Our universities must return to their original purpose: to seek the truth and give youths the knowledge they need to flourish. Here are four ways to do that.
Equity is not a virtue. It is a destructive idea that promotes mediocrity. Claudine Gay is a case in point. Her rise in the Harvard administration is due to her race and enforcement of ideology, not academic qualifications. Gay should be fired due to the multiple instances of plagiarism in her work
No community college would find her work acceptable
Bari's podcast about the University Presidents' testimony was spot on. It is shocking to me how DEI has taken over education at all levels, government, and corporate boardrooms. This takeover seems to have taken place quite quickly. I saw signs of it in a Ph.D. program I started in 2001 but it really didn't seem ubiquitous until quite recently. As a boomer who grew up admiring Martin Luther King's ideas, it is sad to find that the opposite of his precepts are now in vogue.
Bravo Bari! I love your pieces. So lucid, factual, and WELL written. Many thanks for providing a quality and fair news and opinion source I haven't seen for MANY years.
American higher education can’t be fixed until the damage that is done in the elementary schools is curtailed. Wake up America. Children are told they are good readers when they aren’t. They are given inflated praise and inflated grades!!!
Some people say the presidents of these universities (and others) aren't doing their job. I'd argue they absolutely ARE doing their job, and doing it well, otherwise they would have all been fired. I'd argue that Gay is probably pretty good at wearing multiple hats. So what is the job they are so good at? That's THE problem - these leaders and educators (activists) have sold and been sold on the idea that their job is to uproot structural inequities by various means, and that not participating means you don't get a seat at the table, at the minimum, and are prone to having your character maligned. In other words, their job (and many other educators) is to be activists! The criteria for doing a "good job" is more like making up for the past sins of America and colonialism, etc.. we all know this. The focus should be on the ideas and principles that have empowered the taking over of so many things (media, corporations, educations) in the name of DEI. So Bari, when do we get a series of public debates on these principles? We need you and your team to host them or move them forward, they have to be pointed to, debated, and we need free thinkers who oppose illiberalism to stand by better methods and point out a better solution. Otherwise we keep getting activists and the shut down of free speech.
I strongly reject any form of cancel culture. Be it from the left or, like in this example, from the right. One might not like Liz Magill's views, but she has any right to express them without losing her job or social life. Just like anybody else.
Examples like this expose the hypocrisy of certain people who only believe in free speech for themselves but not for others.
Bari is right about DEI. Unfortunately, among Jewish faculty and students alarmed by the explosion of campus Jew-hatred, the default response is "Let's demand that the university's DEI bureaucracy include us among the oppressed and marginalized." This isn't speculation; I'm speaking from my own experience.
While Bari's initiatives to fix higher education are all on point, they are not enough. Underlying all of this is a misalignment of incentives, which means that the current crop of woke educrats will prove very hard to remove, and if removed, will only be replaced by the next generation of Demon Spawn of Hegel. Harvard's endowment if $50 billion. Think about that. $50 billion, in cash (essentially), just left lying next to the road along the Charles, with nobody claiming ownership of it. Is it any wonder that unsavory characters find a way to glue themselves to it, and leverage it for wealth and power?
In order to fix higher education, and a lot else that's wrong with American culture, we need legal reform of the badly misnamed "non-profit" corporations. It should not be possible for large piles of assets to exist that are not accountable to any owners. "Accountable" in the sense that the shareholders may, if they believe the assets are not being put to productive use, demand that the assets be liquidated and turned over to them in part or in whole.
How to get there? For some assets, there is an obvious constituency who ought to be given the powers of shareholders. For others, including Harvard, I think the fairest solution is simply to confiscate the institution intact, and then sell the shares in a public auction. The proceeds would go to the U.S. Treasury to help retire our national debt.
In short, I think Henry VIII had a good point about the monasteries.
The academy has become a bloated dysfunctional mess. A simple fix that would go miles to return it to it's original function--Make universities co-sign for student loans. In the event of default the lender would have direct recourse to the institution. Money talks, BS walks.
thank you for a somewhat positive take on a very depressing and concerning issue.
the surprising thing for me is that it took these latest travesties for many folks to see the rot at our schools. perhaps some actions will be taken, here and there, to correct the damage.
Claudine Gay wrote in a memorandum to faculty on August 20, 2020:
“The calls for racial justice heard on our streets also echo on our campus, as we reckon with our individual and institutional shortcomings and with our Faculty’s shared responsibility to bring truth to bear on the pernicious effects of structural inequality.”
From this quotation you’d think she was denied use of the water fountains at Harvard. Not that she has ascended to the heights of Academia as a POC.
A society can only function if every capable individual produces more than they consume. Higher education was a way to supercharge that individual capacity. The balloon in student loans has flooded universities with money and no negative consequences if their students leave with unmanageable debt and no marketable skills
I think all the BS policies would disappear rather quickly if the universities had to co guarantee the loans. The large scholarship donors could easily stress and require the same
The solution is to offer students choice between two CORE curriculum. One that stresses Westerrn Civilization and the fundamentalm skills the students will need for the rest of their lives,plus earning a EMT certificate . Teachers for these couses will be chosen by the National Association of Scholars.
Plus we get the joy of saying "You like choice don't you ?"
In no time, the core that stresses Western Civilization will be known as the Marine Core of core curricula which only the smartest students can handle.
Equity is not a virtue. It is a destructive idea that promotes mediocrity. Claudine Gay is a case in point. Her rise in the Harvard administration is due to her race and enforcement of ideology, not academic qualifications. Gay should be fired due to the multiple instances of plagiarism in her work
No community college would find her work acceptable
Bari's podcast about the University Presidents' testimony was spot on. It is shocking to me how DEI has taken over education at all levels, government, and corporate boardrooms. This takeover seems to have taken place quite quickly. I saw signs of it in a Ph.D. program I started in 2001 but it really didn't seem ubiquitous until quite recently. As a boomer who grew up admiring Martin Luther King's ideas, it is sad to find that the opposite of his precepts are now in vogue.
Bravo Bari! I love your pieces. So lucid, factual, and WELL written. Many thanks for providing a quality and fair news and opinion source I haven't seen for MANY years.
American higher education can’t be fixed until the damage that is done in the elementary schools is curtailed. Wake up America. Children are told they are good readers when they aren’t. They are given inflated praise and inflated grades!!!
You are killing me. I'm dyslexic and the amount of important content you are providing is destroying my sleep.
Keep it up.
Another CRUCIAL step in dismantling the corrupt higher ed framework is to END GOVERNMENT FUNDING of ALL levels of education.
Some people say the presidents of these universities (and others) aren't doing their job. I'd argue they absolutely ARE doing their job, and doing it well, otherwise they would have all been fired. I'd argue that Gay is probably pretty good at wearing multiple hats. So what is the job they are so good at? That's THE problem - these leaders and educators (activists) have sold and been sold on the idea that their job is to uproot structural inequities by various means, and that not participating means you don't get a seat at the table, at the minimum, and are prone to having your character maligned. In other words, their job (and many other educators) is to be activists! The criteria for doing a "good job" is more like making up for the past sins of America and colonialism, etc.. we all know this. The focus should be on the ideas and principles that have empowered the taking over of so many things (media, corporations, educations) in the name of DEI. So Bari, when do we get a series of public debates on these principles? We need you and your team to host them or move them forward, they have to be pointed to, debated, and we need free thinkers who oppose illiberalism to stand by better methods and point out a better solution. Otherwise we keep getting activists and the shut down of free speech.
I strongly reject any form of cancel culture. Be it from the left or, like in this example, from the right. One might not like Liz Magill's views, but she has any right to express them without losing her job or social life. Just like anybody else.
Examples like this expose the hypocrisy of certain people who only believe in free speech for themselves but not for others.
Bari is right about DEI. Unfortunately, among Jewish faculty and students alarmed by the explosion of campus Jew-hatred, the default response is "Let's demand that the university's DEI bureaucracy include us among the oppressed and marginalized." This isn't speculation; I'm speaking from my own experience.
While Bari's initiatives to fix higher education are all on point, they are not enough. Underlying all of this is a misalignment of incentives, which means that the current crop of woke educrats will prove very hard to remove, and if removed, will only be replaced by the next generation of Demon Spawn of Hegel. Harvard's endowment if $50 billion. Think about that. $50 billion, in cash (essentially), just left lying next to the road along the Charles, with nobody claiming ownership of it. Is it any wonder that unsavory characters find a way to glue themselves to it, and leverage it for wealth and power?
In order to fix higher education, and a lot else that's wrong with American culture, we need legal reform of the badly misnamed "non-profit" corporations. It should not be possible for large piles of assets to exist that are not accountable to any owners. "Accountable" in the sense that the shareholders may, if they believe the assets are not being put to productive use, demand that the assets be liquidated and turned over to them in part or in whole.
How to get there? For some assets, there is an obvious constituency who ought to be given the powers of shareholders. For others, including Harvard, I think the fairest solution is simply to confiscate the institution intact, and then sell the shares in a public auction. The proceeds would go to the U.S. Treasury to help retire our national debt.
In short, I think Henry VIII had a good point about the monasteries.
The academy has become a bloated dysfunctional mess. A simple fix that would go miles to return it to it's original function--Make universities co-sign for student loans. In the event of default the lender would have direct recourse to the institution. Money talks, BS walks.
I am extremely sad to have to say this, but the Ivy League is reprehensible. It is a malevolent force which promotes evil.
thank you for a somewhat positive take on a very depressing and concerning issue.
the surprising thing for me is that it took these latest travesties for many folks to see the rot at our schools. perhaps some actions will be taken, here and there, to correct the damage.
Claudine Gay wrote in a memorandum to faculty on August 20, 2020:
“The calls for racial justice heard on our streets also echo on our campus, as we reckon with our individual and institutional shortcomings and with our Faculty’s shared responsibility to bring truth to bear on the pernicious effects of structural inequality.”
From this quotation you’d think she was denied use of the water fountains at Harvard. Not that she has ascended to the heights of Academia as a POC.
A society can only function if every capable individual produces more than they consume. Higher education was a way to supercharge that individual capacity. The balloon in student loans has flooded universities with money and no negative consequences if their students leave with unmanageable debt and no marketable skills
I think all the BS policies would disappear rather quickly if the universities had to co guarantee the loans. The large scholarship donors could easily stress and require the same
The solution is to offer students choice between two CORE curriculum. One that stresses Westerrn Civilization and the fundamentalm skills the students will need for the rest of their lives,plus earning a EMT certificate . Teachers for these couses will be chosen by the National Association of Scholars.
Plus we get the joy of saying "You like choice don't you ?"
In no time, the core that stresses Western Civilization will be known as the Marine Core of core curricula which only the smartest students can handle.
Dr George Zilbergeld