The Civic Education Crusade: A Heretic’s Analysis

In January 2012, the National Task Force on Civic Learning and National Engagement of the Association of American Universities and College's released its report, A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracys Future. The report called for a program of civic learning and of training in civic engagement that would pervade every aspect of higher education. This article examines the effort to use instruction for citizenship training as a development of civil religion can help us understand the reasoning and motivations behind this effort and some of the problems with this type of campaign, particularly in higher education.