Naomi Schaefer Riley, James Piereson Trump’s College Crackdown: It’s Their Own Fault Universities spent decades prioritizing activism over education.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-columbia-funding-anti-semitism-bias-universities
The federal government has some “legitimate concerns,” said Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong last week, after the Trump administration announced the withdrawal of $400 million in federal grants because, it claimed, Columbia had not addressed rampant anti-Semitism on its campus. Armstrong’s words suggest that Columbia received the message. But have other institutions of higher education?
A recent survey of university presidents suggests not. Unless they take steps to address not just anti-Semitism but also the profound ideological bias that has facilitated it and other forms of radicalism on campus, they may be in line for similar sanctions. If they fail to act, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.
The poll, conducted by Inside Higher Ed, reveals the extent to which higher ed is in denial about its predicament. It asked university presidents about the causes of declining public confidence in higher ed. Only 11 percent identified “ideological bias” as the biggest cause of public mistrust (though twice as many acknowledged it as a “valid concern”).
The vast majority are clearly misreading the public mood. A decade ago, 56 percent of Republicans expressed confidence in higher education; by last year, that number had dropped to just 19 percent. A 2018 Pew poll found that 73 percent of Republicans believed higher education was headed in the wrong direction—and of that group, 79 percent cited politicization of the classroom and curriculum as a major reason. Among those voters, higher ed has been in free-fall for some time.
The presidents are probably right that left-wing ideology is only one factor in the public’s declining confidence. They also reasonably pointed to concerns about the value and affordability of college degrees, as well as student debt. But for many families and prospective students, these issues are intertwined with partisanship and bias. Is college worth it if it means running a four-year gauntlet of progressive indoctrination? Who can afford to spend so much time and money to be force-fed nonsense about race, gender, and sexuality?
Ideological bias also plays a role in another problem, acknowledged by just 10 percent of college presidents: that their institutions are “disconnected from society.” A country that just elected Donald Trump is clearly alienated from campuses that tolerate students disrupting classes to demonstrate for Hamas, protest fossil fuels, or promote any number of progressive causes.
The withdrawal of federal funds from Columbia–and possibly more institutions to follow–is only one step in Trump’s broader shake-up of higher ed. The president has also issued a series of executive orders banning “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs in the federal government and at institutions receiving federal funds. Vice President J.D. Vance has advocated hiking federal taxes on college endowments to help reduce the cost of higher education. The National Institutes of Health recently announced that universities would only be able to deduct a maximum of 15 percent of research grant awards for administrative overhead, which will cost schools hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies.
These moves are causing considerable weeping and wailing, but in truth, academic leaders and professors have no one to blame but themselves for their plight. They spent decades turning their campuses into sanctuaries for student activism and progressive ideology, with DEI and other politicized programs steadily increasing in number and scope with each passing year.
Surveys of college professors routinely show that 80 percent or more identify as left-leaning, with fewer than 5 percent identifying as conservative—most of them in engineering and business schools. In many disciplines—sociology, psychology, and political science, for example—one can find entire departments with no Republicans and few moderates. No wonder these fields have turned into havens for activists with little respect for free inquiry or the rights of others.
The myopia extends from professors to administrators to student activists. A recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education was devoted to “What Trump Has Wrought,” featuring a compilation of complaints from within academia. One professor (who requested anonymity) was advised by administrators to avoid using terms like “climate change, environmental justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The professor notes, “I am constantly uncertain about what I can and cannot do.” Campus conservatives know the feeling.
The current backlash against higher education has been a long time coming. Academic leaders will struggle to address it; they cannot easily undo a situation that has been decades in the making, reinforced by tenure, and bolstered by thousands of administrators hired to promote causes now out of favor in Washington. Nor can they hope to wait out the Trump Administration, which will be in power for at least the next four years. Instead, colleges must confront a problem of their own making.
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