Megan McArdle is certain to enrage entrenched and privileged academicians with this column: I will only post salient excerpts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/24/universities-colleges-liberal-power-trump/
" Since you know that, let me make a less obvious and probably less welcome point: The left, not the right, picked this fight. Too many institutions set themselves up as the "Resistance" to Trump and tried to make a lot of mainstream political opinions anathematic, while expecting to be protected from backlash by principles such as academic freedom that they were no longer honoring. This was politically naive and criminally stupid for institutions that rely so heavily on U.S. taxpayer support…"
" The student loans and Pell grants that subsidize tuition could be slashed, the tax rules that let elite institutions accumulate massive endowments could be changed, and in red states, government aid to public schools could be reduced. The resulting budget holes would be calamitous in many cases and would filter through the ecosystem even to schools that survived…"
" Nonetheless, school administrations began issuing left-wing hot takes on news that played to the culture war, and students agitated, often successfully, to de-platform right-wing speakers and punish students or faculty who deviated from progressive orthodoxy. Milquetoast professional opinions and legitimate research were retracted under pressure from activists. Scientists marched against Trump not as private citizens but as scientists, as if lab work gave them some special moral authority. Public health experts issued a "get out of lockdown free" card to George Floyd protesters, and the American Anthropological Association issued a statement explicitly conceiving its discipline as a form of progressive activism. What was going on in the rest of academia made it clear anthropologists weren't alone in thinking that way."
" Fundamentally, they took their prestige and public support for granted and seemed unable to imagine a world where the word "education" no longer conjured reverent deference among most of the population. Like children throwing rocks from an overpass, they felt protected by their elevated position, assuming their targets could do little but yell back. They weren't expecting one of the drivers to get out of the car and grab a baseball bat from the trunk."
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There is more in the column but the inability of Universities and colleges to remain neutral is at fault here. Every college administrator and executive needs to read this column.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/24/universities-colleges-liberal-power-trump/
" Since you know that, let me make a less obvious and probably less welcome point: The left, not the right, picked this fight. Too many institutions set themselves up as the "Resistance" to Trump and tried to make a lot of mainstream political opinions anathematic, while expecting to be protected from backlash by principles such as academic freedom that they were no longer honoring. This was politically naive and criminally stupid for institutions that rely so heavily on U.S. taxpayer support…"
" The student loans and Pell grants that subsidize tuition could be slashed, the tax rules that let elite institutions accumulate massive endowments could be changed, and in red states, government aid to public schools could be reduced. The resulting budget holes would be calamitous in many cases and would filter through the ecosystem even to schools that survived…"
" Nonetheless, school administrations began issuing left-wing hot takes on news that played to the culture war, and students agitated, often successfully, to de-platform right-wing speakers and punish students or faculty who deviated from progressive orthodoxy. Milquetoast professional opinions and legitimate research were retracted under pressure from activists. Scientists marched against Trump not as private citizens but as scientists, as if lab work gave them some special moral authority. Public health experts issued a "get out of lockdown free" card to George Floyd protesters, and the American Anthropological Association issued a statement explicitly conceiving its discipline as a form of progressive activism. What was going on in the rest of academia made it clear anthropologists weren't alone in thinking that way."
" Fundamentally, they took their prestige and public support for granted and seemed unable to imagine a world where the word "education" no longer conjured reverent deference among most of the population. Like children throwing rocks from an overpass, they felt protected by their elevated position, assuming their targets could do little but yell back. They weren't expecting one of the drivers to get out of the car and grab a baseball bat from the trunk."
///
There is more in the column but the inability of Universities and colleges to remain neutral is at fault here. Every college administrator and executive needs to read this column.
“If you’re going to have crime it should at least be organized crime”
-Havelock Vetinari
-Havelock Vetinari
