A friend of many years and a properly respected Natural Law theorist, Robert George, has put together a declaration of support for academic freedom with a radically leftist colleague at Princeton Cornel West. For full disclosure: I signed the text, together with a host of other academics, because, like Professor George, I believe in the value of open academic discourse. But I can’t help asking this question: what good will it do? With due respect to the Latin legal adage “Pacta servanda sunt” (Treaties are meant to be observed), we know that most people keep legal agreements not because they are driven by honor or a respect for legal terms. Either they perceive some advantage in keeping an agreement or they fear the consequences of violating one. What do hard-core academic leftists have to fear if they trample on academic freedom and open debate, even after they’ve affirmed exactly the opposite?
Instant Access to Current Spot Prices & Interactive Charts
At most “institutions of higher learning, ” the PC Left is firmly in the driver’s seat and can run around imposing sensitivity litmus tests on those who think differently. They can also claim (and often do) that the Department of Education or the accrediting agency under which the school has placed itself requires that institution should avoid “hate speech” and shape curricula in such a way as to stress “diversity.” And why would an academic celebrity who’s distinguished himself as an advocate of Political Correctness be an ally in trying to open universities to non-leftist perspectives? Shouldn’t we assume that person intends something very different from us when he speaks about “academic freedom” or else that he is using his association with “conservatives” to advance his own cause? I’m also not sure how anyone who for decades has pushed racial, gender and lifestyle quotas in student enrollment and academic hiring can claim to be for open discussions. The effect of such quotas has been to focus learning more than ever on minority grievances. (Presumabl, black females whom universities are hiring for “diversity,” sake won’t sound like a middle-aged Christian lady who happens to be black, say, Mrs. Ben Carson.) “Recruitment” at universities, as I’ve argued elsewhere, means strengthening the embattled Left
This, I would note, is not the first time that defenders of liberty have tried to make common cause with leftist zealots. But as an academic for more than forty years, I don’t recall these endeavors ever turning out well for our side. Back in the 1960s, some on the Old Right tried to forge an alliance with the New Left in order to oppose American military involvement in Southeast Asia. Other libertarians joined Marxist-Leninists in support of various “free speech” movements in the 1960s. I myself had a late-life fling at this bridge-building when I tentatively joined the Left in opposing George W. Bush’s “war of choice” in Iraq. But in none of these cases were non-leftists taken seriously. The Left held all the good cards and determine who counted as critics of the war. No matter how much their would-be allies on the right protested against “Bush’s war,” the only protestors who were noticed in the end were the leftists; and they decided the significance and direction of the protest. Making alliances from a position of weakness is ultimately an exercise in futility.
But there are things we can do to promote academic freedom, without having to rely on unreliable allies. We can support those efforts that are likely to be made by the Trump administration to break up the “deep state,” particularly when those efforts are aimed at the chummy relationship between social engineers in the Departments of Justice and Education and academic elites. The two groups feed off each other. Every time I hear academic administrators talk about the government’s mandate to fight sexism, homophobia or some other bugaboo, I notice they’re reeling off their personal wish list under the pretext of following federal orders. But what would happen if the government didn’t provide this cloak for a PC inquisition but went after government-subsidized institutions for First Amendment violations? Since educational institutions are always expressing their desire to comply with government directives, let’s see what they do when the directives change. Perhaps they’ll act like sanctuary cities, which went from lining up behind the government, when it was run by Obama and his allies, to practicing their current version of non-compliance.
Please note that I’ve changed my views about whether colleges and universities should be subject to the First Amendment in matters of free speech. I used to oppose that idea because I persisted anachronistically in viewing academic institutions as private rather than public. But that no longer seems sustainable. Since public and what are euphemistically called private “institutions of higher learning” receive truckloads of government funding (and with few exceptions hardly ever turn down this largess) and since these institutions revel in carrying out government orders, providing their ideologically congenial, they should be treated as an extension of the public sphere. Colleges and universities should be seen as government agencies and as such liable to suits and prosecution when they violate our First Amendment protections. Needless to say, I’m speaking here about the suppression of “politically incorrect” opinions and the persecution of those who express them. Vigilant protection of the First Amendment rights would not apply to the right of denominational colleges to uphold their religious doctrines or to the right (indeed duty) of instructors to evaluate students’ work in academic disciplines. The difference between a political witch hunt and the traditional functioning of a college or university should be obvious.
When it comes to opposing leftist academic administration, moreover, nothing may work as well as shaming them. This tactic is likely to produce more results than asking leftists to sign a declaration of support for open debate and other presumably bourgeois, reactionary ideas. I’ve noticed that friends of mine, like Robert Paquette at Hamilton and Allan Kors at Penn, have reputations for going after colleagues and administrators for acts of intolerance toward non-leftist students. These professors have never hesitated to embarrass the usual suspects, by calling them out for their sanctimonious bigotry. I remember Steve Balch once telling me while he was working at the NAS that college administrators don’t like “messy things” like legal suits. That was precisely why Balch pushed such “messy things” if nothing else worked. And I once threatened to do the same for defamation of character, when a college newspaper made slanderous accusations against me for questioning a “diversity proposal.” When one is fighting a much better armed, righteous opponent, gentlemanly overtures are not likely to solve anything. As Michael Corleone explained in The Godfather when he dismissed his soft-spoken Irish lawyer from his inner counsels: “Tom, right now we need a war consigliere.”
