John L Esposito, a prominent scholar of religion and international affairs at Georgetown University, passed away on July 15, 2026, due to complications from heart surgery.
He was a towering intellectual who published more than 55 books, mainly with Oxford University Press, which have been translated into dozens of languages. He uniquely shaped the modern study of Islam and Muslim societies during the late 20th and early 21st century, particularly in the area of Islam-West relations during key moments of friction following the 1979 Iranian revolution and 9/11.
John was born into a working-class Italian-American family in Brooklyn, New York, in 1940. His worldview was shaped by his devout Catholic mother and his father’s commitment to social justice. He aspired to become a Catholic priest and, at a young age, joined the strict Capuchin Franciscan Order. John left the seminary before ordination and opted for graduate school instead. He earned a doctorate in religious studies at Temple University under the supervision of Ismail al-Faruqi, the late Palestinian-American scholar of religion.
John’s family and friends questioned his career choice because they feared for his employability. When he entered the job market in 1974, there was only one advertised position in Islamic studies. The study of religion, particularly Islam, was absent in many institutions of higher learning, and international relations programmes at universities ignored the role of religion in global affairs.
Telling stories was one of Professor Esposito’s many passions. Reflecting on his career, he frequently joked that he owed his livelihood to two famous “radical” Muslims, one Shia and the other Sunni: Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden.
After the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, interest in the relationship between Islam and politics skyrocketed in the West. The same happened after 9/11. John’s expertise was suddenly in high demand. He responded by publishing several groundbreaking books on the relationship between Islam and politics, Islam’s normative ideals, Islam-West relations, and the diverse political and social structures of Muslim societies. He was frequently quoted in the media, and governments now sought his counsel.
This story about John’s career, however, has a steep downside.
The Western interest in Islam and Muslims emerged due to threats to United States national security. This meant the ability to understand this topic in a free, unbiased and independent way was absent for most Westerners. The enveloping context that shaped the policy and public debate on Islam and Muslims was themes of political revolution, mass violence and perceived threats to global order.
John’s educational efforts were always an uphill battle. Establishment academics dominated the intellectual, policy and media debates. Bernard Lewis wrote about the alleged “Roots of Muslim Rage” at modernity that purportedly explained turmoil in the Middle East. Around the same time, Samuel Huntington advanced a popular thesis on the “Clash of Civilizations”. These views had a wide following, in part because they reinforced pre-existing Western biases about Islam and Muslims. They were further enhanced by US and Israeli national security narratives about an alleged Islamic threat in the aftermath of the Cold War.
John was an early and courageous scholar who challenged Orientalist misrepresentations of Islam and Muslims in an era of deep polarisation. His scholarship created room for understanding in lieu of prejudice, and his intellectual insights allowed a younger generation of scholars to build on and expand upon his pioneering research.
Professor Esposito advanced a new understanding of religion by criticising the dominant social science theories about political development. He astutely drew attention to a “secular bias” that informed mainstream intellectual debates in the West on the relationship between religion and politics. These modernisation theories purported to be universally applicable based on the assumption that religion was a relic of the past that no longer mattered in the modern world. In truth, these claims were ideologically biased, based on a set of specifically Western experiences.
By contrast, John interpreted the politics of the Muslim world not from a Western normative framework but rather from the Muslim world’s own experience. In other words, not from the outside in, but rather from the bottom up, from the perspective of the masses, many of whom held onto a religious identity. In doing so, he advanced a historically grounded and sociologically compelling analysis of religious politics in the Islamic world. Critiques of the legacy of colonialism, authoritarianism and US foreign policy were central to his intellectual work.
Professor Esposito’s work on political Islam was pioneering. He wrote about the social conditions and collective aspirations that rendered political Islam appealing to diverse constituencies across the Middle East and the broader Muslim world. While most mainstream Western scholars and liberal intellectuals focused on the Islamist desire to implement “Sharia”, Esposito focused on the core aspirations that animated political Islam: dignity, justice, self-determination, and opposition to external domination. These same aspirations made political Islam a resilient and enduring force.
In reflecting on John Esposito’s legacy, I’m reminded of an observation by Edmund Burke III. Commenting on the work of the late Marshall GS Hodgson, author of The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History of a World Civilization, Burke noted that Hodgson, like Esposito, refused to view Islam as the “other”. Instead, he understood the Islamic tradition as “a venture alongside others that marked human efforts to bring about a just and moral world”.
We are unlikely to see a scholar in our lifetime again who can match John Esposito’s moral and intellectual caliber. His impact on our collective education and understanding of Islam-West relations is unique and immeasurable. Those who care about universal values rooted in international law, human rights, democracy, and cross-cultural understanding are deeply in his debt.
John Esposito is survived by his wife of 61 years, Jean Esposito, his partner and primary supporter in all his endeavours, and the enduring love of John’s life.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Booming Hans Zimmer-style cinematic music reaches a crescendo, shaking my bones. Two turquoise macaws swoop within an inch of my hair and join a sky filled with nearly 250 birds. Hawks, kites, pelicans, and an owl soar and swoop around a pagan-looking wooden circle. Peacocks fuss at the makeshift river below, coaxed by two actors telling the story of humans’ relationship with nature. Grey clouds roll in, dark with rain. After all, we are risking an open-air performance in north-east England. I’m at a preview of Kynren: the Storied Lands, the latest gloriously unrestrained project in the market town of Bishop Auckland, 12 miles south of Durham.
I grew up near Bishop Auckland, which was once an important coal-mining and railway town. Last time I was here, its centre was dominated by discount stores. If, in 2003, you’d told teenage me that the high street would become an ode to art, history and culture, I would have laughed. Well, I would have grunted and turned up the Nu metal on my MP3 player.
The Spanish Gallery inside Auckland Palace features work by El Greco and Velázquez. Photograph: The Auckland Project
This madcap renaissance is down to one couple. In 2012, investment banker Jonathan Ruffer rescued Francisco de Zurbarán’s celebrated series Jacob and His Twelve Sonsfrom the sale of Auckland Palace. Needing somewhere to house the paintings, he ended up buying Auckland Palace too. He and his wife Jane Ruffer could have followed centuries of previous owners, closed the doors and kept the paintings to themselves. Instead, they set up a charity and opened up the palace and its beautiful gardens to the public. Thus began the complete renovation of Bishop Auckland.
The palace itself is a vision of grand, gothic architecture dating from the late 12th century. In St Peter’s chapel, the stone archways and a painted wooden ceiling make you feel as if you have stepped into the middle ages. The lifesized Zurbarán paintings remain on the dining room walls as a stream of visitors peruse the preserved stately rooms, guided by volunteer attendants.
“We employ 201 staff,” says Harry Sinclair, public relations officer at the Ruffers’ Auckland Project, as he guides us through the estate. “Around 80% come from a 10-mile radius, so we’re very much leading the circular economy. It’s about regenerating the town through its culture and heritage.”
After procuring the palace, the project grew arms and legs, becoming the Auckland Project, a regeneration charity dedicated to remodelling Bishop Auckland. As well as running the palace and gardens, the initiative built two art galleries and a lookout tower, and preserved a local heritage railway and Roman fort.
The galleries – one dedicated to mining art from County Durham, the other to the golden age of Spanish art – are not the ramshackle, fossil-packed local museums of my childhood school trips, but sleek galleries with ink-black walls and , boasting works by El Greco and Velázquez. Back outside, the drizzle clinging to my skin brings me back to Earth, but the striking viewing tower dominating the centre like the skeleton of a cathedral is another sight I never thought I’d see in Bishop Auckland. “Altogether we call it a slightly bonkers day out,” says Sinclair.
The setting for the new show is picturesque. Photograph: Will Walker/North News and Pictures
He tells me about the 59-bedroom hotel the project is building on the market place. He says it should increase footfall and dwell time in the town centre, with 1.5 million visitors expected each year from 2029. The hotel could create up to 95 jobs. There are already self-catering cottages in a neat line outside Auckland Palace and boutique accommodation at the Park Head Hotel.
But most ambitious of all is the jaw-dropping Kynren project. In 2013, the Ruffers bought Flatts Farm – about 100 hectares (250 acres) outside Bishop Auckland – and every summer since 2016, have hosted a glorious night show telling 2,000 years of English history to audiences of up to 8,000 people. More than 1,000 local volunteers work to create an extravaganza with horseback cavalry, sword fighting, working steam locomotives and boats gliding across a human-made lake, culminating in a dazzling firework display.
And next week, Kynren: the Storied Lands is opening during the day, too, as a live-show theme park for the first time. The arena, where my sneak peek at the new Lost Feather show takes place, is impressive. Huge wooden branches are stacked haphazardly into a circular nest so convincing I expect an eagle chick the size of a bus to emerge. During the show, birds pop out of hidden doors above the audience and swoop overhead, coaxed by handlers in medieval-style tunics.
It doesn’t always go to plan. One kestrel flies off into the nearby forest, and a tawny owl refuses to perform; its wide yellow eyes staring out at an audience delighted by its misbehaviour. Each mishap only adds to the joy of the experience. “That’s the beauty of live performance,” Anna Warnecke, CEO of Kynren, says. “There’s an electric sense of adrenaline that you don’t get from watching the same thing on a screen.” She’s right. By the end of the show, we’re holding a collective breath and there’s heartfelt applause and laughter when the kestrel returns from the distant woodland to the gloved arm of its handler.
The Auckland Tower in the heart of town. Photograph: travelibUK/Alamy
The Lost Feather is one of six live shows running throughout the day until mid-September. The other five performances are in equally elaborate auditoriums. The Legend of the Wear (a re-telling of the local Lambton Worm myth) features live action water stunts on a lakeside stage. At Land of the Vikings you walk through a working village, interacting with actors to the sound of clanging metal from the forge before distant drumming signals the start of the show in the boat-like arena. Expect big beards, the clash of shields and axes, fire, and a lot of Viking roaring.
“We wanted to create a visitor destination,” Anna says. “People aren’t going to travel that far for a single 90-minute show like Kynren. So the daytime performances give people a reason to spend all day here.” There’s certainly plenty to stay for at Bishop Auckland these days. Apart from epic bird shows and recreated Viking raids, a fascinating palace, Spanish masterworks, a Roman fort, deer park and heritage railway line, the original Kynren spectacular still runs on Fridays and Saturdays between July and September.
This is not just a “slightly bonkers day out”; it’s a testament to unbridled ambition. I think even my sulking 16-year-old self would be secretly in awe of what Bishop Auckland has achieved.
The trip was provided by Visit County Durham. Kynren: the Storied Lands day show runs from 18 July until 12 September (£30 adult, £20 child, kynren.com). Auckland Palace (£20, children under 4 free, aucklandproject.org) is open 10.30am-4pm, Wednesday to Sunday and bank holiday Mondays
NEW plans have revealed the planned makeover for one UK station that sees 14.8million passengers every year.
The busy train station in the North of England is set to undergo a huge overhaul as part of a multi-billion pound project that will transform it into a ‘world-class hub’.
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New plans for Liverpool Central Station have been revealedCredit: LCRThe station is set to be revamped at the cost of £5billionCredit: Liverpool City Council
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The council has revealed ambitious plans to upgrade Liverpool Central Station which first opened in 1874.
Its makeover will be part of a wider regeneration – London-based architecture firm Hawkins\Brown taking charge of the vision across the 86-acre site.
New renders reveal a brand-new look for Central Station with a completely different front, as well as a bright inside with lots of windows and a glass roof to let in natural light.
Other images show what the central plaza could look like in the evening with open spaces, greenery and purple lighting.
The hope is that Liverpool Central will link with nearby Liverpool Lime Street with Merseyrail services connecting with National Rail services.
It would then be easy to reach Liverpool’s Knowledge Quarter, its waterfront and Queen Square, which is home to bars, cafes and restaurants.
This will be much like King’s Cross and London St Pancras, which are two separate stations, but used as one hub within the city.
This included the possibility of an underground tunnel between the stations too.
The project to overhaul not only the station, but central Liverpool area, is predicted to cost £5billion with the council hoping it will “create a world-class hub.”
The new central plaza outside Liverpool Central railway station could look very differentCredit: Liverpool City Council
Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram said: “Liverpool Central is one of the busiest and most important transport gateways in the country – and the area around it should match the ambition of the city it serves.
He continued: “This is a chance for us to think bigger about the future of one of the key front doors to Liverpool – creating a greener, safer and better-connected gateway that works for residents, businesses and the millions of people who pass through it every year.”
Last year, details emerged for more plans to better connect the city centre.
As part of the wider regeneration of Liverpool, new homes, shops and public spaces will be also created.
I always encourage people to slow down when they visit Disneyland, especially when taking their first few steps under the train tunnel onto Main Street, U.S.A. There’s too much you’ll miss if you’re racing from attraction to attraction. For to set foot in Disneyland is to be guided by many an invisible hand.
Winding, circular and branching paths not only direct guest flow, but create the tone for the experience. The sensation is meant to evoke one of lushness and grandeur, to envelope oneself in a garden as much as a land of play.
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A principal in defining the feel of Disneyland — and an influence felt today in all meticulously designed theme parks — is master landscape artist Ruth Shellhorn. A South Pasadena native, her work for decades often went overlooked, spoken of in the shadows of brothers Jack and Bill Evans, horticultural experts who also played an instrumental role in the development of the modern theme park as homes to arboretum-worthy spaces.
It was Shellhorn, however, who used plants and trees to unify the park’s contrasting elements and to help direct guest flow. She even heightened the illusion of magnifying the splendor of Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle. Her work was an argument that a stroll through a theme park should evoke natural as much as man-made wonder, a journey into fantastical lawns and courtyards.
Shellhorn, who died in 2006, faced her share of discrimination for being one of the sole women in a Disneyland leadership role, says Cindy Mediavilla, a retired lecturer from UCLA’s department of information studies and co-author of the book “The Women Who Made Early Disneyland.”
“She was treated like chopped liver by the men,” says Mediavilla, “but she perseveres, and her work is still relevant to the park today.”
And it’s still being discovered. San Francisco’s Walt Disney Family Museum, home currently to an exhibit on Disneyland’s early days, will host a virtual chat June 17 on her work. Her contributions are also detailed in part in a relatively new behind-the-scenes tour at Disneyland, “Women Who Make the Magic.” The latter, a $110 add-on to a Disneyland day, is part of the park’s initiatives to appeal to those who want to dig deeper into Disneyland history, and also touches on the likes of Mary Blair, Kim Irvine, Martha Blanding and others.
Harper Goff, Bill Evans, Dick Irvine, Walt Disney, Ruth Shellhorn and Joe Fowler examine Disneyland plans in April 1955, just months before the park would open.
(Ruth Patricia Shellhorn Papers, UCLA Library Special Collections / Disney)
What might be most astonishing about the way Shellhorn transformed Disneyland is that she did it all in a matter of months. She was recommended to park founder Walt Disney by a friend and brought onto the Disneyland project about four months before its July 1955 opening.
“The Evans brothers are mostly focused on Adventureland, which is where they can put in all these fabulous plants that they’ve been collecting, but they aren’t as effective in figuring out how to design the other areas of the park,” says Todd James Pierce, a creative writing professor and Disney historian whose book “Three Years in Wonderland” documents early Disneyland.
“Landscape is going to be one of the last things that goes in, and so these problems don’t really present themselves as critical to Walt until the buildings start going up,” says Pierce.
While I went into the Disneyland walking tour familiar with Shellhorn’s work, the guided trek inspired me at last to dig more fully into her contributions. It was Shellhorn, for instance, who finished the floral portrait of Mickey Mouse at the entrance gates, choosing dwarf pink phlox for his tongue, according to Kelly Comras’ 2016 biography of the landscape architect.
Comras documents, too, how Shellhorn helped design Main Street entrance areas, namely the benches and green spaces that surround a flagpole. Shellhorn chose reddish concrete paving, white-flowering trees and perennials in shades of red, white and blue to “embellish Disney’s patriotic theme,” writes Comras.
Photo of blueprints for Disneyland’s tree planting design from a 2005 Times article on Ruth Shellhorn.
(Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times)
The author notes how weeks before opening, Disney replaced the flagpole with a bandstand. Shellhorn protested, arguing that it disrupted sightlines to the castle and overpowered the space. The landscape architect won.
“Ruth liked a lot of control,” says Pierce. “Walt would call her stubborn and I think that’s probably true.”
Shellhorn’s diaries are in UCLA’s Special Collections, where she privately expresses frustrations about Disneyland’s male-focused chain of command.
“She talks about how upset she gets with other art directors, in terms of them coming into her space,” Pierce says. “Some of that is gendered. It’s a group of men who are designing Disneyland, and here is this high-powered, very professional, extremely talented woman who is coming in to talk about how these men’s different areas are going to work together. There’s a hierarchy that’s a bit difficult.”
And yet Shellhorn successfully tied together multiple disparate spaces.
Disneyland’s centerpiece hub area, the entrance to its core themed lands and gateway to the castle, is, for example, a key area where Shellhorn played a major part. Shellhorn directed the grading of the bulldozers in constructing the moat around the fantasy palace, and also gave the entrance to each land a specific botanical personality — grasslike bamboo, for instance, near Adventureland, as well as jacarandas and senegal date palms to give it tropical bursts of color. Her compositions, writes Comras, “made the area flow together so seamlessly that visitors were unaware of her artistic intervention.”
Shellhorn, it should be noted, was extremely accomplished by the time she came to Disneyland, being named in 1955 a “woman of the year” by this newspaper. Her non-Disneyland work was pivotal in redefining commercial spaces throughout the Los Angeles region. She was perhaps best known for helping define the Southern California look of Midcentury Modern architecture for the now-defunct Bullock’s department store chain, which transformed the American shopping mall from an errand to a social outing.
But it’s her work at Disneyland that endures, and forever elevated the look, tone and feel of the American amusement park. So don’t just stop and smell the flowers next time you’re at Disneyland. Take a moment to remember the woman who initially had the vision for them.
The week in SoCal theme parks
Beginning May 22, new scenes inspired by the film “The Mandalorian and Grogu” will come to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.
(Artist concept / Disneyland Resort)
A new mission for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. The big news in local theme parks this week is the transformation of the arcade-style Millennium Falcon flight simulator ride in Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. The refreshed version of the attraction will open Friday with a new storyline and increased levels of interactivity inspired by the film “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” Guests will now have the option to vote upon which “Star Wars” locale to visit as they seek to help the bounty hunter and his little pal break up a deal between a gang of pirates and Imperial officers. I’ll be experiencing the ride this week, so stay tuned to Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride for first impressions.
Get to know some sharks. San Diego’s Sea World will on Friday unveil a reimagined shark-focused exhibit. “Shark Encounter” still features the park’s signature moving tunnel as well as enhanced visuals to heighten its educational-focused objectives, including a multi-screen video installation to highlight shark diversity and dispel myths about the species. Eleven different varieties are highlighted in the park, including the endangered Australian leopard shark.
Prepare for liftoff across America. Disney has revealed new details on Soarin’ Across America, which opens at Disney California Adventure on July 2. The reimagined attraction, designed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of America, will feature the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Grand Canyon West, the New England coastline and more. The celebration of patriotism has already opened at Walt Disney World’s Epcot, meaning there’s plenty point-of-view ride videos circulating the web. I’ve opted not to watch them, wanting to go in fresh when it comes to Anaheim, and thus will save my thoughts until I can experience the attraction firsthand.
It’s water park season! Confession: I have never been to a SoCal water park. Maybe this is the summer I change that? Knott’s Soak City Waterpark is now open in Buena Park, and Hurricane Harbor next door to Magic Mountain in Valencia will begin its summer season on Saturday.
Give up the dream of a third Disneyland park (for now). Wish-focused articles inspired rumors that the Disneyland Resort was prepping for a third park in Anaheim after permits were filed for its Toy Story Parking lot, land that will no doubt be reimagined after the resort builds a new parking garage on its Eastern side. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but don’t bet on a third park coming to Disneyland anytime soon. While the resort recently won approval on its Disneyland Forward project, which paves the way for new attractions, hotels and dining to land in Anaheim, nothing in those plans implies a third park. Instead, they point to expansions of the existing Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure, while implying that the current Toy Story lot will be remade into a mixed-use shopping, dining and hotel area. To further dash anyone’s hopes, biz writer Samantha Masunaga has more.
The best thing I ate at the parks
A special Butterbeer cream puff is available until the end of the month at Universal Studios Hollywood.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
It’s Butterbeer season at Universal Studios Hollywood, meaning the theme park is offering a few limited-time Butterbeer-flavored treats through May 31. Butterbeer in drink form isn’t, admittedly, my favorite, as the butterscotch is tempered with vanilla trappings that give it a cream soda-type feel. It’s an acquired taste. But when the park puts Butterbeer in dessert items, they tend to be pure butterscotch decadence. So it was with this rich but pleasing cream puff currently available at the Three Broomsticks in Wizarding World. The $7.99 delectable comes with a soft, doughy shortbread cookie topped with butterscotch-infused whip cream. The sauce — buttery and caramel at its most addictive — extends down into the fluffy cookie, creating a gooey, toffee-shortbread swirl after the first bite. For butterscotch fans, it’s a delight.
Ride report
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride was, in 1955, a technological marvel.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
I’ve been working my way through Roland Betancourt’s fascinating book, “Disneyland and the Rise of Automation,” which traces how the park’s early technological innovations would forever change entertainment and influence postwar America. Relatively early Betancourt talks about the importance of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, which inspired me to get back on the ride the other week. Namely, he argues, it elevated the theme park art form in making use of prior patents to create a fully automated, story-driven attraction. Where there had once been simple gags, now there was narrative — and in the case of Mr. Toad’s, a message about drunken, reckless driving. And its effects, while today may seem relatively rudimentary, still work, especially when the vehicle shakes to simulate the traversal of railroad tracks before a mirror effect has us barreling toward a collision with a locomotive.
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
P.S.
A stolen animatronic from Walt Disney World’s Wonders of Life pavilion at Epcot is a mystery at the heart of documentary “Stolen Kingdom.”
(Antenna Releasing)
Explore a darker side of Disney fandom via the documentary “Stolen Kingdom.” And by darker, I mean criminal. The film, from writer, director, producer Joshua Bailey, focuses on so-called “urban explorers” — folks who document deserted or abandoned buildings, hoping to give their audience a sort of backstage view of spaces that have been left behind.
Over the years at Walt Disney World, urban explorers have broken into abandoned water parks or areas once dedicated to animal preservation. The film builds to the tale of a stolen animatronic figure from the closed Wonders of Life pavilion at Epcot. Some of these items can end up on the increasingly lucrative Disney black market, where once stolen — or sometimes trashed collectibles — can fetch big money via auction. Depending on your point of view of these social media-driven attention seekers, “Stolen Kingdom” will fascinate or infuriate.
The film is screening Thursday at Laemmle North Hollywood and Friday at Brain Dead Studios. Head to the movie’s website to purchase tickets or find other SoCal showings.
One by one, chatty teenagers in jeans walked across the stone patio that Ronald Reagan built by hand to ring the bell at the former president’s coastal mountain ranch. Nancy Reagan tugged on that same rope decades ago to call her husband home for lunch when he was out horseback riding or working in the stable.
On a bright fall day, the Virginia-based Young America’s Foundation shuttled in nearly 100 teenagers from 46 different states for a three-day conference at Rancho del Cielo, hoping to summon Reagan’s spirit.
They were not there for a history lesson.
Instead, YAF leaders gave the high school students gathered at the late president’s properties modern-day pointers on what it means to be a Republican, and tips for fending off what the group views as the other side’s indoctrination.
The foundation promotes itself as a political counterweight to the liberal thought that its supporters say courses through American colleges, and spends millions every year to fund YAF clubs and seed conservative activism on campus.
The Young America’s Foundation, born in the politically turbulent late 1960s, has become one of the most preeminent, influential and controversial forces in the nation’s conservative youth movement, backed by $65 million in assets largely underwritten by the wealthiest of the modern-era hard right.
Though a force in the conservative movement for decades, the foundation’s aggressive and confrontational tactics have become a beacon of right-wing empowerment during the rise of President Trump. Rancho del Cielo has allowed the foundation’s reach to transcend generations, aided in large part by growing reverence for Reagan among young Republicans.
The nonprofit works to keep alive bedrock conservative principles by teaching them to students around the country, and boasts 400 chapters at high schools and colleges, including 70 in California. Its alumni include U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and Trump administration policy advisor Stephen Miller, who is from Los Angeles.
“Professors tend to be more liberal,” said Burt Folsom, a frequent speaker at the conferences and a history professor at Hillsdale College in Michigan. “Often government is an employer of professors, and they tend to see government in a very favorable light — as the solution to problems.”
The high school students here broke into small groups and scribbled lists of what they considered true conservative ideals on white boards. One circle made quick work of its task: a strong national defense, Christian values, limited government, anti-abortion, informed patriotism and capitalism.
When a few students suggested adding “constitutional rights,” the foundation’s Spencer Brown encouraged them to think more broadly.
“A lot of people, particularly liberals, think government is the one who gives them rights — as opposed to God-given rights,” Brown explained.
Afterward, when the groups gathered to compare their lists, foundation President Ron Robinson told the students that the words they use to express their conservative beliefs are essential. For instance, he said, instead of saying they support “capitalism,” it would be better to use the phrase “free enterprise” or “entrepreneurship.” “Capitalism,” Robinson said, is disparaged by leftists and does not poll well.
“The terminology battle is very important,” he added.
Robinson also told students that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme and narrated a slide show on media bias against conservatives, showing them Time and Newsweek magazine covers with headlines disparaging Trump and other Republicans.
It was just one of the many dire warnings the students received. They were urged to stand up for their beliefs and challenge the liberal point of view of their instructors — all part of a more unyielding, confrontational approach that’s much more intense than was seen in Reagan’s political era.
Top, August 1985 photo of President Ronald Reagan and wife, Nancy, talk to the news media on their ranch northwest of Santa Barbara. Right, 1982 photo of President Reagan and his wife Nancy take a ride at their ranch in Santa Barbara. Left, May 1992 photo former President Ronald Reagan, left, and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev talk during a Gorbachev’s visit to Reagan’s ranch California. (Associated Press)
The theme of political persecution ran through the weekend: by the media, college professors and high school teachers, Facebook and Twitter, and fellow students. Talks were held at both the ranch and its conference center, a mission-style building in Santa Barbara that’s about a 40-minute drive from the mountain estate.
Early in the conference, when students took turns introducing themselves, many said they were ostracized at school for their conservative beliefs, sharing stories of their experiences.
Caleb Walzak, a 16-year-old sophomore from Savannah, Ga., said he felt out of sync with the rest of his classmates.
“If you say anything that goes against any of their opinions at all, you are shunned from all social interaction whatsoever. Basically your life is ruined,” Walzak said. “Stuff that they believe in is not what America is. Conservative is what American really is.”
Greg Wolf of Santa Clarita, who joined his son Chapman during the weekend conference, sent two of his boys to Young America’s Foundation conferences while they were in high school.
Wolf, whose son Grant is active in the Young America’s Foundation chapter at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, says the program offers students lessons that are sorely lacking in school and popular culture, such as personal responsibility, limited government and self-reliance.
“We can see the culture moving away from American values,” said Greg Wolf, 56, who works in the entertainment industry.
Sarah Dowless, a senior from Wakefield, Va., said a feeling of political isolation is one of the reasons why she has attended six Young America’s Foundation conferences.
“I go to a school for the arts. It’s a great place, but it’s very liberal,” said Dowless, 16. She aspires to be a free-market economist.
“When I come here, I get to be around people on the same side.”
With its 688 acres of oak and manzanita trees and riding trails hidden in the Santa Ynez Mountains, Reagan’s ranch was a sanctuary from the pressures of the White House. There the former president cobbled together the ranch’s split-rail fence, bagged snakes slithering across the grounds, split firewood and took long horseback rides. The century-old, 1,200-square-foot adobe ranch house hosted world leaders, including Mikhail Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth, as well as the Reagan family’s Thanksgiving dinners.
While on a walking tour of the ranch, Marco Singletary, a soft-spoken high school senior from Joliet, Ill., said his interest in Reagan is what led him to the foundation conference in Santa Barbara. One of his high school teachers saw him reading “The Reagan Diaries” and suggested he look into the Young America’s Foundation.
Singletary, 17, said he gets along fine with his liberal friends, mostly because they don’t talk about politics. He also avoids speaking up in his economics and American history classes, he said, since he’d be inviting trouble.
“You’re literally wasting your breath. People just go based on what they see on Twitter,” he said. “Things have gotten so extreme that the middle ground is too far for either side.”
In recent years, the foundation has drawn attention for its sponsorship of a highly charged circuit of conservative speakers at universities across the country, setting off protests from Cal State Los Angeles to the University of Buffalo. Foundation officials cite the uproar as evidence of “triggered” liberals suppressing speech.
Last April, the foundation helped line up Ann Coulter to speak about immigration at UC Berkeley, the birthplace of the free-speech movement. The resulting outcry by university officials prompted Coulter to cancel her appearance.
Ben Shapiro one of the foundation’s stars on the college campus speaking circuit, has also been consistently targeted by student protesters, including at Berkeley over the summer.
High school students take a tour of the Reagan Ranch in the Santa Ynez Mountains. The Young America’s Foundation holds a three day conference for high school students in Santa Barbara that steeps them in conservative philosophy and empowerment in the memory of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
The foundation, which bought the ranch from the Reagans in 1998, sees it as a cathedral of conservatism, where the former president’s legacy is preserved and future generations are trained in free-market capitalism, individual liberty and the faith-based tenets of the American right.
But the message has changed since Reagan’s day, and the mission isn’t just being carried out at Rancho del Cielo. The foundation has drawn heated criticism for its speaker circuit at college campuses around the country, enlisting conservative provocateurs such as Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza and author Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, a website that has often been accused of Islamophobia.
Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, speaks to high school students at the Young America’s Foundation high school conference at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara in September.
At the Reagan conference center, Spencer told the students that the Koran teaches Muslims to “kill nonbelievers,” and warned that they will be shunned as Islamophobes at school and in the media if they criticized the religious text as the genesis of Islamic terrorism.
The foundation expanded in size and influence over the last two decades after two other activist conservative groups merged into the nonprofit organization: the late William F. Buckley’s Young Americans for Freedom, a cadre of dedicated college-age students once known as the shock troops of the Republican Party, and the right-leaning National Journalism Center.
Fueling the Young America’s Foundation are its prominent backers — and its stuffed war chest. The foundation reported assets of more than $65 million in 2015 and received over $34 million in contributions and grants that year, according to IRS records. It spent more than $21 million that year on conferences, salaries, speakers, fundraising and other costs associated with the foundation and ranch.
The foundation also paid Stephen K. Bannon, ousted Trump political strategist and former head of far-right website Breitbart News, more than $500,000 between 2010 and 2012 to produce three films, including two documentaries on the Reagan Ranch.
Donors over the years have included Amway billionaires Richard and Helen DeVos, the in-laws of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, as well as conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch. Fullerton orthodontist Robert Ruhe, who died in 2013, bequeathed $16 million to the Young America’s Foundation.
Reagan himself became a major supporter of the foundation while still in the White House. When Young America’s Foundation took over the ranch in the late 1990s, the former first lady expressed delight over how it would be used.
“We hope that our ranch will be a spark for many bright young Americans in the years ahead,” Nancy Reagan said.
