On Universities

Leftism is not their most fundamental problem. On the elitist/egalitarian axis, they have chosen the worst of both.

Yuval Levin writes,

Academic traditionalists are not about to be invited by today’s administrators and senior faculty to inherit the university from them. They should welcome the genuine openness to their work that some university leaders have begun to show. But they’re also going to have to invite themselves, and to get themselves invited by insiders and outsiders—such as trustees or state legislators—who are in a position to create space for them.

This is what they should seek: not to dismantle the university, to deconstruct its rules, or to blow up its traditions of governance, but to use all of those to reenter and reinhabit at least parts of the university. And, in fact, this is precisely what they have begun to seek in recent years and are unusually well situated and prepared to seek right now.

He tells the story of university decay as one of leftists burrowing into the institutions starting in the 1960s and causing all of the problems that we see today. A partial solution he offers is for conservatives to create institutes within universities to maintain and promote traditional values. He cautions:

Of course we should not overstate the promise of this moment. The academic landscape is still awful. The movement now being born isn’t going to unseat the tenured radicals. It isn’t going to take over elite universities and turn them into friendly turf even for old-fashioned liberals, let alone for academics on the right. Both the suppression and the coercion that have characterized life on many campuses in this century are going to continue in most places, including in the places where these new schools are emerging. And our public life more generally shows every sign of persisting in its manic lunacy. Don’t let anybody make you an optimist.

He says that the current perception of a crisis in universities

presents us with the chance to act on our love of the university, rather than to turn our society against the university. And conservatives know that acting on behalf of what you love, not against what you hate, is ultimately how you win.

By understanding the sources and the stakes of the fight over the university, we can properly understand it as a fight for the university, and for the possibility of engaging in teaching and learning in pursuit of knowledge of the truth and in an effort to form human beings and citizens in its light. In a time of profound political unseriousness and civic disappointment, that is a cause worth fighting for together.

No. Sorry. No.

Oddly enough, in this very good podcast, Levin is asked around minute 50 about anti-semitism in America, and one of his first thoughts is that elites make it clear whether or not anti-semitism is tolerable, and now on campus they are saying that it is tolerable.

Near the end of the podcast, he says that populism is not natural for the right. He gives the Klingian view that conservatives see the world in terms of civilization vs. barbarism. Levin says that means that conservatives are naturally inclined to defend institutions. But I think what folks like me are thinking is that too many of our institutions no longer are congruent with civilization. And universities are the poster child for the failure of key institutions to play their proper role.

So this is the conservative dilemma: we want to defend institutions against popular anger. But contemporary institutions seem indefensible.

The Dilemma at the Heart of the University

The leftist takeover is a problem. But there is something more fundamental. Universities face a basic dilemma. Is their function elitist or egalitarian?

Universities have changed the answer to this question many times in the United States.

• After World War II, the GI Bill had the effect of saying that universities should be egalitarian, in that males of different backgrounds should all be able to attend college.

• Later policies were based on the principle that everyone should go to college. College should not be reserved to an elite of any kind.

• From roughly 1950-1970, the WASP elitism of colleges gave way to a new elitism based on academic ability. The Ivy League got rid of its quotas on Jews. But women were still largely excluded.

• In the 1970s, colleges opened up to women and actively sought to increase enrollment among blacks.

• By the 21st century, it was clear that there was emerging an economic and cultural divide between those with college degrees and those without. Those on the degreed side of the divide were highly elitist—they wanted their own children to get into the most prestigious universities, and they would have been horrified to see their children not go to college at all.

• But the policy posture became, if anything, even more egalitarian than before. People came to argue against all barriers to obtaining prestigious college education: if you were poor, you were entitled to a scholarship, or at least a student loan; if you were a member of a minority, you needed affirmative action; if SAT scores were not distributed in an egalitarian manner, then get rid of the SAT.

In the end, universities are neither elitist nor egalitarian. Instead, they have become the worst of both.

Higher education today is elitist in that it endows students with a sense of entitlement. They expect higher incomes than those earned by their peers who did not attend college. For many majors in humanities and social sciences, this is not possible in the realm of profit-seeking businesses. The more fortunate graduates land high-paying jobs working at non-profits. The less fortunate return to living with their parents.

Higher education also imparts an elite world view to students. They learn a vocabulary and an ideological outlook that sets them apart, especially on issues like multiculturalism, sexual identity, climate change, and the historical crimes of the West.

The campus itself embodies a sense of entitlement. Students get fancy fitness centers, comfortable housing, attractive food options, health care, clubs and sports, all as a package deal. It is a utopian version of socialism, in which your wants are provided for while you yourself do not need to contribute any work.

On the other hand, higher education is no longer elitist in the pursuit of academic excellence. In that regard, it is strongly egalitarian. Students with mediocre academic ability—at best—are patted on the head and handed the same A’s that used to go only to genuinely fine scholars. Many of these midwits go on to obtain post-graduate degrees, and from there they proceed to populate grievance studies departments, academic administration, and positions of authority in K-12 education.

A Radically Different Approach

If I could wave a magic wand, I would set up a different approach for people aged 16 to 20. I would want them to be socially integrated and educationally segregated.

By socially integrated, I mean that they live in real-world communities, not on ritzy campuses. Ideally, they would spend at least a few months living in a rural environment, living in an inner city, living in a suburb, and living in a foreign country. They would be expected to get to know and respect the typical residents of these communities.

By intellectually segregated, I mean that students’ ability and effort would matter. Grades would be rigorous, not inflated.

Only the best scholars would be able to pass the most challenging courses. Others would take courses more suited to their ability and more relevant to potential employment opportunities.

I would like to see as many students of all levels of ability obtaining internships and mentors from the business world. I would like to see them think of themselves as adults, not as pampered dependents.

So I end up wanting to kill the university, not try to save it. But too many people have a stake in the existing system for it to change. The very corruption of higher education makes people feel attached to it. They prefer the system that they know, and know how to game, to anything different.

But I think that we face a grim choice. Either our society radically changes the university or the university will continue to undermine society.