What Happens if We Hold College and Nobody Comes?

By: Jonathan Turley | September 27, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/09/26/what-happens-if-we-hold-college-and-nobody-comes/

Below is my column in the New York Post on a growing crisis in higher education as enrollments and trust falls. Despite these trends, administrators and faculty appear entirely oblivious and unrepentant. They continue to alienate many in the country who view schools as pursuing indoctrination rather than education.

Here is the slightly expanded column:

In the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht asked “What if they gave a war and nobody came?”  As someone who has been a teacher for over 30 years, I find myself increasingly asking the same question as trust and enrollments fall in higher education.

Trust in higher education is plummeting to record lows. According to recent polling, there has been a record drop in trust in higher education since just 2015. Not surprisingly, given the growing viewpoint intolerance on our campuses, the largest drops are among Republicans and Independents. There has been a precipitous decline in enrollments across the country as universities worry about covering their costs without raising already high tuition rates. From 2010 to 2021, enrollments fell from roughly 18.1 million students to about 15.4 million.

There are various contributors to the drop from falling birthrates to poor economic times. However, there is also an increasing view of higher education as an academic echo chamber for far-left agendas. For many, there is little appeal in going to campuses where you are expected to self-censor and professors reject your values as part of their lesson plans. That fear is magnified by surveys showing that many departments have purged their ranks of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians.

In my new book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculties replicate their own views and values.

One survey (based on self-reporting) found that only nine percent of law professors identified as conservative. Some anti-free speech advocates are actually citing higher education as a model for social media in showing how “unlikeable voices” have been eliminated. Many of those “unlikeable” people are now going elsewhere as schools focus on degrees in activism and denouncing math, statistics, the classics, and even meritocracy as examples of white privilege.

Schools offering classic education are experiencing rising enrollments, but the growing crisis has not changed the bias in hiring and teaching. Despite repeated losses in courts, universities and colleges continue to deny free speech and diversity of thought. The fact is that this academic echo chamber may be killing educational institutions, but the intolerance still works to the advantage of faculty who can control publications, speaking opportunities, and advancement with like-minded ideologues.

We have seen the same perverse incentive in the media where media outlets are seeing plummeting readers and revenue. Journalism schools and editors now maintain that reporters should reject objectivity and neutrality as touchstones of journalism.

It does not matter that this advocacy journalism is killing the profession. Reporters and editors continue to saw at the limb upon which they sit due to the same advantage for academics. For reporters, converting newsrooms into echo chambers gives them more security, advancement, and opportunities.

Recently, the new Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis was brought into the paper to right the ship. He told the staff “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.” The response from reporters was to call for owner Jeff Bezos to fire Lewis and others seeking to change the culture. The Post has been eliminating positions and just implemented another round of layoffs to address the budget shortfalls.

In the meantime, trust in the media is at record lows — paralleling the polling on higher eduction. The result is the rise of new media as people turn to blogs and other sources for their news.

The same phenomenon is occurring in academia. People are now evading campuses with online programs. For those of us who believe in brick and mortar educational institutions, we may be watching a death spiral for some universities and colleges as administrators and faculty treat their students as a captive audience for their ideological agendas.

In the meantime, alternative educational opportunities are seeing a rapid rise. Take the Catherine Project, a project started four years ago, to offer free discussions of classic works that is also free from ideological indoctrination. The project has reportedly doubled in size since 2022.

With online educational technology, universities and colleges no longer have a monopoly on education. People have choices and they are increasingly choosing alternatives. To paraphrase Lewis, “let’s not sugarcoat it…People are not [buying our] stuff.”

We are killing our institutions through an abundance of ideology and a paucity of courage. Recently, interim Columbia President Katrina Armstrong actually apologized to students who took over and trashed a building in pro-Palestinian protests.

During the protests, a Jewish Columbia professor was blocked by the school from going on campus because he might trigger anti-Semitic students. Yet, Armstrong apologized for the alleged abuse of police and the role of the university in allowing them to be harmed, adding “I know it wasn’t me, but I’m really sorry.… I saw it, and I’m really sorry.”

Like many conservatives and libertarians, Jewish students and families are now reportedly looking for alternatives to schools like Columbia.

What is clear is that many administrators and departments will continue to bar opposing views and maintain the academic echo chamber. Many have tenure and expect to ride out the decline of their institutions while enjoying the acclaim of being academic crusaders. Of course, it will become increasingly hard to be social warriors if you hold a war and nobody comes.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage”