Peter Berkowitz appears today in the Wall Street Journal writing on “Our Compassless Colleges.”
At universities and colleges throughout the land, undergraduates and their parents pay large sums of money for — and federal and state governments contribute sizeable tax exemptions to support – “liberal” education. This despite administrators and faculty lacking, or failing to honor, a coherent concept of what constitutes an educated human being.
To be sure, American higher education, or rather a part of it, is today the envy of the world, producing and maintaining research scientists of the highest caliber. But liberal education is another matter. Indeed, many professors in the humanities and social sciences proudly promulgate doctrines that mock …
And then the rest of the article vanishes, tragically, behind the subscription wall. Yet all is not lost – you can read the full piece from which the op-ed was adopted – in Policy Review – right here in our Must Reads.
Berkowitz, incidentally, is among the luminaries who will be appearing at our Center for the American University’s Allan Bloom Conference “The American Mind: Opening Or Closing?” on October 3rd.
Re: Many members of the Yale faculty saw a program on Western civilization as too narrow and too political
This does not surprise. As a former Yale faculty member in the time frame of the return of the Bass $20 million, these were my experiences: link.
This is a detailed case example of wasted resources and opportunity, attempted misappropriation of intellectual property by prominent tenured faculty for private use, unauthorized practice of law in the Office of the General Counsel, blacklisting, extortion, and retaliation treated with a blind eye and silence by senior university officials.
Western civilization’s rules did not seemingly apply. Yale needs to seriously examine exactly what civilization they represent – or perhaps the Law of the Jungle is the new Lux et Veritas.