See Thru Edu is a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation
Thomas K. Lindsay, Ph.D., Editor in Chief and Director, Center for Higher Education, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Shout-downs are not being disciplined. Universities regularly move to calm public outrage with vague promises of action against disruptors. Yet rarely is anything done. I know of no single instance of serious discipline for any of this year’s many shout-downs.
The motto of 46-year-old Evergreen State College, “a progressive, public liberal arts and science college” in Olympia, Wash., is Omnia Extares – which translates loosely as “Let it all hang out.” And, oh, boy, do they ever.
President Trump’s first budget would enact a number of changes in higher education policy. While all of these reforms are controversial, abolition of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Plan could prove to be the most contentious.
Nine years after DeJohn v. Temple University, disabled combat veteran Christian DeJohn is still burdened by the weight of a profound, unresolved loss: the master’s degree he rightfully earned, but never got.
As it happens, I was enrolled in that seminar, and the events that took place at Cornell that spring were as seminal for me as they were for Bloom.
Disruptions and attacks come almost entirely from an emergent Spit-Viper Left, drawn from a motley collection of campus grievance groups that are angry, uninformed, anti-intellectual and uniformly illiberal in their attitudes and beliefs.
I would like to suggest a solution that cuts this Gordian Knot. Colleges and universities should stop using mandatory student fees to support student groups entirely.
What do we do about intolerant, disruptive, violent political protests on campus, an ever growing phenomenon?
If sales start to drop and consumer research shows that the public is losing confidence in a product or brand, businesses worry. The same is true for our higher education establishment.
“The more different we get, the harder it becomes to engage in conversation because at some point, if you now get with those people and try and talk with them, you don’t even understand what they’re talking about because they see the world in a very different way.” – Art Markman
