When I visited the UATX offices, in an Art Deco building in downtown Austin, the provost, Jacob Howland, told me that he wanted “to get the politics out of the classroom,” and that faculty members will have succeeded if the students can’t guess how they vote from what they say in class. Just as in Rogan’s comedy club, smartphones are banned in class—“so that students can’t be distracted by them, or, for example, record other students and tell the world, ‘Oh, you know, this student had this opinion, and it’s unacceptable, and I’m putting it out there on TikTok.’ ”