Great essay. The humanities and social sciences at most American universities have been infected with the diseases described in this excellent piece. To those who want to defund Columbia or shut it down, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’s still world class in engineering, science, and medicine.
When corporations avoid hiring graduates of these "elite" universities because they are more interested in serious employees and not idealogical activists, these universities will see enrollment drop and donations dry up.
What a pleasure to read what needs to be spoken in such eloquence. Mr. Barr is a master craftsman of language. I can almost hear the cadence of poetry.
Bless your heart, Bill. Nice attempt to help, but the people who wrote the report and the university know exactly what they are doing and are not interested in stopping.
"...still, the same university that offers hours of training on “microaggressions” refused to acknowledge decidedly macro-aggressive attacks on Jews." is not a bug--its a, if not the, function of CRT to create a hostile environment for the untouchables.
There needs to be a greater discussion of public morality. Compassion based ethics and upright behavior need to enter the academic and intellectual worlds. It seems that these conversations are uncomfortable for even many moderate Liberals.
Ami Horowitz found half the students he solicited at San Francisco State University were willing to donate money toward committing acts of terrorism against Jewish people (not Israelis) in Western countries. "We want to fund operations against soft targets, schools, hospitals Jewish cafes"
I expect the "basics of right and wrong" were taught to these students in a very relativistic way when they were children. That's the problem, exemplified today by the university presidents' replies before their congressional hearing.
My feeling is that they don't have deliberate ethical training that is developed through religious education but rather it is obtained through osmosis in a society that has evolved through religion, but without firm grounding, they can be easily swayed.
When we say that we are a Christian nation, we don't mean that we rise as one on Sunday morning and head to church, but rather (largely) that our moral grounding, our basic ethical training, is based in Christianity. But as you noted, this grounding can be swayed, or is dissolving (in my view). Relativism is a "governor" on the heart--in the sense that school bus engines use a governor to control the limit of their top speed--so that what should be a large picture or all-encompassing view of life--the freedom to be truly moral--is reduced to snapshots.
I agree with that but don't think the solution is to post the Ten Commandments in school. Instead it is possible to find common ethical ground and values that make space for multiple points of view and traditions. Discussion is an important part of ethical training because we need to be able to parse all the challenges life throws at us.
People that believe in radical rationalism need to be confronted with the fact that the simply don't have answers on basic questions of what it means to live a meaningful life.
The disappointing part is the market should be reacting and demand for Columbia degrees should be falling. Instead, applications rose ~5% last year to over 60,000 with an acceptance rate of ~4%. Seems either the applicants/parents footing the bill don't care about the anti-semitism and the general assault on the Western intellectual tradition, think they can avoid it or agree with it. That's a pretty bleak list from which to choose. I agree that Federal funding can immunize Columbia from the impact of a market reaction, but it must start with people voting with their feet.
"It will take more than a cleanup crew to remove the stain of antisemitism at Columbia. It will take principled leaders with moral courage and ramrod spines..."
Well, I would say that academia is screwed. It seems to me that the administration at most of the most prominent institutions of "higher learning" have spines similar to those giant inflatable tube men at used car lots.
Watching the protests at Columbia and other institutions of higher learning, I couldn't help but think how so many of those kids had never encountered actual problems in their life. We are a prosperous Nation and if you're a kid going to one of those schools, you come from prosperity or are likely headed in that direction. So you can afford both emotionally and financially to invent problems in your life that don't necessarily impact you at all. And then find an enemy. I feel that way frequently at work as I work for a large organization that spends enormous amounts of resources and energy telling any white guy they find what pieces of crap we are. I had never been made the enemy before, it's been weird. And of course nothing like Jewish students have faced on campuses across the country but indicative of a nefarious and toxic belief system. If these kids had ever felt hunger or lived in a world without plenty, the issues thousands of miles away happening to other people would have far less impact on them because you can only look outside yourself in those ways when all of your needs are met. Watching kids who live in a bubble and have been wrapped in safety their entire lives screaming about issues they have no actual understanding of but just a compulsive moral outrage is disheartening. I worry for the future of our nation when I look around at the under 30 crowd because they seem much smaller and weaker both intellectually and emotionally, and that's a recipe for disaster. Because hard times will inevitably come back around.
Thanks to Mr. William Barr & The Free Press for today's reminder that anyone who believes education necessarily leads to enlightenment, intelligence or self awareness really hasn't spent much time lately around universities, which are now essentially 24/7 residential daycare centers for children intolerant of views that oppose leftist orthodoxy. I teach at a university that thankfully hasn't yet completely embraced this stupidity. Yet.
Will someone follow these protesting individuals home please. Like the heat signature picture from occupy WallStreet, I think that would demonstrate a lot to TheFP readers about what their level of commitment. Remember the movie The Patriot? And the slave owner that sold his slave to the Revolutionary War? Yeah ... there might be folks followed home that are just a new form of mandatory enlistment by progressives. What-about-ism facilitates this discussion ... what if the protesters were protesting for equal rights for women in Islam societies?
“All of this darkly mirrors the violent convulsions that wracked Columbia during the late 1960s, when I was an undergraduate there.”
This resonates with me. During my last two semesters of college in 1969-70 our classes were routinely interrupted with bomb threats and violence. We took exams sitting in lines curbside writing in our blue books, instructors pacing back and forth, while bomb squads swept the buildings. Many cities were on fire in the spring of 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Anti-war demonstrations grew in strength and volume following the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Columbia and Berkeley influenced many other campuses, including ours. Following the student deaths at an anti-war protest at Kent State in May 1970, our own college administration nearly shut down our campus in Richmond, VA, a month before graduation, which would have caused hardship to most of us in those years before the Internet. Civil rights and ending the Vietnam war were important to all of us. Activists told us, “Don’t sell out.” I just needed a degree so I could get a job. But some who became faculty at places like Columbia never got over the fever of those days. And the ideology of Critical Race Theory re-ignited them as social justice warriors.
I remember reading James Kunen’s book “The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary.” In April 1968 after Columbia University students had captured a dean’s office, Herbert Deane, vice-dean of graduate faculties, spoke to student demonstrators telling them a university was not a democracy and students and faculty did not determine administrative policy. Vice-Dean Deane said, “Whether students vote 'yes' or 'no' on a given issue means as much to me as if they were to tell me they like strawberries.”
It would have taken principled leaders with moral courage and a spine to call out the fraud in the 2020 election as well. Sorry you have moved on after forsaking the country.
I assume you’re talking about the fraud that the provably fair election was “stolen”. I agree; he should not simply have moved away from the claim, but stayed and stood his ground, and steered the President away from the craziness that ensued. We needed a stable, sincere, high integrity conservative to stand up for the truth, and push back on the “stolen” claims.
I guess our interpretations of “fair” elections just differ. When I see a video of a mother daughter team unload four suitcases of ballots in Fulton County (after sending poll watchers home for the night) then run those ballots through the counting machines MULTIPLE times, the word fair doesn’t come to mind. Or when an election official in Wisconsin gives the keys to the secure ballot room to a New York Democrat operative and leaves her post, the word integrity strikes me as absurd. Or maybe the verified delivery of hundreds of thousands of ballots leaving a Bethpage, NY postal distribution center (that DOES NOT HANDLE a first class mail) arriving in Pennsylvania should give one pause about doubting the “stolen” claims. Bill Barr was deep state, as was his father who hired Jeffrey Epstein.
Great essay. The humanities and social sciences at most American universities have been infected with the diseases described in this excellent piece. To those who want to defund Columbia or shut it down, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’s still world class in engineering, science, and medicine.
When corporations avoid hiring graduates of these "elite" universities because they are more interested in serious employees and not idealogical activists, these universities will see enrollment drop and donations dry up.
What a pleasure to read what needs to be spoken in such eloquence. Mr. Barr is a master craftsman of language. I can almost hear the cadence of poetry.
Bless your heart, Bill. Nice attempt to help, but the people who wrote the report and the university know exactly what they are doing and are not interested in stopping.
Thank goodness his law firm is representing those custodians.
"...still, the same university that offers hours of training on “microaggressions” refused to acknowledge decidedly macro-aggressive attacks on Jews." is not a bug--its a, if not the, function of CRT to create a hostile environment for the untouchables.
There needs to be a greater discussion of public morality. Compassion based ethics and upright behavior need to enter the academic and intellectual worlds. It seems that these conversations are uncomfortable for even many moderate Liberals.
Ami Horowitz found half the students he solicited at San Francisco State University were willing to donate money toward committing acts of terrorism against Jewish people (not Israelis) in Western countries. "We want to fund operations against soft targets, schools, hospitals Jewish cafes"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu8bSaGJeS8&t=6s
These students need to learn the basics of right and wrong.
I expect the "basics of right and wrong" were taught to these students in a very relativistic way when they were children. That's the problem, exemplified today by the university presidents' replies before their congressional hearing.
My feeling is that they don't have deliberate ethical training that is developed through religious education but rather it is obtained through osmosis in a society that has evolved through religion, but without firm grounding, they can be easily swayed.
When we say that we are a Christian nation, we don't mean that we rise as one on Sunday morning and head to church, but rather (largely) that our moral grounding, our basic ethical training, is based in Christianity. But as you noted, this grounding can be swayed, or is dissolving (in my view). Relativism is a "governor" on the heart--in the sense that school bus engines use a governor to control the limit of their top speed--so that what should be a large picture or all-encompassing view of life--the freedom to be truly moral--is reduced to snapshots.
I agree with that but don't think the solution is to post the Ten Commandments in school. Instead it is possible to find common ethical ground and values that make space for multiple points of view and traditions. Discussion is an important part of ethical training because we need to be able to parse all the challenges life throws at us.
People that believe in radical rationalism need to be confronted with the fact that the simply don't have answers on basic questions of what it means to live a meaningful life.
The disappointing part is the market should be reacting and demand for Columbia degrees should be falling. Instead, applications rose ~5% last year to over 60,000 with an acceptance rate of ~4%. Seems either the applicants/parents footing the bill don't care about the anti-semitism and the general assault on the Western intellectual tradition, think they can avoid it or agree with it. That's a pretty bleak list from which to choose. I agree that Federal funding can immunize Columbia from the impact of a market reaction, but it must start with people voting with their feet.
"It will take more than a cleanup crew to remove the stain of antisemitism at Columbia. It will take principled leaders with moral courage and ramrod spines..."
Well, I would say that academia is screwed. It seems to me that the administration at most of the most prominent institutions of "higher learning" have spines similar to those giant inflatable tube men at used car lots.
Defund the Ivy League!
Watching the protests at Columbia and other institutions of higher learning, I couldn't help but think how so many of those kids had never encountered actual problems in their life. We are a prosperous Nation and if you're a kid going to one of those schools, you come from prosperity or are likely headed in that direction. So you can afford both emotionally and financially to invent problems in your life that don't necessarily impact you at all. And then find an enemy. I feel that way frequently at work as I work for a large organization that spends enormous amounts of resources and energy telling any white guy they find what pieces of crap we are. I had never been made the enemy before, it's been weird. And of course nothing like Jewish students have faced on campuses across the country but indicative of a nefarious and toxic belief system. If these kids had ever felt hunger or lived in a world without plenty, the issues thousands of miles away happening to other people would have far less impact on them because you can only look outside yourself in those ways when all of your needs are met. Watching kids who live in a bubble and have been wrapped in safety their entire lives screaming about issues they have no actual understanding of but just a compulsive moral outrage is disheartening. I worry for the future of our nation when I look around at the under 30 crowd because they seem much smaller and weaker both intellectually and emotionally, and that's a recipe for disaster. Because hard times will inevitably come back around.
I find it crazy that these events are happening in the USA of 2024.
Thanks to Mr. William Barr & The Free Press for today's reminder that anyone who believes education necessarily leads to enlightenment, intelligence or self awareness really hasn't spent much time lately around universities, which are now essentially 24/7 residential daycare centers for children intolerant of views that oppose leftist orthodoxy. I teach at a university that thankfully hasn't yet completely embraced this stupidity. Yet.
Will someone follow these protesting individuals home please. Like the heat signature picture from occupy WallStreet, I think that would demonstrate a lot to TheFP readers about what their level of commitment. Remember the movie The Patriot? And the slave owner that sold his slave to the Revolutionary War? Yeah ... there might be folks followed home that are just a new form of mandatory enlistment by progressives. What-about-ism facilitates this discussion ... what if the protesters were protesting for equal rights for women in Islam societies?
“All of this darkly mirrors the violent convulsions that wracked Columbia during the late 1960s, when I was an undergraduate there.”
This resonates with me. During my last two semesters of college in 1969-70 our classes were routinely interrupted with bomb threats and violence. We took exams sitting in lines curbside writing in our blue books, instructors pacing back and forth, while bomb squads swept the buildings. Many cities were on fire in the spring of 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Anti-war demonstrations grew in strength and volume following the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Columbia and Berkeley influenced many other campuses, including ours. Following the student deaths at an anti-war protest at Kent State in May 1970, our own college administration nearly shut down our campus in Richmond, VA, a month before graduation, which would have caused hardship to most of us in those years before the Internet. Civil rights and ending the Vietnam war were important to all of us. Activists told us, “Don’t sell out.” I just needed a degree so I could get a job. But some who became faculty at places like Columbia never got over the fever of those days. And the ideology of Critical Race Theory re-ignited them as social justice warriors.
I remember reading James Kunen’s book “The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary.” In April 1968 after Columbia University students had captured a dean’s office, Herbert Deane, vice-dean of graduate faculties, spoke to student demonstrators telling them a university was not a democracy and students and faculty did not determine administrative policy. Vice-Dean Deane said, “Whether students vote 'yes' or 'no' on a given issue means as much to me as if they were to tell me they like strawberries.”
It would have taken principled leaders with moral courage and a spine to call out the fraud in the 2020 election as well. Sorry you have moved on after forsaking the country.
I assume you’re talking about the fraud that the provably fair election was “stolen”. I agree; he should not simply have moved away from the claim, but stayed and stood his ground, and steered the President away from the craziness that ensued. We needed a stable, sincere, high integrity conservative to stand up for the truth, and push back on the “stolen” claims.
I guess our interpretations of “fair” elections just differ. When I see a video of a mother daughter team unload four suitcases of ballots in Fulton County (after sending poll watchers home for the night) then run those ballots through the counting machines MULTIPLE times, the word fair doesn’t come to mind. Or when an election official in Wisconsin gives the keys to the secure ballot room to a New York Democrat operative and leaves her post, the word integrity strikes me as absurd. Or maybe the verified delivery of hundreds of thousands of ballots leaving a Bethpage, NY postal distribution center (that DOES NOT HANDLE a first class mail) arriving in Pennsylvania should give one pause about doubting the “stolen” claims. Bill Barr was deep state, as was his father who hired Jeffrey Epstein.