Article in Tablet: “Is the Backlash to Universities Becoming Real?"

I have a new article up at Tablet called “Is the Backlash to Universities Becoming Real?” I argue that a combination of Republicans waking up, a general souring on higher education among the public, and market competition are starting to have an impact. It begins thus:

In 2019, Ron DeSantis appointed Brian Lamb, a former point guard at the University of South Florida, to the 17-member board of regents for the state university system. The Florida governor when he made the pick was clearly thinking more about his athletic accomplishments than ideological principles, as Lamb soon afterwards became head of diversity and inclusion at JPMorgan Chase. It therefore probably shouldn’t have been surprising when, after the death of George Floyd, he sent a memo to all presidents of public colleges in Florida demanding they “prioritize and support diversity, racial and gender equity, and inclusion” and told them that they would be held “accountable for policies, programs, and actions” in this area. 

Nonetheless, in May of last year, DeSantis signed a bill banning DEI across the state system. By January, the Board of Regents voted to implement that law. DeSantis was first, but since his DEI ban, eight other governors have signed similar bills. While the culture war has been part of American life since the 1960s, the last few years have been a turning point, with Republican politicians finally becoming willing to rein in university administrators. 

For conservatives and moderates, it’s easy to be disillusioned by recent anti-Israel protests at universities across the country. For many of us, the moral outrage we feel towards open displays of sympathy for Hamas is tempered only by disgust towards college kids who are still masking outdoors and worried about potentially dying of banana allergies. But there are signs that this isn’t 2020 anymore. At the University of Texas, president Jay Hartzell has been roundly praised by Republican lawmakers for taking a tough stand towards protestors at the incipient stage of their activism. As one professor at the school told me, “They did the right thing. They didn't let us become Columbia or UCLA.” In Florida, DeSantis came out and threatened students with possible expulsion, which may have stopped much of a protest movement from getting off the ground in the first place. The president of the University of Chicago not only refused to let protestors take over campus, but denounced the entire idea of encampments as inherently coercive. And although not directly related to the protests, in the midst of these disturbances MIT became the first elite private school to ban DEI statements in faculty hiring and promotion, showing that the “Summer of Floyd” effect that once seemed to push all prestigious institutions in the same direction may be fading. 

These are signs that changes are afoot. They’re not taking place at the same pace everywhere, and some departments, fields of study, and universities might be sinking deeper into a left-wing monoculture. Nonetheless, there is at least variation in how institutions are behaving, which appears to be the result of two processes. First, Republican politicians have actually started paying attention to what is going on at university campuses, and more importantly, become willing to do something about it. More subtly, at the same time there has been a great discrediting of higher education, particularly elite universities, and this inevitably affects the decisions of employers and potential students.

Read the whole thing over at Tablet and discuss here.

DEI bureaucrat and basketball player appointed by DeSantis to the University of Florida board of regents, back when athleticism was important to getting a job under a Republican governor.