If you believe the argument that universities deserve defunding because of political activity, then you have to believe that churches deserve the same treatment. Religion is highly subsidized and has become more politically active than universities in many cases. Conservative churches form a more active and vocal "resistance" whenever there is a Democratic government.
The LDS Church has one of the largest endowments in the world, which they use to further their political opinions. I will believe it was the fault of the universities when LDS suffers a similar punishment.
"Perhaps McArdle is correct and we are reaping the whirlwind."
She isn't. As you know, she has always had a tendency to troll "the libs" by erecting ludicrous strawwomen, and every time she employs this tactic it is to punch those already being abused. Every. Time.
Universities were under attack from the right long before Trump -- like, going back to Galileo at minimum -- and nothing they could have done would have saved them from being attacked by Trump.
Why? Because universities are committed to the pursuit of the truth and free expression, while Trump (and reactionary conservatism more generally) is committed to the suppression of the truth and free expression.
Universities didn't pick a fight with Trump any more than Zelensky invaded Russia.
But what would someone who has not spent a single second in any public educational setting know about things like the educational mission of higher ed? For her, all it is is a grotesque status game because that's how the children of elites always see society.
Only a deeply ahistorical reading (McArdle's speciality) could conclude that Trump and his ilk could somehow have been "placated" into not doing their worst to dismantle higher ed. As you note, education was a right-wing target long before Trump arrived on the scene (Governor Reagan's attacks on California public education come to mind). It's incredibly predictable that McArdle would portray history as beginning where and when she likes so she can describe right-wingers as simply reacting to left-wing overreach.
I think this is the strongest counter to the “they had it coming” line. I mean, isn’t Academia *always* a target of this kind of regime? Do they always “have it coming”, time and time again?
McMegan has made a career out of "look what you made me do!"-style defenses of powerful abusers. And when her career is over no one will remember anything else about it other than that. She certainly doesn't have original ideas that generate widespread discussion, maybe because she's not very well educated w/r/t the subjects she generalizes about so she makes very rudimentary errors regularly. If she hadn't been just about the only literate woman willing to call herself a "libertarian" in public over the past 25 years then she probably would've lost her audience in 2002.
Comparing universities to naughty children throwing rocks off an overpass is unbelievably contemptuous. Arguing that cutting off research funding in epidemiology is a reasonable response to universities saying they disapprove of racism shows that McArdle thinks that making funding decisions ruled by personal spite is a perfectly acceptable way to run a country. I will add McArdle’s column to my steadily lengthening list of reasons the rest of the world is asking what on earth is wrong with the US.
Megan’s only valid point is that universities misread where the political economy of the US was heading. Like the other comments share, other sectors, including religious and cultural institutions flex their political muscles.
It’s just that the environment is no longer tolerant of left and neutral institutions.
She tends to work backwards from, “the people i disagree with had it coming”, and I never really see her writing have much discipline against her ideological compatriots. Too bad. She has a strong point. Maybe she should warn her side, there is no flexibility beyond what Trump / Musk see is in their interest, and they could be next.
McArdle is a Koch bros. mouthpiece. She's not going to say something about about the right wing without finding some way to "both sides" the argument and blame the left.
I've been reading her on and off for years, and she is totally predictable. Her entire schtick is to be a "small L" libertarian who makes right wing ideas palatable for the masses. Tyler Cowen, as much as I love him, fills the exact same role.
I'd be curious to see more engagement with McArdle's point about the strategic mistakes that political scientists ostensibly should have anticipated.
When you set up "science" as a partisan issue (e.g. see the studies showing how the March on Science and the political endorsements from various scientific journals reduced trust in science) and basically laugh off the massive disparity in political beliefs on campus, you're going to have a bad time when the other side takes control.
There's plenty of blame to apportion to Republicans on this and cutting so much good research is short-sighted and foolhardy, but I'd be interested in a more careful consideration of the strategic decisions that academia could have taken over the past decade or so to lessen the polarization here.
Crucial here is the fact that all higher ed as an industry has done is to defend its core values and its value to the country as a whole. That much of what higher ed does as the locus for scholarship & scientific research is anathema to Trump & his followers says more about them than about higher ed. US higher ed is the envy of the world. Undermining it is not the way to make America great or keep American first.
Ms McArdle seems to ignore the point the government is the sponsor or research, in many areas. Not economically viable to the private sector until it is, and then they run with it. So research unfunded means it will not be done, there really isn't another funding source. Perhaps another country here or at home can provide funding? What would that all come to?
1. I have to get off my smarter-than-me phone and read the whole column.
2. The logical implications is everyone should STFU? Burn that straw!
The logical implications is that universities should grasp that they are in a game, and play it. Eg, defense companies locate plants everywhere so they always have friends on both sides of the aisle. Why can't universities speak up freely about the rare issues where they can find common ground with conservatives? (I Ioathe Trump so yes, I know this is a Big Ask.)
3. No mention of Gaza? University presidents are under fire from all sides on that. They might score Con Points by emphasizing support for Jewish students. Tricky!
As someone who graduated with a humanities degree in the late 70s, then bumbled into a Master’s program in the early 90s, then sent a kid off to college two decades after that, I have to say that McCardle’s critique of academe cohered with my experience. I was quite surprised, upon returning to the academy, that “gender-race-class” as the universal explainer of all ills was just as entrenched as it had been in the late 70s. And then, when my kid came back in 2015 with all her complaints about micro-aggressions and the alleged assaults on something called “gender fluidity”, I began to think the academy was not some vibrant locus of enquiry, but had become a stale quasi-religion.
Even at my peripheral remove from academe, I have heard over the years from several white male academic friends (and family) the whispered jokes along the lines of what one Brit friend said, “The only way you’ll get that post is to first cut your tackle off”. It always amazed me, in the 90s and Naughties how cheerfully and unresentfully such remarks were often made, by guys who wanted to be part of liberal changes. But often thought that such unfairness could not last forever, and that in the meantime someone must be feeling resentful.
Flash forward to this year: listening to Preet Bharbara’s interview with Niall Ferguson and Ross Douthat’s interview with Marc Andreessen, you could hear a ton of, um, “butt hurt” in the interviewees’ voices, about how they and their colleagues had been treated. Perhaps those two are just whining, perhaps not. But I find such moments illuminating when I think of the uncontrolled fury that the dreadful Trump and his tech titans have unleashed on liberal institutions. And the behavior by supposedly neutral scientists hasn’t helped either. Every time a Neal de Grasse Tyson denies human sexual dimorphism as a thing, a MAGA devil gets its tail. I suspect McCardle (whose work I’ve admired ever since the old Bloggingheads days) is on to something.
The contrarian argument is that the federal money has allowed the universities to sell themselves only on the basis of proximity to power which would not be so bad if they were consistent in standing by the norms of the postwar order that Trump is gleefully smashing. If educators knew that no federal money was coming there might be more experiments like the farm at Black Mountain College about which I attended a wonderful presentation at City Lights in San Francisco by zoom
Sorry Dan, I've followed you around your various locations for years, but in my circle, McArdle is considered a hack who got where she is through daddy's connections,--certainly not merit. She may be a good friend, but she's a sloppy and lazy thinker.
"Schadenfreude spigot" :)
Has Magen McArdle even seen a bad thing done by the right and not found some way to blame the left for it?
If you believe the argument that universities deserve defunding because of political activity, then you have to believe that churches deserve the same treatment. Religion is highly subsidized and has become more politically active than universities in many cases. Conservative churches form a more active and vocal "resistance" whenever there is a Democratic government.
The LDS Church has one of the largest endowments in the world, which they use to further their political opinions. I will believe it was the fault of the universities when LDS suffers a similar punishment.
"Perhaps McArdle is correct and we are reaping the whirlwind."
She isn't. As you know, she has always had a tendency to troll "the libs" by erecting ludicrous strawwomen, and every time she employs this tactic it is to punch those already being abused. Every. Time.
Universities were under attack from the right long before Trump -- like, going back to Galileo at minimum -- and nothing they could have done would have saved them from being attacked by Trump.
Why? Because universities are committed to the pursuit of the truth and free expression, while Trump (and reactionary conservatism more generally) is committed to the suppression of the truth and free expression.
Universities didn't pick a fight with Trump any more than Zelensky invaded Russia.
But what would someone who has not spent a single second in any public educational setting know about things like the educational mission of higher ed? For her, all it is is a grotesque status game because that's how the children of elites always see society.
Only a deeply ahistorical reading (McArdle's speciality) could conclude that Trump and his ilk could somehow have been "placated" into not doing their worst to dismantle higher ed. As you note, education was a right-wing target long before Trump arrived on the scene (Governor Reagan's attacks on California public education come to mind). It's incredibly predictable that McArdle would portray history as beginning where and when she likes so she can describe right-wingers as simply reacting to left-wing overreach.
I think this is the strongest counter to the “they had it coming” line. I mean, isn’t Academia *always* a target of this kind of regime? Do they always “have it coming”, time and time again?
McMegan has made a career out of "look what you made me do!"-style defenses of powerful abusers. And when her career is over no one will remember anything else about it other than that. She certainly doesn't have original ideas that generate widespread discussion, maybe because she's not very well educated w/r/t the subjects she generalizes about so she makes very rudimentary errors regularly. If she hadn't been just about the only literate woman willing to call herself a "libertarian" in public over the past 25 years then she probably would've lost her audience in 2002.
Comparing universities to naughty children throwing rocks off an overpass is unbelievably contemptuous. Arguing that cutting off research funding in epidemiology is a reasonable response to universities saying they disapprove of racism shows that McArdle thinks that making funding decisions ruled by personal spite is a perfectly acceptable way to run a country. I will add McArdle’s column to my steadily lengthening list of reasons the rest of the world is asking what on earth is wrong with the US.
It's pretty rich that all these Ivy League grads like JD Vance now want to burn down academia.
Megan’s only valid point is that universities misread where the political economy of the US was heading. Like the other comments share, other sectors, including religious and cultural institutions flex their political muscles.
It’s just that the environment is no longer tolerant of left and neutral institutions.
She tends to work backwards from, “the people i disagree with had it coming”, and I never really see her writing have much discipline against her ideological compatriots. Too bad. She has a strong point. Maybe she should warn her side, there is no flexibility beyond what Trump / Musk see is in their interest, and they could be next.
McArdle is a Koch bros. mouthpiece. She's not going to say something about about the right wing without finding some way to "both sides" the argument and blame the left.
I've been reading her on and off for years, and she is totally predictable. Her entire schtick is to be a "small L" libertarian who makes right wing ideas palatable for the masses. Tyler Cowen, as much as I love him, fills the exact same role.
If only NOAA had forecasted more friendly weather these past five years....
Timothy Snyder predicted last year that a second Trump term would leave the U.S. "impoverished and bumbling" and that bet is looking very strong.
I'd be curious to see more engagement with McArdle's point about the strategic mistakes that political scientists ostensibly should have anticipated.
When you set up "science" as a partisan issue (e.g. see the studies showing how the March on Science and the political endorsements from various scientific journals reduced trust in science) and basically laugh off the massive disparity in political beliefs on campus, you're going to have a bad time when the other side takes control.
There's plenty of blame to apportion to Republicans on this and cutting so much good research is short-sighted and foolhardy, but I'd be interested in a more careful consideration of the strategic decisions that academia could have taken over the past decade or so to lessen the polarization here.
Also, apropos of your recent "it's hard to be a college president" series, I'm curious what you make of this survey showing most college presidents are happy and want to get rid of tenure: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2025/02/26/what-college-presidents-are-thinking-about-2025
Crucial here is the fact that all higher ed as an industry has done is to defend its core values and its value to the country as a whole. That much of what higher ed does as the locus for scholarship & scientific research is anathema to Trump & his followers says more about them than about higher ed. US higher ed is the envy of the world. Undermining it is not the way to make America great or keep American first.
Ms McArdle seems to ignore the point the government is the sponsor or research, in many areas. Not economically viable to the private sector until it is, and then they run with it. So research unfunded means it will not be done, there really isn't another funding source. Perhaps another country here or at home can provide funding? What would that all come to?
Three thoughts:
1. I have to get off my smarter-than-me phone and read the whole column.
2. The logical implications is everyone should STFU? Burn that straw!
The logical implications is that universities should grasp that they are in a game, and play it. Eg, defense companies locate plants everywhere so they always have friends on both sides of the aisle. Why can't universities speak up freely about the rare issues where they can find common ground with conservatives? (I Ioathe Trump so yes, I know this is a Big Ask.)
3. No mention of Gaza? University presidents are under fire from all sides on that. They might score Con Points by emphasizing support for Jewish students. Tricky!
As someone who graduated with a humanities degree in the late 70s, then bumbled into a Master’s program in the early 90s, then sent a kid off to college two decades after that, I have to say that McCardle’s critique of academe cohered with my experience. I was quite surprised, upon returning to the academy, that “gender-race-class” as the universal explainer of all ills was just as entrenched as it had been in the late 70s. And then, when my kid came back in 2015 with all her complaints about micro-aggressions and the alleged assaults on something called “gender fluidity”, I began to think the academy was not some vibrant locus of enquiry, but had become a stale quasi-religion.
Even at my peripheral remove from academe, I have heard over the years from several white male academic friends (and family) the whispered jokes along the lines of what one Brit friend said, “The only way you’ll get that post is to first cut your tackle off”. It always amazed me, in the 90s and Naughties how cheerfully and unresentfully such remarks were often made, by guys who wanted to be part of liberal changes. But often thought that such unfairness could not last forever, and that in the meantime someone must be feeling resentful.
Flash forward to this year: listening to Preet Bharbara’s interview with Niall Ferguson and Ross Douthat’s interview with Marc Andreessen, you could hear a ton of, um, “butt hurt” in the interviewees’ voices, about how they and their colleagues had been treated. Perhaps those two are just whining, perhaps not. But I find such moments illuminating when I think of the uncontrolled fury that the dreadful Trump and his tech titans have unleashed on liberal institutions. And the behavior by supposedly neutral scientists hasn’t helped either. Every time a Neal de Grasse Tyson denies human sexual dimorphism as a thing, a MAGA devil gets its tail. I suspect McCardle (whose work I’ve admired ever since the old Bloggingheads days) is on to something.
The contrarian argument is that the federal money has allowed the universities to sell themselves only on the basis of proximity to power which would not be so bad if they were consistent in standing by the norms of the postwar order that Trump is gleefully smashing. If educators knew that no federal money was coming there might be more experiments like the farm at Black Mountain College about which I attended a wonderful presentation at City Lights in San Francisco by zoom
https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Black-Mountain-College/dp/1954957114
Sorry Dan, I've followed you around your various locations for years, but in my circle, McArdle is considered a hack who got where she is through daddy's connections,--certainly not merit. She may be a good friend, but she's a sloppy and lazy thinker.