Capture of Any Kind is Bad
Universities should be beholden to educational objectives, not activism or donors
by Rebekah Wanic
Recently, the Free Press published the piece Can a Donor Revolt Save American Universities? The answer is probably not, but maybe.
The credibility of universities is to a large extent predicated on their neutrality in the pursuit of truth. In their well-reasoned argument for institutional neutrality, the writers of the Kalven Report state: “To perform its mission in the society, a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures. A university, if it is to be true to its faith in intellectual inquiry, must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community. It is a community but only for the limited, albeit great, purposes of teaching and research (emphasis added). It is not a club, it is not a trade association, it is not a lobby.”
Institutions, particularly those dedicated to pursuing knowledge, should generally avoid taking specific positions on political issues and should work hard to implement and stand behind policies that prevent ideological capture. Advocates for institutional neutrality and free speech have long been pointing out that this means avoiding making positional statements on politically or socially charged topics. As the Kalven Report writers point out, the university’s “domain of inquiry and scrutiny includes all aspects and all values of society” (emphasis added). Thus, a positional statement runs counter to this goal and furthermore, it risks alienating members of the community with whom the university’s position may be misaligned. Positional statements undermine neutrality and shutter free speech, as those who disagree are often subject to censure or overt punishment. In making such statements, universities are demonstrating their failure to uphold their mission to support and encourage the exchange of wide-ranging positions and ideas and close off, rather than foster, an arena for such discourse.
The institutional capture of higher education to the woke Left is well documented and will not be reviewed here (for a fuller discussion of this ideological capture and suggestions for a way forward, consider Eric Kaufmann’s piece, linked below). Change is needed. But, the way forward is not to abandon universities nor is it to become beholden to donors.
Universities caving to the whims of donors is no better than caving too the whining snivels of current collegians or woke vitriol. To do so would only further demonstrate the spinelessness of university leadership and result in a different type of institutional capture. With this caveat in mind, the current actions of donors could be valuable, if they make clear that funds are being withdrawn because of the current ideological capture and non-neutrality of the institutions they support. If donors wish to protect the university mission and bolster its credibility, they should withhold funding until they have evidence that neutrality will be established and rigorously defended. However, that is where the pressure should end.
A large part of the problem of ideological capture is that universities have been in the game of chasing cash for far too long, a shift supported by the commoditization of education. The endless pandering to students and their advocate-faculty supporters derives not from any real interest in supporting their educational objectives, but from increasing satisfaction at the basest level. As we have previously argued, much of the current “student-centered education” undermines rather than supports educational goals, as does the DEI ideology pervasive among higher education. Read more here:
From our earlier piece in Minding the Campus, On the Non-Diversity of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: “This morally, not pedagogically, motivated transition taking hold across academia has resulted in a new kind of non-diversity. Specifically, the uncritical acceptance of the social justice and inclusivity narrative has led to a reduction in the diversity of perspectives allowed to be taught in courses, the removal of academic challenge in the guise of accessibility, and the valuing of only one type of educator. All of these outcomes are ultimately counterproductive to the purported aims of the movement: to enable a more diverse set of students to access a transformative educational experience and achieve post-university success.”
Higher education is experiencing a credibility crisis. Given the paltry attempts by many universities to respond as both the general “rot in higher education” and their current hypocrisy had been laid bare in the wake of the recent terrorism perpetrated against Israel, there is clearly a need for major revision. When a system is mired in dysfunction and most (there are exceptions, cf. Ben Sasse at University of Florida) of its constituent decision-makers have demonstrated their inability to operate independently of woke pressure, it is time for an overhaul. A start might be for administrators to admit their mistake in failing to uphold their mission, but for that, one shouldn’t hold their breath.
Donor pressure is powerful and may be a force for good, particularly since it is a force from without. But, donor action will only help if that pressure is directed toward supporting the true mission of the university. It is time to replace those feckless administrators who have bent over backwards sacrificing institutional credibility in service of woke ideology. We are all witnessing the consequences of the current crop of unprincipled panderers. Can a donor revolt save the universities? Perhaps, if the monetary incentives can be aligned with educational objectives, including support for institutional neutrality, then we may be able to move forward to regain some of the lost credibility in higher education.
One of the things I have noticed, historically, is that great advances in philosophy and in science and across disciplines have occurred in countries enjoying tremendous economic growth. This goes back to the Greeks of old. As the economy tightens or as the global dominance of an economy weakens on the global stage, so do the institutions of higher learning. I hope that the coopting of our universities by wealthy donors who decide on the direction the institution should take is not a harbinger of what has happened in other nations/countries in institutions of higher learning: that the dominance we have enjoyed for the past 100 years is on the wane and if we stay true to history it is seldom that the same country/nation can regain that spotlight. But as you have said in this post, the solution is not to toss out the baby with the bathwater (well you didn't use those words but it was the message I got); the solution is to strength our institutions in new ways. And not be behind beholden to wealthy donors' ambitions.