The American university, the crown jewel of the US economic engine and enabler of social mobility and success, has been reduced to a Maoist reeducation camp. The time has come to deal with this socially destructive institution.
With the destruction of many of the ancient European universities during World War 2, American schools took their place as the premier locations for learning and research. The recent movie, Oppenheimer, reminded Americans of the success of the Manhattan Project. Virtually all of the major researchers involved in the development of the bomb came from universities from coast to coast: Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin, and UC Berkeley to name a few. Even the major corporations that supplied key materials for the Manhattan Project had top US-trained researchers producing the needed high-purity graphite, explosives, metals and other critical components throughout the life of the program. The university was the leader in research and development. It was the envy of the world.
Let’s fast-forward 80 years, and what is the university today? One would minimally expect that a high school graduate going to college would attain the following skills in four years (and not seven). Generally, they do not.
*General knowledge. A college graduate should be well-enough informed to discuss, say American history or basic concepts in science. During my days at Harvard, the “Core” was in place to guarantee that all students were exposed to major academic disciplines beyond their fields of concentration.
*Thinking skills. Much of what we do beyond college has nothing to do specifically with the courses we take. If we have gained skills that allow us to think, reason, analyze, and classify, we are hopefully prepared to succeed in a chosen profession. One of the most exceptional experiences I had at Harvard was completely unplanned. I had a tutor with whom I would periodically meet to discuss a research project of mutual interest. One day, as we sat in his office, a colleague told him that they needed to immediately determine an applicant's acceptance/rejection status for a Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School. I asked to excuse myself, but the second professor told me to stay put. He told my tutor that the student had outstanding grades, great recommendations, and high GRE scores. My fellow turned to him and said, “There is nothing in her record to suggest an ounce of creativity.” With that, she was rejected, and my whole view on approaching research was changed.
*Professional training. Unlike in Israel, where a student enters directly into medical or legal studies without a four-year university prologue, US students generally do not receive any professional training at college. Engineers and computer scientists necessarily do, but many of those pursuing professional degrees can study government or literature and only focus on professional training later. One can debate which system is better, but the fact is that there are lots of students graduating with heavy debt loads and no marketable skills to earn the money they need to pay off their loans. There’s a reason why AOC, Joe Biden, and others want you to pay off the student loans that others took out.
It is no coincidence that large and sometimes violent protests against Israel are taking place at US universities. Instead of focusing on the topics above, the universities have devolved into Maoist reeducation centers. DEI, intersectionality, white privilege, trans athletes in women’s sports, race-separated dorms, and graduation ceremonies—these foci have made universities play-acting centers for children who are simply not serious. The $64,000 I paid for four years at Harvard in the mid-80s is about what one year would cost. Student families paying such enormous sums might expect their children to receive a high-quality education. Instead, they are taught that groups that have been historically discriminated against and less prosperous—women, minorities, gays, etc.--are victims and cannot, repeat, be victimizers or racists.
On the other hand, generally, successful groups such as whites, Asians, and Jews are perpetual victimizers and can never be victims. And so it was that the day after a Holocaust-level massacre of Jews in Israel proper, 31 Harvard-recognized organizations declared that any violence in the region was the fault of Israel (=Jews). Their ideologically rigid system does not allow for Jews to be victims. However, there is no shortage of horrendous videos of Jews being shot, beheaded, burned to death, and taken into captivity. The Palestinian terrorists, falling into the victim category, cannot be victimizers. So even when they recorded their murder of innocent kids at a rave, the kids must be the guilty party. They cannot allow themselves to go against the intersectionality system, so they say that Israel did the killing or that nothing really happened. The professors who have taught this tripe for generations will be the last people to stick their necks out to tell their Frankenstein students that they are wrong. The only redemption for white students is to join the “victims” in genocide-encouraging marches to at least show that they are on the right side. The university has fallen from intellectual greatness to ideological insanity in the space of only a few decades.
As some have pointed out, the same ones who rallied for BLM after George Floyd died are the same ones who show up for climate rallies and are now carrying placards demanding the death of 8 million Jews in Israel. They always have to join the victim groups in order not to be, heaven forfend, considered a victimizer.
The greater problem for the Republic is that all of the “important people” are university graduates. The story of the guy who went from the mailroom to CEO (Barry Diller, Dick Grasso) is a thing of the past. All CEO’s, politicians, and news staffers are the products of the modern university. They generally do not shed their ideology as they move from college out into “the real world”. One woman wrote in the Spectator that all of her friends support the Hamas terrorists, and she believes this outcome is a result of their getting their news from Tik Tok, YouTube, and Instagram. And thus you have your massive 300,000 person pro-terrorists marches in London, and similar if smaller events in the US, Australia and continental Europe. Israel was dumb enough to treat Yaha Sinwar for cancer; he returned the favor by planning and organizing the slaughter of 1,200 people—and the “educated” world is on his side. The universities refuse to stop the marches and threats to Jewish students not for First Amendment reasons; rather, this is the world outlook they have given their students. It would be like a coach complaining when his football team won.
To rein in the universities and make real change first requires the US government to leave the student loan business. Let banks and universities determine the risks of giving loans to students who wish to study imperial basket weaving in Inner Mongolia between 1100 and 1150. The next step is to condition any federal grants or aid, of which universities receive billions of dollars each year, on the performance of graduates in the work market. A college graduate should ultimately be able to support himself or herself. The Obama administration actually wanted to measure university performance by analyzing how well graduates fared, but the plan was nixed. The time has come to tie governmental largess to the success of schools in giving their students an education that can help provide for them for the rest of their lives. If a certain percentage of graduates are not employed or underemployed, the school in question will not receive federal research funding until the situation is rectified. A university without federal funds might rethink its grievance “studies” programs that produce nothing for American society but are therapeutic for pampered yet somehow aggrieved students and faculty.
Some law firms had already stated—before 10/7—that they would not take Ivy League graduates due to their new training. There are many anecdotal stories of college graduates lacking basic writing or thinking skills. The university was once the domain of the privileged; now, it is where an American student goes when he or she turns 18. We need to fix the universities to make our society more successful, productive, and cohesive. And if the universities resist, tax their endowment income. The university has become a destructive force in US society. The time has come for a correction.
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