Professor Mitchell Langbert deems academic reform a “charade.” He writes–and, trust me, this is food for thought:
The notion of reform assumes an institution that is worth saving. There is scant evidence that higher education is so, with the exceptions of technology, the sciences, and professions…It is entirely possible that human capital can be more effectively enhanced through alternative institutions that have not received state support.
…The movement for academic reform…argues that improving the institution will be worthwhile because then it will perform more authentically, effectively and efficiently. In pursuing such ends, the reformers become part of the university system.
…[T]oday’s universities foster totalitarian ideologies and support intolerant extremism that, though cloaked in left wing garb, is little different from Nazism…Not only are universities culturally adverse to performing what the public expects (balanced education, for example) but their hiring and assessment policies are impossibly skewed toward favoring faculty who support totalitarian approaches and state-based solutions, and to suppression of any who disagree. The notion of reform in the real-world university context thus is a…charade.
…The spread of universities hearkens a deterioration of American democracy. This occurs in part through decades of advocacy of state-based solutions, Keyensian economics, Marxian sociology and similar university movements that advocate destructive social goals. It also occurs because of values that universities inculcate, such as identity politics, political correctness, uniformity of thinking and conformity to a professor’s whims.
Langbert’s solution, which indeed is increasingly resonating in higher-education reformist circles?
Society needs to begin to think of creative alternatives to universities that will sidestep the cracked views of a professoriate whose greatest contributions are left wing totalitarianism and the will to power.