Anthropology is not broken. It is doing its job

I respond to the Vanderbilt–Washington University “State of Scholarship” report’s claim that anthropology exemplifies scholarly decline by arguing that the report mistakes ethical and public commitments for a retreat from rigor. The essay explains why attention to inequality is not ideological capture, but reflective of a long-standing commitment to testing common sense against evidence. I make a case for the humanities and social sciences as public-interest disciplines. I defend open disagreement, evidence, transparency and accountability, while warning that caricatures of “politicized” scholarship grant permission to dismantle fields the public needs precisely when democratic life urgently requires their insights.