logoalt Hacker News

The Unmaking of the American University

22 pointsby rbanffyyesterday at 8:47 PM7 commentsview on HN

Comments

godsinhisheaventoday at 3:20 AM

I liked the article, but I feel like this article, and many artices like, only hint or brush at truly one of the largest issues for conservatives: the numbers game. Strong majorities of professors, in pretty much every college in the United States, range from liberal to marxist. There just aren't enough conservative professors to go around! How many conservative professors even exist in the United States? 500? Maybe? Seems high honestly. (And of those, perhaps a dozen are actually honest to goodness God-fearing Conservatives, and not just libertarians.) So to me, it's no wonder that universities are such a target, pretty much everyone who staffs them, everyone who teaches at them, and everyone who attends them, is liberal.

show 2 replies
epsteingpttoday at 3:45 AM

The core fiction that enables the university to work is a dedication to 'truth' and progress through discussion. Safety and freedom is part of that bargain. Universities have failed on those accounts.

That breaks down when there isn't open discussion on campus. Communists were jeered but essentially allowed on campus in the 60s and 70s, even at the height of the cold war.

The left now holds a place of orthodoxy in the universities and power structures. Whether the 'right' can break it back into an enforced balance is yet to be seen.

Until then, the central tie of an otherwise diverse institution will break down and break into fragments. Which would be a shame. The opposition needs to "live" somewhere!

show 2 replies