By H.A.Guerber (The story of Greeks) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Tobacco. These are real collusions and they have had impact on all of our lives. But Big Academia? Jack Kerwick, one of David Horowitz’s followers at FrontPageMag, certainly seems to think so. He sees it, from the best I can glean from his confused piece, as an enemy within the university. He writes, “The relatively few of us who refuse to succumb to the Groupthink and who are determined to continue calling out the abuses are academic dissidents motivated by a desire to protect liberal learning from those who would destroy it.”
“Liberal learning”? To Kerwick, that seems to be “the civilization—the Western civilization—that is their [students’] inheritance.” That, by the way, is code for white supremacism today, so it is not surprising to see someone from the far right using it.
Kerwick subscribes to the school of thought that only those with a rightwing perspective can be objective. Those of us on the left, in his view, are so besotted by our ideology that nothing we do or say comes out anything but crooked. He thinks, in addition, that everyone from any perspective feels the same about everyone else, writing that “one could be forgiven for suspecting that Barlow would be upset indeed if his employer began hiring Evangelical Christians and Eastern Orthodox Catholics.” Well, there have been Evangelical Christians in my department (whether they still are, I don’t know, for I don’t ask—but they are good colleagues) and I know Eastern Orthodox Catholics I would welcome with open arms. I’m even fine with rightwing conservatives as teachers and scholars—as long as they are honest enough to admit it when shown they are wrong (the same standard I hold for my leftist colleagues). I even teach my students to call me out when I make mistakes—and they do.
But let’s get back to Big Academia.
There are, and have been, plenty of cabals in America. But the faculty in American colleges and universities are not among them. Just look at their variety. From underpaid adjuncts with no guarantee of continued employment at community colleges in remote corners of our poorest communities to tenured professors in endowed chairs in the Ivy League, they are as many and as various as the people in any profession, anywhere. If they serve any single master, it is their students: Almost to a one, they are dedicated to providing education that can lead to productive lives at work, at home, and in the public sphere. Their religious beliefs are as various as they are, many being Christians, others Jewish, Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist or anything else one might imagine. They agree on very little except, likely, that they don’t particularly like to take orders from anyone.
When people like Horowitz attack ‘the professors,’ they are aiming at a small segment of the academic community, one that actually has very little power and exists only on a small number of extremely elite campuses. They choose this group because it never has had much power and has rarely had much inclination to fight back. Most college teachers ignore the attacks because they have no relevance to their lives either as teachers or scholars. Ultimately, there are only two purposes to the attacks: First, to raise money from the hard-right true believers and, second, to cement control of education by those outside the faculty.
With the great majority of faculty not even paying attention, it has been easy for rightwing forces to assert increasing control over American colleges and universities. Our problem as members of the faculty who are not asleep to this threat has been in waking the others. Too often, we have been distracted by the Horowitz types, arguing fruitlessly with them when we should be working to show our colleagues, people who would be shocked and/or amused to know that they are part of something called Big Academia. Instead, we should be shouting loudly to our fellows that the freedoms that have been the basis of creation of the greatest educational system the world has ever seen are under threat. Kerwick’s purpose is to make sure that doesn’t happen, that an actual Big Academia based among the faculty never emerges.
While I don’t expect the broad American faculty to agree on much, I do think most of us can support the concept of academic freedom as put forward by the AAUP in 1915 and 1940 (as opposed to the Orwellian version peddled by Horowitz), the concept of shared governance, and the ideals of American education in general put forward by AAUP founder John Dewey. Beyond these, we have very little in common (though we do tend to be somewhat more liberal than Americans in general). What we activists among the faculty need to be doing now is to concentrate on the protection of these areas of agreeement, our differences put aside so that we can protect something we all believe in. We need to stop people like Kerwick from deflecting us from the needed movement to protect what our spiritual ancestors worked so hard to establish.
If we fail, even that western tradition going back to the ancient Greeks that Kerwick claims to adore will crumble and we will find ourselves living within the top-down structures of totalitarianism, within a real Big Academia. And, like Socrates, we will find ourselves making our final farewell.
Today, I received a fundraising email from David Horowitz pitching this idea of Big Academia oppressing conservatives. Horowitz wrote, “Wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat or attending one of my lectures on a college campus is the modern equivalent of being caught with a spell book and cauldron in 15th century Salem.”
Of course, if anyone had a spell book in 15th century Salem, they would have to be a witch, especially since Salem wasn’t founded until 1626. The key problem with the Salem Witch Hunt was not that it caught any witches with spell books, but that it persecuted people who were not witches in pursuit of “witches” who posed no actual threat.
I can recall attending a David Horowitz lecture at the University of Chicago in the 1990s, and no one has tried to run me off campus. Indeed, the only person banished was a student who stood up and turned her back on Horowitz in silent protest. Horowitz demanded that she be banned from the room for this insult, and the administration quickly did what Horowitz ordered.
Lawrence Lessig from Harvard Law gave a series of “Berlin Family Lectures” at the University of Chicago: “America: Compromised. Studies in Institutional Corruption” (https://berlinfamilylectures.uchicago.edu/2014-lawrence-lessig). He discussed Big Pharma, Big Business, Big Billionaires, Big Oil and others. But not once (and moreover avoided) addressing Big Government. Understanding the nature of big government is central to understanding “Big Academia.” I agree with the writer that the academy proper is, if I understand him correctly, not really the source of such difficulties. The author here, however, seems to leave open, where the “Big” problem in academia is, precisely (and there is one). I would suggest that it is institutional, not academic per se, and largely defined by the modern university’s now inherent link to government, both for funding (including grants; federally securitized student loans; and its tax status) and for regulatory compliance (see my opinion the WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-government-and-free-speech-on-campus-1510000926). Moreover, the university is utterly in conformity to government narrative concerning the new “ideological iron square” that dominates university culture: terror, security, climate and race. In Chicago’s case, that stems from its particular relationship with the DOD/Pentagon and DOE in its management of Fermi Lab and Argonne National, among other relationships (and not alone by any means in that regard of course). The financial conflicts of interest are largely too overwhelming for the academy proper to challenge, and as well, the softer reputational, donor and employment risks and temptations are too severe and seductive to resist–therefore the presence of the “Institute of Politics,” the CPOST, headed by former Bush officials and the CIA (the Chicago Project on Security and Terror); or the Pearson Institute at the Harris School (called by former White House advisor and CFR member Richard Haass “a half-way house to the State Department”). Such a web of interdependencies and financial and governance interlocking, has created what I would term Big Academia. There is really no such thing, moreover, as a private university.
Yes. I didn’t want to get into what Big Academia really is, if it exists at all, for Kerwick’s (and, I assume, Horowitz’s) vision of Big Academia is one centered on the faculty. That’s a bit peculiar, given that the other “Bigs” are endowed with almost limitless funds, something the faculty cannot command. However, the government/education intertwined syndicate (if I may) does qualify as “Big.” So, I take your point and agree.
I agree with so much of this essay, Aaron Barlow, but the 1915 and 1940 AAUP statements made one very huge mistake in their support of a 2-tier faculty, only one of which is offered academic freedom. Grant that essential principle to ALL long-term faculty, and we might be able to save American academia. Our students deserve no less.
Yes, that is one thing we need to be addressing, and right away. My own college, with a full-time faculty of less than 500, also has an adjunct faculty of about 1000.
Oh, and not just all long-term faculty, but all faculty.
I am connecting academic freedom with tenure. The original idea was that all faculty after 7 years would be granted tenure or move on. (That is what I meant by “long-term”). Are you saying that all faculty in their first year or 40th year of teaching should be guaranteed academic freedom? I actually like that idea, but I don’t think we could get widespread support in the academy.
Yes. I think the act of hire should be sufficient to ensure academic freedom. But, you are right, that’s never going to fly.