Useful review of how the rot set in at "elite" schools.
by sorin69 (2024-01-03 08:59:15)
Edited on 2024-01-03 09:01:21
Cannot Reply Return to Political

The Chronicle of Higher Education -- trade publication to be sure but often a useful index of what's going down -- has a long article reviewing how leading universities got themselves into their current mess. The article reviews developments over past decade. It seems fair and balanced, to borrow a phrase, and I recommend it. Two main factors the author identifies: the tendency of university administrators to take public positions on high profile issues; and the trend, readily embraced and even demanded by students, to promote schools as family-like institutions of caring and support. (I would add in the latter factor that it was both a function of ideological support for identity politics and self-interest: Harvard et al. don't have to worry about student recruitment; but most schools are in a perpetual war over a shrinking student demographic.)

To deal with the first factor, the writer notes support for returning to the 1967 Kalven Report at the University of Chicago, which called for “a heavy presumption against the university taking collective action or expressing opinions on the political or social issues of the day.” (In 1967, that would have concerned the Vietnam war.) To deal with the second, universities are going to have to recover their moral fiber and refuse to tolerate violent protest and disruption of public functions such as lectures by visitors or normal course instruction -- and to be consistent in defending academic freedom even when it involves unpopular opinions. Education and psychotherapy are different enterprises that should not be confused. The latter is an exercise in empathy. The former is about study and civil disagreement in the common pursuit of the truth.

(I concede that I am not dealing with the fact that a university will inevitably have to draw lines of a kind. The KKK has no place on a campus. The public defense of laws against miscegenation has no place. But what about a defense of polygamy? The reality is that societal and legal change means that the boundary of what is admissible will not be fixed irrevocably. Part of what a university should discuss is the very question of what is and what is not admissible.)

Apologies if this is firewalled. But I gave you the most important points.



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