The Implosion of the Universities

Widespread student protests against Israel’s Gaza war have again put the quality and character of higher education in the spotlight. The issue is not the basic moral concern over civilian deaths or the pangs of conscience that accompany feelings of complicity. Protest, activism, and a sense of social justice are not in themselves markers of a crisis of higher education any more than apathy, passivity, and indifference are of its success. It’s what the protestors do and say that raises eyebrows, particularly in the case of Ivy League universities that once — but when? — stood for intellectual excellence, the aristocratic principle in a democratic society.