A few weeks ago, Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, made an important political statement by wearing a Harvard T-shirt to a postgame news conference.
When asked if the shirt was about the Trump administration’s threats against the university, Kerr lauded Harvard for “standing up to the bully” and spoke about his support for both academic freedom and the independence of civic institutions.
In return, he received a blizzard of ridicule, ranging from Silicon Valley titans to ordinary Joes.
For the record, I support Harvard, and I am grateful to Kerr for taking a principled stand. My organization explicitly relies on theories developed by many Harvard scholars, past and present.
My guess is your organization has also benefited from the work and thinking of Harvard professors, whether they are philosophers, legal theorists, or medical scientists. Research universities bring together people with remarkable intellects to accomplish remarkable feats — from mapping the genome to developing artificial intelligence.
But I’m struck that so many Americans seem happy that the nation’s elite academic institutions are being put in a chokehold by our elected leaders. In a perfect world, stadiums would be full of people sporting Harvard T-shirts to demonstrate their identification with one of the jewels of American civilization in its face-off against an authoritarian regime — not just a lone head coach and a handful of progressive opinion writers.
Instead, much of the American public is openly cheering the regime in its effort to suffocate the nation’s oldest and most storied university. And this week’s release of a report documenting widespread antisemitism and Islamophobia at Harvard isn’t going to build anyone’s confidence in elite universities.
Loss of Trust
The numbers show just how far universities have fallen in the eyes of the public. As recently as 2015, almost 60 percent of Americans said they had confidence in higher education, according to a Gallup survey. In less than 10 years, that number has fallen 20 points. Most alarmingly, only one in five Republicans reports confidence in higher education.
By their very nature, elite institutions face an uphill climb to maintain public support. They inherently confer massive advantages on their members, reject the vast majority of people who want to join, and maintain a sense of mystery about their operations.
But not every elite institution raises the public ire. The Navy Seals is elite, and it doesn’t seem to generate the same kind of hate as the Ivy League.
Make no mistake, though: Elite universities absolutely require the public trust. They rely on tax money for their research facilities and tuition support for students, as well as 501(c)(3) status to protect their massive endowments. If the public decides it no longer trusts or identifies with an institution, it can turn off the spigot. Worse, it can support government or other entities in their attacks on university operations.
How did our elite academic institutions get so sideways of so much of the public?
First, they’ve become highly sectarian — politically one-sided in whom they hire and what they teach. In a recent survey by the Harvard Crimson, more than 80 percent of faculty described themselves as liberal or very liberal, while only 1 percent called themselves conservative. Not a single person said they were very conservative. By contrast, 33 percent of the public call themselves conservative or very conservative, and just 26 percent say they are liberal or very liberal, according to a YouGov survey.
The consequence is that those who identify with and trust these institutions are primarily progressive or left leaning. And people who report having little or no confidence in higher education cite the institutions’ “political agendas” as the primary reason.
Second, those who don’t follow the dominant progressive culture on campuses are actively scorned and punished for, say, failing to use a student’s correct pronouns. A proposed law in California even attempted to mandate anti-racism instruction in college classrooms.
As New York Times columnist David Brooks writes, elite universities have “become shrouded in a stifling progressivism that tells half the country: Your voices don’t matter.”
Consider that during the height of protests against George Floyd’s murder, professors at elite universities were among the most vocal supporters of the “defund the police” movement — essentially demonstrating their contempt for one of the last decent paying blue-collar jobs available. Not surprisingly, the millions of Americans who felt disdained by those advocating to “defund the police” elected a president who is now brazenly defunding the professors.
Oppression of the Privileged
Some of the nation’s most privileged campuses have also supported a victimhood culture that alienates most Americans. I spend a lot of time on elite campuses and am stunned by how often students complain about how their institution oppresses them even as they fail to notice the janitor sweeping the floor a few feet away.
A few years ago, I was speaking on a panel at Sarah Lawrence College about the challenges and opportunities of living in a diverse democracy. We were interrupted by a group of students demanding a series of changes at the college. Several who stood up to state their demands acknowledged their “white privilege” but noted that they were “oppressed by heteronormativity.” Not a single person mentioned the privilege of being a student at one of the priciest colleges in the country.
The next day, a school van driver who picked me up recounted that the students’ demands included free laundry detergent. “Why can’t they be like the rest of us,” she wondered, “and just hand wash their clothes with regular soap when they run out? But what do I know? I’m just an hourly employee with a high-school education. These Sarah Lawrence kids are going to run the world.”
Is it any wonder so few Americans are sympathetic to the plight of these institutions?
Elite Nonprofits Are Next
The challenges that plague elite universities are coming for other quarters of the social sector.
Seven years ago, political commentator Andrew Sullivan predicted in an article titled “We All Live on Campus Now” that the features of academic life that most turned off the broader public would not stay on campus. Rather they would bleed out into the kind of elite institutions that hire the graduates of elite universities.
This is precisely what has happened in the elite quarters of the nonprofit sector, particularly advocacy organizations and foundations. Political scientist Yascha Mounk refers to it as the “short march through the institutions.”
Too many of us speak a language of disdain for ordinary people. We, too, sit in our comfortable offices and talk about how oppressed we are, even as hourly workers who set out the coffee and cookies for our meetings are nearby and no doubt listening.
It’s high time we remember that we, too, require the public trust.
When the populist authoritarians come after your endowment, which ordinary folks will stand up for you?
