The Tartan

By Anand Beh

On Jan. 6, 2023, a new insurrection occurred. A man on social media with a crossed-swords emoji in his username declared, “We are now over the walls and ready to transform higher education from within.” For Christopher Rufo and his team of incoming administrators, it must have been a grand achievement: to take over a 170-year-old bastion of liberalism, New College of Florida, and remake it as a conservative stronghold. Their objective, backed by governor Ron DeSantis, was to reform the leftie campus, that hellish birthplace of such outrageous doctrines as critical race theory, gender studies, and respecting one another’s personal pronouns.

There is often a warranted incredulity to conservative outrage regarding American higher education. Some readers may be tempted to laugh and move on. Understanding the motivation and sources of a major political movement, however, is no little matter.

Examining the commotion can be frustrating. Consider critical race theory. This lens of analysis was formulated to explore the history of racism in American institutions and its tight integration within the social fabric. Its conservative opponents, though, are hard-pressed to explain what it is, or why it should be banned from school curricula. Much of the general clamor emanates from certain nefarious persons. Fox News host Tucker Carlson says critical race theory is racism itself. Four months later, to the frustration of scholars, Carlson admits he “never figured out” what critical race theory really is.

We know the tirade against higher education is not new. But until 2023, the barbarians with sword emojis had never invaded a university and sacked it from within — shattering the legacy of an established and reputed educational institution. The still-unfolding New College of Florida fiasco is bad enough, with new degree offerings curiously bankrolled by DeSantis donors. The latest danger, though, is nationwide and affects both narrative and policy. The vitriol typically confined to the Republican circus has entered the mainstream, cloaked in language that seems reasonable and may offer valid points, but makes extreme conclusions and grossly misrepresents what happens at universities.

In December, CNN political commentator Fareed Zakaria led a segment titled “Fareed’s take: universities have replaced academic excellence with a political agenda,” which is now the top search result for Zakaria’s name. Zakaria touches upon several points, all of which resemble elements of the general discussion. These arguments deserve to be analyzed, not only for their accuracy, but also their legitimacy – because, at a time of political madness, seeming strokes of imprecision provide cannon fodder for Carlson industries.

Zakaria’s core contention is that universities have become centers of dogma where “the pervasive goals are political and social engineering, not academic merit.” This is a sweeping conclusion that is hardly supported by either the data or Zakaria’s monologue. He offers affirmative action as evidence, but such policies existed for decades before the Supreme Court overturned them in 2023. Zakaria also alleges faculty hiring is biased against white men, neglecting that this is the dominant demographic among faculty.

There are three subjects of Zakaria’s criticism: students, faculty, and administrators. Of these, the administration is the hardest to defend, and that is mostly because of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) departments now under fire in articles like “This Is the Actual Danger Posed by D.E.I.” in the New York Times. There is real criticism to be had of DEI departments, but most of it overlooks the gains that they have forwarded. At Carnegie Mellon, the DEI office conducts bias training, holds inclusive events, and provides a space for underrepresented minorities against whom the discrimination documented on cmutestimonies.com stands to reckon (some of that testimony criticizes the university for inaction). Recently, in emails sent to club leaders, the Tepper School of Business began requiring affiliated academic clubs to implement an open membership policy, which has a clear link with economic mobility based on academic research.

Zakaria claims moreover that new major programs in subjects like DEI represent “political agendas, not academic fields.” But this obscures the fact that for-profit companies have also adopted DEI and created DEI departments, and the existence of DEI as a major at some schools is more likely a measured response to a social and workplace phenomenon. Far from an attempt to instill intellectual conformity, DEI seems like an imperfect attempt to mitigate discrimination.

Within academia, calls for “intellectual diversity” may seem reasonable. But scholarly work often reveals a lack of substance to such claims. For example, the field of gender studies is supposedly dominated by transgender ideology, and in the United Kingdom, Professor Kathleen Stock has emerged as a publicly prominent “gender-critical” feminist who opposes transgender recognition. Stock and her proponents claim she is unduly silenced. However, a 2021 paper by Aleardo Zanghellini analyzed Stock’s arguments — which consisted mostly of blog and social media posts — and found them to fail basic logical tests. Other professors in transgender philosophy have noted the decades of existing literature Stock does not address when she claims to “illuminate” the field with her viewpoints.

The case of Professor Stock is not an instance of undue censorship. Stock’s arguments do not pass basic tests of merit, and her alleged exclusion from the discussion ought to be celebrated by persons who champion academic excellence.

Fareed Zakaria did not mention specific cases of alleged censorship. However, his supporters have. An article in the Wall Street Journal commends Zakaria for calling out cancel culture and includes a video portraying Milo Yiannopoulos, Jeff Sessions, and Betsy DeVos as victims of left-wing cancellation. Like Stock, these speakers have faced opposition from students protesting their presence on campus.

Yet students have a right to protest speakers they deem bigoted or dangerous. By aiming for unscholarly publicity stunts and failing to engage honestly, Stock is arguably spreading an unsubstantiated ideology that threatens the physical safety of transgender individuals. Students decided to call out this behavior and denounce Stock’s rhetoric. That may be a victory for critical thinking, not a loss.

The right-wing personas mentioned in the Wall Street Journal video are no better. Milo Yiannopoulos has been criticized by Ben Shapiro as racist. Jeff Sessions and Betsy DeVos worked for leaders who later plotted to usurp the electoral process on Jan. 6, 2021. These characters could run a dark comic strip.

America has a real problem with cancel culture. However, much evidence suggests a broader cultural issue, rather than something promoted by universities or necessarily confined to the left-wing. We hear about liberal professors who secretly fear students, and at Carnegie Mellon, a few professors have confirmed similar feelings to me. First-year students seem to come pre-equipped with varying degrees of intellectual intolerance. Professors with whom I have spoken have experienced attempts at cancellation from the right and the left. One highly experienced professor fears cancellation, but mainly from the right, and mainly because of the threat to record and replay class lectures on a right-wing news outlet.

The existence of social censorship is not reason to defund or “deradicalize” universities. Rather, it is cause to strengthen higher education — especially the humanities — and equip students with skills to evaluate arguments. That includes considering radical viewpoints that challenge students’ understanding. Much journalism suggests the majority of students are willing to discuss even highly contentious subjects in a classroom setting. Professors fear censorship from external entities, like donors and media, more so than naive and innocent students. These external influences constitute the top threat to intellectual freedom.

Zakaria’s gravest mistake was the reaffirmation of the conservative narrative that the university presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn endorsed antisemitism in their Congressional testimony and should be deposed. Zakaria is referring to a five-hour hearing where lawmakers grilled the presidents on campus antisemitism and calls for “intifada” at pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Amidst the McCarthyite crusade, which targeted events like Penn’s Palestine Writes Literature Festival, representative Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) attempted to extract condemnation of the calls for “intifada” by characterizing them as outright statements for genocide against Jews, then asking the university presidents whether calling for genocidal violence breached the bullying and harassment section of university codes of conduct. The university presidents ought to have clearly condemned genocide and risked the questions thereafter regarding pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Instead, they resorted to answering literally, a fatal mistake.

It was a well-laid trap that resulted in viral clips circulating the internet. The videos show the presidents responding that, depending on the context, “calls for genocide against the Jews” may constitute bullying and harassment. That context is found in the rest of the Congressional hearing and refers to the notion of “intifada,” an Arabic term meaning an uprising. Zakaria does not mention this or seem concerned with Congressional efforts to shut down pro-Palestinian dissent. Nevermind Stefanik’s own history of supporting antisemitic conspiracy theories, either.

Republicans used the Congressional hearing as an opportunity to denounce the usual suspects: gender studies, critical race theory, pronouns. “Intellectual diversity” was again weaponized as an opportunity to promote right-wing beliefs. Representative Tracy Manning asked the presidents about specifically hiring professors who agreed with Zionism. That in itself is a statement to install certain beliefs, not to change the ways in which debate happens on campus or faculty are hired. It also betrays grave misconceptions about the nature of academia.

Professors do not exist to “represent” public views. They do not advocate opinions by virtue of existence. They do not serve customers and they do not meet with students’ parents. A professor’s task is to challenge and subvert mainstream orthodoxy, including by analyzing the structures undergirding social control. Real diversity, in this case, would be to consider the well-reasoned arguments of professors of Israeli and Palestinian academic backgrounds.

Ultimately, the well-crafted Stefanik narrative won out, and it caused half of Democrats to support a bill calling for the presidents’ removal. The politics did not stop there. Republicans are demanding to defund the Civil Rights Office of the Department of Education. Meanwhile, the Republican presidential candidates emphasized their commitments to counter the liberal universities, with Nikki Haley advocating new rules about “pro-Hamas” protests. The New York Times says that, although Republicans toned down such rhetoric over the summer, the Congressional hearing has revived it. Somewhere in Florida, the New College administrator with the crossed-swords emoji in his username is surely proud.

Thus we arrive at the latest effort to suppress academia. The target could not be more precise. Quashing academia is the true silencing that Republican politicians and their media allies yearn for, so that no student or scholar can pierce the fog of political power.

The commentary from Zakaria and others is an abrogation of true diversity, and it masks a political agenda to install certain beliefs. The notion that universities seek a “political agenda” is a concoction of conservative discourse unsupported by academic policies, faculty demographic data, or student experience.
But the political world changes rapidly, and seizures of the narrative combined with quick political maneuvers have pulled America precipitously close to threatening the tenets of academic freedom. The first to fall will be DEI departments, a process underway in several states. The pretense of budget cuts will continue to undermine the departments most threatening to politicians’ power, which has been happening nationwide since around 2010. The actual stable enrollment in humanities classes is irrelevant. A well-rounded education teaches students the truth about this world: that it does not operate on facts, but narrative.