Thursday, December 14, 2023

Ugly State of Affairs in American Universities

 


.Yet it is hard to imagine the current intolerant woke campus will change course unless we have a serious discussion about curbing the government's multibillion-dollar subsidies to elite higher education—winding down the massive research grants, tax-free endowment income, tax-deductible private gifts, and $2 trillion in federally subsidized student loans.

Given the gargantuan Ivy-League endowments and multibillion-dollar annual influx of “research” grants to elite institutions, these presidents and their universities apparently believe they are to be exempt from all criticism and enjoy a birthright to endless federal money.

Again, the only thing that can save the elite universities from themselves, and from their descent into the modern Dark Ages is to return once again to inculcating civic education, ensuring free inquiry, offering inductive courses—and showing some concern for their own middle-class taxpaying benefactors.

I think we can all agree on one thing: Harvard most certainly does not stand for “defending a culture of free inquiry”—at least as it applies to unfettered and free debate over, say, controversies such as Israel, DEI, affirmative action, grading standards, Christianity, Western Civilization, climate change, abortion, fossil fuels, transgenderism and sports, illegal immigration, or firearms.

There was a reason, after all, why The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) ranked Harvard dead last out of 248 universities in protecting “free speech”, and why Gay’s Harvard is infamous for bending to pressure to disinvite guest speakers, attacking any who do not abide by approved vocabulary, ostracizing faculty deemed insufficiently supportive of DEI agendas, and student mobs hounding professors whose published research they do not like.

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