This is one of your best pieces EVER. I absolutely agree with your comment that “elite universities have forfeited public sympathy because they have lost sight of their defining purpose as places of learning.” Also agree that because every professor these days is a left-leaning activist and any conservative or even moderate dissent is stifled, “a campus orthodoxy increasingly holds sway that elevates activism over learning, diktat over discourse, and views the world only through the lens of oppressor and oppressed, colonizers and colonized.” 💯 I don’t agree that Harvard deserves even 2 cheers, though. Perhaps one tepid “rah.”
"Any number of surveys have shown that while as recently as the mid-1990s self-described conservatives still amounted to about a fifth of university academics, along with roughly equal proportions of moderates and left/liberals, now university faculties have canted overwhelmingly to the left."
I'm wondering (and honestly don't know) whether it might be the case that the increase in the portion of academics who identify as liberals might be explained at least in part by a rightward shift in American conservative ideology -- a shift that makes self-identification with conservatism much more difficult for today's academics. There is much diversity of thought among "moderates and left/liberals," and, it seems to me, nothing like a monolithic left. Yes, there may be many on the left who exhibit the sort of code language that many on today's right view with disdain. But the term "liberal" encompasses a broad range of views, including those that might once have been viewed (and self-identified) as conservative before conservativism swerved rightward. It may (or may not) be that there's more in motion in those surveys than just the exclusion of conservatives from university faculties.
You raise some thoughtful points. I am sure that the coming of Trump has made it more difficult for campus conservatives to identify as such, at least in comparison to, say, the days when the GOP presidential nominee was John McCain or Mitt Romney. But the evidence does suggest that the decline in people so identifying was well underway prior to 2016, and in any case there are plenty of people on the campus left who will tell you that Trump, McCain, and Romney are all essentially the same. (I hear from lots of them.) On the other hand, there have been many developments on campus with which old-school liberals would have disagreed vehemently if they were still around, from cancellations to DEI hiring statements to the ideological biases that permeate (say) the teaching of US history. And there hasn't been much overt dissent against these developments from within the universities, which makes me feel that the alleged diversity of thought among left-liberals may not be all that it's made out to be.
That was an interesting op-ed, and I am glad to hear that Professor Hankins finds shades of gray in the opinions of his Harvard faculty colleagues. But I think he also would agree that most of his colleagues have gone along with the developments that have pushed the university further left, or at least that their complaints have been very muted indeed. There was a lot of discussion in the early postwar years about whether taking federal money would give the government inappropriate leverage over the universities if the government's intentions toward higher education turned malign. Now it has, and here we are. But I would disagree with Professor Hankins that the billions of dollars necessary to carry out modern science could be shouldered by increased alumni generosity. Only the federal government has the resources to fund modern science at scale.
Thanks for your comments as well! And yes indeed, this is a phenomenon with untold numbers of moving parts. The complexity and contradictions tie the would-be writer in knots, to be honest.
This is one of your best pieces EVER. I absolutely agree with your comment that “elite universities have forfeited public sympathy because they have lost sight of their defining purpose as places of learning.” Also agree that because every professor these days is a left-leaning activist and any conservative or even moderate dissent is stifled, “a campus orthodoxy increasingly holds sway that elevates activism over learning, diktat over discourse, and views the world only through the lens of oppressor and oppressed, colonizers and colonized.” 💯 I don’t agree that Harvard deserves even 2 cheers, though. Perhaps one tepid “rah.”
Thanks so much, I really appreciate your kind words!
Very well put Geoff, will be interesting to see the other comments as they roll in
Thanks so much!
"Any number of surveys have shown that while as recently as the mid-1990s self-described conservatives still amounted to about a fifth of university academics, along with roughly equal proportions of moderates and left/liberals, now university faculties have canted overwhelmingly to the left."
I'm wondering (and honestly don't know) whether it might be the case that the increase in the portion of academics who identify as liberals might be explained at least in part by a rightward shift in American conservative ideology -- a shift that makes self-identification with conservatism much more difficult for today's academics. There is much diversity of thought among "moderates and left/liberals," and, it seems to me, nothing like a monolithic left. Yes, there may be many on the left who exhibit the sort of code language that many on today's right view with disdain. But the term "liberal" encompasses a broad range of views, including those that might once have been viewed (and self-identified) as conservative before conservativism swerved rightward. It may (or may not) be that there's more in motion in those surveys than just the exclusion of conservatives from university faculties.
You raise some thoughtful points. I am sure that the coming of Trump has made it more difficult for campus conservatives to identify as such, at least in comparison to, say, the days when the GOP presidential nominee was John McCain or Mitt Romney. But the evidence does suggest that the decline in people so identifying was well underway prior to 2016, and in any case there are plenty of people on the campus left who will tell you that Trump, McCain, and Romney are all essentially the same. (I hear from lots of them.) On the other hand, there have been many developments on campus with which old-school liberals would have disagreed vehemently if they were still around, from cancellations to DEI hiring statements to the ideological biases that permeate (say) the teaching of US history. And there hasn't been much overt dissent against these developments from within the universities, which makes me feel that the alleged diversity of thought among left-liberals may not be all that it's made out to be.
On the matter of the diversity of views among liberals on campus, this article in today's WSJ by conservative history professor James Hankins is informative: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/a-conservative-harvard-professor-on-how-the-university-can-save-itself-e5f9c90a?st=3fVveR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
That was an interesting op-ed, and I am glad to hear that Professor Hankins finds shades of gray in the opinions of his Harvard faculty colleagues. But I think he also would agree that most of his colleagues have gone along with the developments that have pushed the university further left, or at least that their complaints have been very muted indeed. There was a lot of discussion in the early postwar years about whether taking federal money would give the government inappropriate leverage over the universities if the government's intentions toward higher education turned malign. Now it has, and here we are. But I would disagree with Professor Hankins that the billions of dollars necessary to carry out modern science could be shouldered by increased alumni generosity. Only the federal government has the resources to fund modern science at scale.
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. I appreciate your helpful thoughts on what for me seems a phenomenon with a lot of moving parts.
Thanks for your comments as well! And yes indeed, this is a phenomenon with untold numbers of moving parts. The complexity and contradictions tie the would-be writer in knots, to be honest.