Alan S. Blinder: Trump's University "Compact" Would Make Universities Mediocre

link

To my shame, I haven't read the compact carefully yet.

   But this op-ed seems to willfully ignore the problem of left-wing institutional capture of academia.

I don't see that Blinder makes any case for the claim that the compact would make universities mediocre.

   And the "who's to say?" point...well...such a point is always easy to make against all sides in such a dispute. It tends to be raised by the left whenever we remind them that our job is to seek the truth (who's to say what's true?), or to transmit the best that's been thought and said (who's to say what's best?) or to objectively assess ideas (who's to say what's objective?)....but when the academic left insists that all other goals must be subordinated to "social justice," they never ask "who's to say what's just?" nor any such thing. When they were relentlessly pushing DEI, they never asked "who's do say what's equitable?'...etc.

   It probably goes without saying that I don't want the DoJ hovering over our heads...but it would probably be better than the virtually unchecked ideological manipulation of academia we've been living with for the past 50--and especially the last 10--years.