The dire state of our universities is a recurring theme in this space. On far too many campuses, faculty, administrators, and students find themselves silenced, ostracized, or even fired when they voice opinions or raise questions that run against the grain of certain progressive orthodoxies. The university’s awesome ability to produce innovation and new knowledge relies on the relatively uninhibited freedom to exchange and explore ideas and to follow them wherever they may lead. When that freedom is curtailed—either through administrative action or public pressure campaigns—the university becomes a less dynamic place. It’s less able to address itself to hard problems, less able to imagine new modes of inquiry, and less able to offer students an intellectually transformative experience.
I want to believe that we still have the ability to right the ship, to abandon suffocating speech codes and woke political imperatives that prevent vital work from getting done. But we can’t simply wait around and hope these institutions will correct themselves. The stakes are too high. It’s time to start thinking about how we can build and sustain alternative institutions that will do the work our traditional universities may find themselves unable to do in the not-too-distant future.
Read Full Article »