As someone who has spent decades on campus, I can tell you that our universities have gone from being one of the most open and free spaces in America to one of the most repressive, chock full of would-be totalitarians, both faculty and administrators. They have no meaningful commitment to the First Amendment or free expression--any comments to the contrary are, like most of their formal statements, for public consumption only. The real agenda of control and one-mindedness remains carefully hidden. However bad you think conditions might be, it is probably worse. The problem is, to borrow a term, "systemic."
"Liberal education" now seems like an oxymoron. It's quite sad. The pressure to conform and the corresponding risk of non-conformance are palpable. Requirements may not be explicitly stated but feel tacitly promulgated by "undeclared expectations". Don't want to break from the herd.
One way to do that might be to put an end to the federally guaranteed student loan program. It's resulted in bloated budgets and worthless diplomas. Make the students and the lenders take the risk that a particular institution or program is worth the cost.
"On campus" ... what campus? You know that matters right?
This generalization is frankly naive and starts with a completely false premise. Universities have actually always been a place of class warfare and exclusion, and administrators have always been relatively totalitarian -- because that's their job security at stake. The "real agenda" is just people trying to maintain the status quo, it's not some kooky conspiracy, it's just groupthink at its worst (the same tendency that created both Nazi Germany and present day Israel, for instance).
Specifically, the UC system (which is the topic at hand, whatever "campus" you're talking about) has been a force of repression for decades, and they are the exemplars of championing free speech and open discussion while simultaneously militarizing and intimidating students who actually try to enact these principles.
I seriously think that the UC is the test bed for strategies that are then applied at the national level by the totalitarian crypto-fascists we currently call the DNC.
That said, I totally agree with your overall premise. We really need to re-invent this. Education should educate, not indoctrinate. Since the latter is really the goal for those currently in power (to keep us locked into a consumerist society instead of a creative/self-reliant one), the only way out is authentic education.
The leftward drift toward totalitarianism in academia began, in general, on "elite" campuses (including the one I worked at), but over the course of 30-40 years has permeated (with a few notable exceptions) virtually every institution of higher ed today, down to the community colleges. But I think this principle still holds true: the more "elite" a university is presumed to be, the more Left/"woke"/repressive it is.
The term I use is "ideological capture." It is real, and it must be challenged by the re-establishment of a regime of true academic freedom on every campus.
I do like your last paragraph. Lots of good stuff there.
True, it began in the 70s. The 80s saw the acceleration of the trend. By 2000, with the retirement of the post-war cohort (late 40s-60s), the Left was firmly and completely in control of academia. And here we are.
Agree with everything you have said here, except for the part about their agenda for conformity and control being carefully hidden. Maybe about thirty years ago, I might agree...no, I remember adding mention of Harvey Milk to one of the papers I had to write for a class I was taking at Kansas University, primarily because I knew the prof was gay. That was no later than 1996. I knew it would count for a few extra points. I wouldn't have bothered if I thought the game wasn't afoot already back then
Yes, by 1996, the Left agenda was fully on display to those taking courses at university. But to the public at large, the radical Left tear-it-all-down-so-we-can-begin-anew agenda stayed mostly hidden, and remains so. And I can tell you from personal experience that it has long been a strategy, at times openly expressed in faculty meetings, to dissemble about the real agenda when speaking to the public. "Tell them what they want to hear, not what we don't want them to know" is the game. But the game may be ending.
When a few students balked at the mandate to wear "cloth masks" on campus, Lauren Robel boasted that "they relented when I let them know I had asked the registrar to prepare their transcripts for transfer."
She threatened to upend their lives. For not wearing a completely useless "cloth mask."
The only edifying part in the Deborah Brix book is when Atlas listened to her lockdown plan patiently, and then horrified her by responding “You are wrong.”
When did those words become anathema to government and academia?
As a then 64-year-old in 2014, I received my Masters at Stanford. In the five years I took classes there, I observed a woke faculty. The events of the last 4 years in the Stanford legal and medical community are shameful when it comes to free speech. I wouldn’t give a dime to Stanford. We relocated halftime to rural Montana, where I find more likeminded people than in The SF Bay Area. Keep up the good work , Matt. Excellent post.
It’s fascinating to me how uncomfortable “progressives” are with the rough and tumble of open dialogue, of scientific inquiry, of free speech. Even a generational talent like Elon Musk is vilified for his views. Imagine if Albert Einstein were censored for some intemperate comment. Progressives have made it clear what social constraints they are comfortable with, and those constraints are not compatible with a free and robust society and market economy. It only remains for the vast majority of Americans to decide what kind of society they wish to live in.
Your comment on Einstein hits home for me. I'm here deep in deep-blue SoCal, where the majority of what I think is now treated--if/when expressed--as implicitly awful wrongthink. So just about every time I open my mouth to say something substantive, knowing I'll be greeted with anywhere from shock to chagrin, I think of Einstein and other courageous scientists being more firmly led by pursuit of truth than applause now--and speak anyway. It helps me to think of the courage of those bygone-but-eternal giants of science, as does seeing your related words here.
Haha, you think Elon Musk has talent. He's just a poser that people throw money at, and a lot of it is government subsidy. Get real. Dude is a shill for empire like all the rest; the 'free speech' is all PR and ideological capture.
A lot of people got things wrong on the policy response to COVID, but the censorship and partisanship made it impossible to do any kind of course correction. A lot of people suffered real world harm because of the unhinged and unscientific covid response.
Any scientist like “Suneil Koliwad, a medical professor at UC San Francisco” who thinks that censorship on matters of science is ok is particularly bad. Science doesn’t work without a free and open exchange of ideas. Dr. Koliwad really needs to issue a public apology for his defamation of Dr. Scott Atlas, who held a minority opinion that turned out to be entirely correct. And it would also be nice if Dr. Koliwad explained that he now understands that other people’s free speech is not contingent upon his agreement.
I feel like I knew these people in junior high and they have never changed. They are so glad to have the opportunity to get revenge on the world with their petty authoritarianism. Unfortunately the stakes have gotten serious. I honestly don't think they can be reasoned with ( you can't reason someone out of a conclusion they got into without it). The feeling they have of being in the moral right gives them the 'ends justify the means,' attitude that is beyond reaching. I don't have the answer as to how to replace them in their jobs but that is what is needed.
" I don't have the answer as to how to replace them in their jobs but that is what is needed."
I do. It's right in UCI's student code of conduct. It should also apply to faculty, tenured or not. Here is what is in that code:
"Physical force, the threat of force, or other coercive activities used to subject anyone to a speech of any kind is expressly forbidden."
UCI administrators and leaders have allowed this rule to be used to wipe the behinds of keffiyah donning imbeclies for years. UCI has allowed the shouting down of invited speakers talking on Covid, politics and unironically the importance of free speech.
It's a school led by feeble, cowardly non-leaders, a board of bystanders and hypocritical, mealy mouthed educational failures unwilling to wrest control away from the inmates.
As with many universities, the top 10% of administrators should be terminated, along with all of the DEI infrastructure they allowed to metastasize over the last 10 years.
Of course. The subversives, the mockers of authority and roasters of sacred cows are on the alt-right (and, to a lesser extent, the dirtbag left), while liberals have turned into dour fingerwagging scolds so sanctimonious and humorless that they make The Church Lady look like G.G. Allin by comparison.
This is not because of any inherent love of freedom on the right, or any natural censoriousness on the part of liberals, but is an artifact of their respective relationships to power.
It seems that the problem these academic ministers had was the Dr Scott Atlas was showing them to be somewhat lacking in knowledge about issues of public health. And for those people to be shown how wrong they may be was anathema to their fragile egos.
that “erosion in public trust in institutions damages institutions that exist to serve the public good” and mourn the “danger of undermining trust in science at a time when we are facing a public health crisis.”
Ahahahahahahahaha—the irony!
You’ve basically listed nearly ALL the people and organizations (ostensibly outside of government) who have done the most to bring about that distrust.
DNC+State Security “blob” (CIA, FBI, DHS, Pentagon, State Dept, Dept of Justice, all major universities, state media) == complete weaponization against “opponents).
It will be much more intensive with AI application.
Note: Bipartisan consensus on foreign policy (“unprovoked” war in Ukraine, current genocide in Gaza, Russofobia, hatred of unprecedented success of China).
PS: US doesn’t have a domestic policy — only desperate foreign policy of imperialism while sliding in unavoidable economic decline.
Man. Talk about some misguided (evil?) stuff. Thank goodness there is a way to uncover the conniving, biased machinations of these organizations. Well done again Matt. Can you imagine what we wouldn’t know if we couldn’t FOIA this stuff? What are they hiding that we can’t see?
Dr. Atlas' persecution was a mixture of academia and Silicon Valley arrogance. He was not the only victim. What colleges, all over the country, imposed on students, was nothing short of criminal. At our son's university, students who tested positive, with no symptoms, were basically locked in a dorm room for 7 days, with cold food delivered, 3 times a day.
Being caught outside the room, was grounds for dismissal. These were asymptomatic, young, healthy kids, sequestered with other young, healthy, Covid positive kids, but kept in isolation, in separate rooms, for a week. It was insanity.
The Supreme Court, long ago ruled, even mass murders, are entitled to an hour of sunlight and outside exercise, a day. These kids were treated worse. The adults in their lives, that tolerated college officials, drunk with power, should forever be ashamed. Calling Americans that blithely tolerated the tyranny, sheep, is an insult to livestock.
Amen! Had my son been away at college during those dark days, I would've either had him come home or dis-enrolled him. Not a huge deal to push graduation out a year or two until it all blew over. I'm really surprised more students/parents didn't do that.
My, my what busy little bees. It seems the U's were all in a twitch competing with each other to get a prize. The decades of indoctrination favorably demonstrated its effectiveness. Defund the Dept of Ed.
'Free speech AND inclusivity?' If everyone's already free to speak, that's automatically all-inclusive, isn't it? The only instances in which it wouldn't be would be those in which the word 'inclusivity' is surreptitiously (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) redefined, and then used as a technical term to smuggle in nonnegotiable dogmas that are by nature (since they're dogmas) exclusionary.
As someone who has spent decades on campus, I can tell you that our universities have gone from being one of the most open and free spaces in America to one of the most repressive, chock full of would-be totalitarians, both faculty and administrators. They have no meaningful commitment to the First Amendment or free expression--any comments to the contrary are, like most of their formal statements, for public consumption only. The real agenda of control and one-mindedness remains carefully hidden. However bad you think conditions might be, it is probably worse. The problem is, to borrow a term, "systemic."
Defund, dismantle, and re-invent higher ed--now.
"Liberal education" now seems like an oxymoron. It's quite sad. The pressure to conform and the corresponding risk of non-conformance are palpable. Requirements may not be explicitly stated but feel tacitly promulgated by "undeclared expectations". Don't want to break from the herd.
One way to do that might be to put an end to the federally guaranteed student loan program. It's resulted in bloated budgets and worthless diplomas. Make the students and the lenders take the risk that a particular institution or program is worth the cost.
"On campus" ... what campus? You know that matters right?
This generalization is frankly naive and starts with a completely false premise. Universities have actually always been a place of class warfare and exclusion, and administrators have always been relatively totalitarian -- because that's their job security at stake. The "real agenda" is just people trying to maintain the status quo, it's not some kooky conspiracy, it's just groupthink at its worst (the same tendency that created both Nazi Germany and present day Israel, for instance).
Specifically, the UC system (which is the topic at hand, whatever "campus" you're talking about) has been a force of repression for decades, and they are the exemplars of championing free speech and open discussion while simultaneously militarizing and intimidating students who actually try to enact these principles.
Facts for example: https://www.ucpolicingandrepression.com/learn/militarization-of-the-university-of-california
I seriously think that the UC is the test bed for strategies that are then applied at the national level by the totalitarian crypto-fascists we currently call the DNC.
That said, I totally agree with your overall premise. We really need to re-invent this. Education should educate, not indoctrinate. Since the latter is really the goal for those currently in power (to keep us locked into a consumerist society instead of a creative/self-reliant one), the only way out is authentic education.
The leftward drift toward totalitarianism in academia began, in general, on "elite" campuses (including the one I worked at), but over the course of 30-40 years has permeated (with a few notable exceptions) virtually every institution of higher ed today, down to the community colleges. But I think this principle still holds true: the more "elite" a university is presumed to be, the more Left/"woke"/repressive it is.
The term I use is "ideological capture." It is real, and it must be challenged by the re-establishment of a regime of true academic freedom on every campus.
I do like your last paragraph. Lots of good stuff there.
It was already in full swing when I was a student in the late 70s.
True, it began in the 70s. The 80s saw the acceleration of the trend. By 2000, with the retirement of the post-war cohort (late 40s-60s), the Left was firmly and completely in control of academia. And here we are.
That was my experience.
They weren't called commie pinko hippies for nothing.
On campuses everywhere, it's rule by fear. Disagree and you are a bigot.
Agree with everything you have said here, except for the part about their agenda for conformity and control being carefully hidden. Maybe about thirty years ago, I might agree...no, I remember adding mention of Harvey Milk to one of the papers I had to write for a class I was taking at Kansas University, primarily because I knew the prof was gay. That was no later than 1996. I knew it would count for a few extra points. I wouldn't have bothered if I thought the game wasn't afoot already back then
Yes, by 1996, the Left agenda was fully on display to those taking courses at university. But to the public at large, the radical Left tear-it-all-down-so-we-can-begin-anew agenda stayed mostly hidden, and remains so. And I can tell you from personal experience that it has long been a strategy, at times openly expressed in faculty meetings, to dissemble about the real agenda when speaking to the public. "Tell them what they want to hear, not what we don't want them to know" is the game. But the game may be ending.
Progressioves dropped any interest in freedom of speech them moment they got the whip hand.
Spot on, Feral.
When a few students balked at the mandate to wear "cloth masks" on campus, Lauren Robel boasted that "they relented when I let them know I had asked the registrar to prepare their transcripts for transfer."
She threatened to upend their lives. For not wearing a completely useless "cloth mask."
These people are fucking evil.
It is time that some of these POSs find themselves with their proverbial "horses head(s)".
Otherwise, they will continue to act with impunity...risk-free reward 🤔. Lets hope not.
The only edifying part in the Deborah Brix book is when Atlas listened to her lockdown plan patiently, and then horrified her by responding “You are wrong.”
When did those words become anathema to government and academia?
Sweden was way ahead of everyone else.
And Florida- thank goodness for Ron DeSantis and Joe Ladapo
As a then 64-year-old in 2014, I received my Masters at Stanford. In the five years I took classes there, I observed a woke faculty. The events of the last 4 years in the Stanford legal and medical community are shameful when it comes to free speech. I wouldn’t give a dime to Stanford. We relocated halftime to rural Montana, where I find more likeminded people than in The SF Bay Area. Keep up the good work , Matt. Excellent post.
It’s fascinating to me how uncomfortable “progressives” are with the rough and tumble of open dialogue, of scientific inquiry, of free speech. Even a generational talent like Elon Musk is vilified for his views. Imagine if Albert Einstein were censored for some intemperate comment. Progressives have made it clear what social constraints they are comfortable with, and those constraints are not compatible with a free and robust society and market economy. It only remains for the vast majority of Americans to decide what kind of society they wish to live in.
Your comment on Einstein hits home for me. I'm here deep in deep-blue SoCal, where the majority of what I think is now treated--if/when expressed--as implicitly awful wrongthink. So just about every time I open my mouth to say something substantive, knowing I'll be greeted with anywhere from shock to chagrin, I think of Einstein and other courageous scientists being more firmly led by pursuit of truth than applause now--and speak anyway. It helps me to think of the courage of those bygone-but-eternal giants of science, as does seeing your related words here.
Haha, you think Elon Musk has talent. He's just a poser that people throw money at, and a lot of it is government subsidy. Get real. Dude is a shill for empire like all the rest; the 'free speech' is all PR and ideological capture.
Sarcasm?
is a troll, best to ignore
A lot of people got things wrong on the policy response to COVID, but the censorship and partisanship made it impossible to do any kind of course correction. A lot of people suffered real world harm because of the unhinged and unscientific covid response.
Any scientist like “Suneil Koliwad, a medical professor at UC San Francisco” who thinks that censorship on matters of science is ok is particularly bad. Science doesn’t work without a free and open exchange of ideas. Dr. Koliwad really needs to issue a public apology for his defamation of Dr. Scott Atlas, who held a minority opinion that turned out to be entirely correct. And it would also be nice if Dr. Koliwad explained that he now understands that other people’s free speech is not contingent upon his agreement.
I feel like I knew these people in junior high and they have never changed. They are so glad to have the opportunity to get revenge on the world with their petty authoritarianism. Unfortunately the stakes have gotten serious. I honestly don't think they can be reasoned with ( you can't reason someone out of a conclusion they got into without it). The feeling they have of being in the moral right gives them the 'ends justify the means,' attitude that is beyond reaching. I don't have the answer as to how to replace them in their jobs but that is what is needed.
" I don't have the answer as to how to replace them in their jobs but that is what is needed."
I do. It's right in UCI's student code of conduct. It should also apply to faculty, tenured or not. Here is what is in that code:
"Physical force, the threat of force, or other coercive activities used to subject anyone to a speech of any kind is expressly forbidden."
UCI administrators and leaders have allowed this rule to be used to wipe the behinds of keffiyah donning imbeclies for years. UCI has allowed the shouting down of invited speakers talking on Covid, politics and unironically the importance of free speech.
It's a school led by feeble, cowardly non-leaders, a board of bystanders and hypocritical, mealy mouthed educational failures unwilling to wrest control away from the inmates.
As with many universities, the top 10% of administrators should be terminated, along with all of the DEI infrastructure they allowed to metastasize over the last 10 years.
Here's a link to the complete code of conduct. Section 30 pertains to 'Policy on speech and advocacy' - https://conduct.uci.edu/code-of-student-conduct/
Of course. The subversives, the mockers of authority and roasters of sacred cows are on the alt-right (and, to a lesser extent, the dirtbag left), while liberals have turned into dour fingerwagging scolds so sanctimonious and humorless that they make The Church Lady look like G.G. Allin by comparison.
This is not because of any inherent love of freedom on the right, or any natural censoriousness on the part of liberals, but is an artifact of their respective relationships to power.
It's certainly a truism that high school never ends.
It seems that the problem these academic ministers had was the Dr Scott Atlas was showing them to be somewhat lacking in knowledge about issues of public health. And for those people to be shown how wrong they may be was anathema to their fragile egos.
that “erosion in public trust in institutions damages institutions that exist to serve the public good” and mourn the “danger of undermining trust in science at a time when we are facing a public health crisis.”
Ahahahahahahahaha—the irony!
You’ve basically listed nearly ALL the people and organizations (ostensibly outside of government) who have done the most to bring about that distrust.
Doctor, heal thyself.
Those were my thoughts exactly when I read that. They were clearly unconsciously (or maybe consciously) projecting.
Thank you for your effotts.
DNC+State Security “blob” (CIA, FBI, DHS, Pentagon, State Dept, Dept of Justice, all major universities, state media) == complete weaponization against “opponents).
It will be much more intensive with AI application.
Note: Bipartisan consensus on foreign policy (“unprovoked” war in Ukraine, current genocide in Gaza, Russofobia, hatred of unprecedented success of China).
PS: US doesn’t have a domestic policy — only desperate foreign policy of imperialism while sliding in unavoidable economic decline.
Great description of the US's current status.
Man. Talk about some misguided (evil?) stuff. Thank goodness there is a way to uncover the conniving, biased machinations of these organizations. Well done again Matt. Can you imagine what we wouldn’t know if we couldn’t FOIA this stuff? What are they hiding that we can’t see?
Read his book and you can learn a great deal. And Stop the Hitler crap. It’s a poor comment to make considering what Hitler was actually like.
Gas the Nazis
Dr. Atlas' persecution was a mixture of academia and Silicon Valley arrogance. He was not the only victim. What colleges, all over the country, imposed on students, was nothing short of criminal. At our son's university, students who tested positive, with no symptoms, were basically locked in a dorm room for 7 days, with cold food delivered, 3 times a day.
Being caught outside the room, was grounds for dismissal. These were asymptomatic, young, healthy kids, sequestered with other young, healthy, Covid positive kids, but kept in isolation, in separate rooms, for a week. It was insanity.
The Supreme Court, long ago ruled, even mass murders, are entitled to an hour of sunlight and outside exercise, a day. These kids were treated worse. The adults in their lives, that tolerated college officials, drunk with power, should forever be ashamed. Calling Americans that blithely tolerated the tyranny, sheep, is an insult to livestock.
Mrs
Amen! Had my son been away at college during those dark days, I would've either had him come home or dis-enrolled him. Not a huge deal to push graduation out a year or two until it all blew over. I'm really surprised more students/parents didn't do that.
My, my what busy little bees. It seems the U's were all in a twitch competing with each other to get a prize. The decades of indoctrination favorably demonstrated its effectiveness. Defund the Dept of Ed.
'Free speech AND inclusivity?' If everyone's already free to speak, that's automatically all-inclusive, isn't it? The only instances in which it wouldn't be would be those in which the word 'inclusivity' is surreptitiously (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) redefined, and then used as a technical term to smuggle in nonnegotiable dogmas that are by nature (since they're dogmas) exclusionary.