Chaos on Campus

Federal Judge Jose Cabranes has joined those of us who are sounding the alarm about the current state of American higher education. He declares that college campuses have lost their purpose and their mission. They are no longer even pretending to educate.

Judge Cabranes explains what went wrong:

First, colleges and universities have subordinated their historic mission of free inquiry to a new pursuit of social justice….

Second, American colleges and universities have been overwhelmed by a dangerous alliance of academic bureaucrats and student activists committed to imposing the latest social-justice diktats. 

The problem is social justice. The other problem is that academic excellence has been sacrificed to brainwashing and indoctrination.

Cabranes continues:

Too many in higher education are unwilling or unable to maintain a distinction that lies at the core of the liberal democratic project, and at the center of the West’s intellectual tradition: the distinction between inquiry and action, speech and conduct.

The faculty is no longer in charge of education. Administrators and bureaucrats have joined forces with leftist student activists:

As the new species of bureaucrats and student activists have come to dominate the university, they have reshaped it in their image. Wherever possible, they have sought to muddle the distinction between intellectual deliberation and political action—thus making certain thoughts, like certain deeds, into crimes.

What should be done? Cabranes has several suggestions, beginning with the thought that faculty and trustees and alumni donors must activate themselves and engage more actively in governance:

The faculty, besieged though it is, must reassert its historic centrality in the university and stand ready to protect the search for truth….

Trustees can start by recalling their considerable legal authority. They should demand detailed justifications for each and every deputy deanship and assistant directorship that swells the bureaucratic ranks. Trimming nonfaculty staff positions would require effort, but it wouldn’t be impossible—unlike faculty, these positions lack the protections of tenure…

Donors should decline to provide single-lump gifts. Instead, donors should provide annual support for specific programs—but only as long as certain criteria are met. Of course, donors have no business telling professors what to teach or write. But neither should donors meekly trust that Alma Mater knows best.

Emphasize the last point. Among the more astonishing manifestations of the degradation of the American mind is the fact that donors blindly fund the madness and the chaos on campus.

While we are talking about campus chaos, we can add the recommendations for reform offered on The Burning Platform blog, via ZeroHedge.

They comprise the following, beginning with the abolition of tenure:

The concept of tenure needs to be eliminated. No one should be guaranteed a livelihood by managing to hit some arbitrary mark and thereafter have no responsibility for doing a good job as reviewed by their employer. The education profession needs to get rid of the dead wood clogging the system and consuming resources.

And also, add some accountability:

All higher education facilities should be mandated to provide their graduates with job opportunities via an employment agency owned and operated by the institution, not a contracted for service. The schools should be totally responsible for finding each graduate a position in the degree field of study for 5 years post graduation….

If the institution is unable to place a graduate, then the former student is entitled to a full refund of all tuition paid for a proven obviously useless degree plus 5 times tuition paid for the waste of time involved and to provide the former student with a funds cushion to get retrained in something with a future. In the case where a graduate is unemployable for no reason the school is responsible for or where there is a dispute over responsibility, a 3rd party would be called upon to make a judgment.

If students exit university with a load of debt and no ability to hold down a job, then universities should pay for their dereliction.