strengthen it for vulnerable communities.  

The scholar must also work to preserve democratic infrastructure—to defend, reform, and reimagine democratic institutions when they are under threat. However, this is perhaps the most challenging task because it requires both critique and care. Du Bois fulfills this criterion throughout his academic and political career. Derrick Darby agrees with this notion in “Du Bois’s Defense of Democracy,” stating that Du Bois “supplies invaluable insight into how to save democracy from failure,” offering a vision rooted not in “blind, uncritical devotion,” but in “pragmatic realism (democracy is not perfect but it’s the best game in town) and an abiding faith in the masses to better their own conditions when given a real opportunity.” 

Du Bois spent his life fighting to expand the civic foundations of democracy, including voting rights, education, and civil liberties, under the auspices of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Yet, during the latter half of his life, Du Bois grew increasingly disillusioned with American liberal democracy and began to turn toward socialism and Pan-African solidarity. This ideological shift was perceived as a threat to the American polity, which would lead to his prosecution as an enemy of the state in February 1951. Du Bois would soon recognize that the U.S. democratic project, as it stood, could not secure freedom for Black people and therefore led to his exodus to Ghana in 1961.

As a public scholar, Du Bois demonstrates that the preservation of democracy does not mean complacency, but rather safeguarding and, when necessary, radically transforming the institutions that make freedom possible, considering the demands of the socially oppressed. In our current moment, this task is especially urgent. 

For those of us stepping into this beautiful tradition, the charge is clear: speak truth to power, embed yourself in communities outside of the Academy, and remain accountable to the communities that make both thinking and freedom possible by committing yourself to preserving democratic infrastructure. These measures are not luxuries but necessities in a moment when intellectual life is under siege. They demand that the public scholar risk institutional comfort for moral clarity, that they trade insularity for solidarity, and that they treat democracy not as a stable inheritance but as a fragile experiment requiring constant defense. This comportment is part of the vocation of the public scholar that is urgently needed in our present moment. It should not be optional, nor should it be performative—it is a responsibility. In these uncertain times, I believe the scholar who chooses silence may have inadvertently chosen a side. To address West’s dilemma, then, is to commit not to scholarship for its own sake but to scholarship as a form of democratic care. And I am convinced that if we do not take up this responsibility now, we may not get another chance to do so again.

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