Now that America’s universities have become battlefields in our politico-cultural trench wars, perhaps it is time for Americans to start thinking about what we even want universities for. The question deserves consideration in its own right, as a matter of society’s needs rather than in reaction to politicized movements and interests.
Many universities will undergo their own processes, of varying depth and motivation, to name their purpose in the coming months and years. Likewise, many organizations with some stake in the discourse around education and many involved in research will develop their own manifestos. Amid the cloud that will be emitted, of high-flown rhetoric and openly political advocacy, can a discourse about the general public interest take place?
Does society even need universities? For starters, what are they? A rough description might call them centers for teaching and research, supported by tuition payments but also wealthy donors and governments. Many are rich in their own right, in part from edging into commercial and industrial activity. Many, particularly the elite ones, exert a certain cultural influence. Has there been any discourse, from society’s standpoint, about what they should do?
The possibilities are endless. Of course everyone wants education – some mean institutions that impart skills, some promote the Liberal Arts as a support for citizenship. We have become fully aware of the movement to make these institutions catalysts for social justice, particularly to bring redress to identity groups that have been repressed in one way or another. Counters include Prof. Harvey Mansfield’s call for sanctuaries for the pursuit of truth. National security has been invoked, in the idea that research and expertise are necessary to protect against rivals in their own development of means to outcompete or harm us. Many incubate new enterprises, famously in information technology at Stanford. And so on.
The medieval university was a theological institute, reflecting the role of the church in old social orders, and the understanding that truth, expertise, government, morality and the nature of existence all flowed from divine origins. Today’s world has no such consolidated “grand purpose” for these institutions.
Looking to this nation’s founding premises, we might wish, without prejudice to institutional forms and practices, for organizations to declare how they intend to enable people – students, researchers, and society – to grow in their pursuits of happiness. Such efforts could support governments’ work to secure unalienable rights to the people. This principle countenances a wide range of activities, from vocational training to advanced research in fields of all types, and more. It could apply to state-supported and private institutions. All manner of organizations could evolve. They might include versions of today’s think tanks, or technology enterprise incubators, or any number of institutions dedicated to objectives involving knowledge and its application. They could include vehicles dedicated to develop ideologies such as the “woke/DEI” doctrine – but their mission would be adopted and explained explicitly. Transgressions of doctrine – for instance a biologist’s assertion that two sexes exist – would not be cited as a surprise to the scientist.
In effect, this conception would resemble what we have today, only with universities expected to cast rationales for their programs transparently. (A few, such as conservative Hillsdale College, do this.) Students, donors, and researchers could then choose where to devote their resources with open eyes.
This is only one hypothetical outcome that a notional national discourse might generate. But the notional discourse could address missions, standards, and motivations for universities in advance, before cultural and political sensitivities react to new influences shaping the sector. Prior reflection would allow coherent review of the self serving findings that interested parties – the universities themselves, donors with agendas, academics, research users and budding entrepreneurs – will put forward. Open discourse could preclude the sense of “insider’s game” that so many institutional sectors exude.
It’s hard to say where such a discourse could occur – any “place” for a forum, in cyber or institutional space, will invite disruption while also generating its own interests. And the public at large limited bandwidth for these questions – until the next congressional hearing. One impulse says the public interest is limited to ensuring against fraud, coercion, corruption, and cronyism in any institution’s own processes. But even such a minimal discipline must rest on some kind of social consensus, which can only be chosen openly, not presumed.
In 2024, pathways forward are murky. This post references the Declaration’s premises to offer some common sense of “forward.” Might Americans at least grapple and stumble together?
Common Conviction 