Criticizing woke academia: here’s a letter to praise
[Hat tip:”AesopFan.”]
Many of you are almost certainly familiar with some of the signers of this letter (for example, Shelby Steele, Glenn Loury, and John McWhorter), written on March 22 and addressed to the president of Smith College [emphasis mine]:
We, the undersigned, are writing as Black Americans to express our outrage at the treatment of the service workers of Smith College in light of the incident of alleged racial profiling that occurred in the summer of 2018.
Before investigating the facts, Smith College assumed that every one of the people who prepare its food and clean its facilities was guilty of the vile sin of racism and forced them to publicly “cleanse” themselves through a series of humiliating exercises in order to keep their jobs. When an investigation of the precipitating incident revealed no evidence of bias, Smith College offered no public apology to the falsely accused and merely doubled down on the shaming of its most vulnerable employees.
Many of us participated in the Civil Rights Movement, fighting for equal treatment under the law, which included due process and the presumption of innocence. We didn’t march so that Americans of any race could be presumed guilty and punished for false accusations while the elite institution that employed them cowered in fear of a social media mob. We certainly didn’t march so that privileged Blacks could abuse working class whites based on “lived experience.”
More at the link.
Of course, letters from black intellectuals aren’t enough. Colleges must feel the financial heat or nothing will change – and I’m not even sure that anything will change if they do feel the financial heat.
And you know that push from the left to make college free for everyone? I see that as (a) a possible way to prop up colleges that would otherwise have financial difficulties; and (b) a way to further expand the number of people colleges can indoctrinate at taxpayer cost.
Ending all federal college loans would end a lot of the woke nonsense and quite possibly a lot of second tier colleges entirely. For the wealthy colleges, make them pay for the loans out of their endowments.
The cost of college has risen at a rate that is over twice the rate of inflation, which is ridiculous, especially since the value of a degree has fallen because there are now so many graduates relative to need. Why go to college if you can buy a nice starter home for the price of tution?
I always thought of Smith as “Lesbian U.” Now it is acquiring a new reputation.
When I started college back in 1969, tuition was about 125.00 a semester. Most students worked. I was lucky in that my college was in my home town and between working and a scholarship, I graduated with no debt. When my daughter went to college in the late 1990’s, costs were way higher. She got some tuition cuts because I worked there and a partial grant, she also worked and I worked full and part time and she got through school with no debts. All her friends are envious.
A couple of things really changed between when she went and I went. There was no Department of Education back when I went to college and there were no frills. There’s lots of frills now and the Department of Education requires piles of paperwork.
Their first mistake is assuming these institutions actually care. They don’t.
Smith, along with the rest of the NESCAC schools, have devolved into nothing more than ideological purity centers; much more so than the rest of academia. And that’s saying something. I’m sure the president of Smith laughed at the letter and immediately tossed it away. It was just from a bunch of oreos anyhow, so why pay any attention to it.
KyPerson – There is a graph that shows the number of administrators vs. instructors. It tells the whole story. I cannot seem to find that graph but it minics this one.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=number+of+college+professors+vs.+adminstration+grapg&va=b&t=hr&iax=images&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fthebullelephant.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F01%2FDoctors-and-administrators-800×754.png
That and the lifestyle of today’s college. I recently went back to my alma mater and whoa what a change. No wonder why so many college grads feel entitled. They have been told they are special from birth.
I personally would end loans and go to a grant method that is finite AND the US government negotiates the tuition cost. Cost of instruction plus 20%. Additionally if a student has not paid off his loan to the Federal Government within 10 years, then the school pays the Federal Government for the balance and that charge is not built into the tuition structure. Pay it from the endowment fund because obviously it provided a worthless degree.
You will see universities push to find graduates jobs plus a lot of PhD programs will be severely trimmed back. Also the Gender and Ethnic studies programs would also be re-structured. It is one thing to take someone’s money for a worthless degree, but another issue altogether if it comes from your operating capital.
Same thing, I paid my way through college from 1972-76 then a second degress in 83-84. No way my kids could do it today even with scholarships.
Great point about the Department of Education and the deterioration of American education.
” There is a graph that shows the number of administrators vs. instructors.”
I Am Spartacus: At the NESCAC school that used I to teach, over the past 15 years the academic budget has been flat which means it isn’t even keeping up with inflation. Meanwhile the administrative side was growing exactly like that graph you presented; by several 100s of percent. Some of us used to joke that we knew the school had turned to bullshit as we were growing VPs and assistant deans like mushrooms. That’s where the tuition money is going. 25-30 years ago most of the administration came out of the faculty; did their term as a Dean etc, then returned back to the faculty. Now there is a whole class of people who never teach but are professional academic administrators. And like most bureaucrats, to advance their careers they must grow the department they administer, which means adding more people who basically contribute nothing to the main mission of the school.
“Colleges must feel the financial heat or nothing will change – and I’m not even sure that anything will change if they do feel the financial heat.” neo
There are more ways to apply heat than the merely financial. Liberty itself is at stake and those willfully blind to their support of a path leading to tyranny have forfeited their claim to membership in civilization.
Glenn Loury also wrote a great rebuttal last summer to the usual po-faced pronouncement from the president and senior administration of Brown University in the wake of George Floyd’s death:
https://www.city-journal.org/brown-university-letter-racism
Loury’s letter is eloquent and admirable. Predictably, it had zero effect on the administration at Brown. I’m sure that what Physicsguy said about Smith was true at Brown as well: the president and her entourage probably had a good giggle over it, if they read it at all. One might as well expect Stasi officers to be moved to repentance by impassioned letters from their victims. “The Lives of Others” notwithstanding (great movie, by the way).
My prescription for real change:
1. Eliminate the federal college loan program.
2. Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education.
3. Defund colleges of “education”. They’re feeders for the academic administrator class (e.g. by issuing PhDs in “higher education administration”), not to mention incubators for Critical Race Theory and other toxic ideologies.
4. Persuade parents to stop sending their kids to four-year colleges or universities (with a few honorable exceptions).
All four steps are crucial. The last one might actually be doable, since it doesn’t depend on government doing anything.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/idaho-house-rejects-higher-ed-budget-due-to-concerns-over-wokeism.php
A tincture of resistance here. It needs to be much harsher.
Shelby Steele, Glenn Loury, and John McWhorter, where do we find such men? Men who are willing to stand up for what’s right. Men who know they will be vilified by the MSM, academia, and the race hustlers. Men who may suffer professionally because of their willingness to stand up against the woke narrative. These are the sort of men that you want in your foxhole in time of war. I don’t think they get enough praise and respect.
Hubert, I second your prescription. I also believe alums should quit donating to their old schools and let the schools know exactly why. It’s not much, but they need to hear the truth.
Just want to the praise of the above-mentioned persons for their integrity and (it must be said) sheer bravery, which one must dearly hope is less rare than it seems….
Related: I came across the following astonishing post at Instapundit:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/443137/
…which references this controversy at Yale Law School:
https://davidlat.substack.com/p/tiger-mother-amy-chua-roars-back
And see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Chua
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jed_Rubenfeld
It is hard NOT to come to the conclusion that the elite universities (or at least too many of them) have become havens for fomenting insanity.
Further on the subject of extraordinary bravery and integrity:
https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/03/18/our-history-has-been-stolen-from-us-how-south-african-community-organizer-clive-mashishi-confronts-antisemitism-holocaust-denial-and-hatred-of-israel/
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/south-africa-chief-justice-appeals-demand-to-apologize-for-comments-on-israel-661978
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/04/brown-university-reportedly-has-one-surveillance-camera-for-every-nine-undergrads/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=brown-university-reportedly-has-one-surveillance-camera-for-every-nine-undergrads
We are in a race to equal Beijing, with which the Bidens are so well-connected.