I first wrote that we should bulldoze the universities some years ago, half in jest. I’ve repeated the suggestion several times since, jesting less and less each time. Okay, maybe not physically bulldoze them, although… why not? Apart from some of the nice old sandstone buildings, we could rid ourselves of a great deal of ugly ‘modern’ architecture squatting on prime locations.
Otherwise, though, the universities have become so corrupted by the Long March through the Institutions that they’re all but irredeemable. It’s almost, if not actually at the point that the only way to save them is to wipe the slate clean and start again.
At the very least, start saving the university concept and a bucketload of scarce taxpayer money by eradicating courses that contribute nothing to Western society. Worse than nothing, in fact: these are courses and academics who are implacably hostile to the West and actively white-anting it from within. Why are we funding our own destruction?
This is not just good for Western society, it’s good for the universities themselves. They’re busily trashing their own value, so the rest of us will have to save them from themselves.
So, there’s one place to start.
Colleges and universities across the country are struggling with budget deficits. Costs are up, enrollment is dropping, government aid is drying up, and public trust is at rock bottom […]
As confidence in higher education collapses, fewer students are attending college.
The natural response of greedy, shortsighted universities and their million-dollar vice-chancellors is to demand more taxpayer money, at the same time as they devalue their brand further, by milking tens of thousands of fee-paying foreign students. There should be no giving in to them any more.
When the budget shortfalls get too large, however, schools must review programs to ask whether programs and courses are in line with the university’s vision of a high-quality education. Today, many of their most ideological programs and departments are not – and they should be scrapped.
Reviews allow universities to trim or eliminate programs entirely – and even suspend tenure protections – to cut budgets or serve missions. In the past, administrators have been reluctant to make value judgments about which programs to reduce, preferring instead to make “neutral” cuts based purely on metrics like low enrollment or high expenses.
This approach risks cutting programmes that may not be popular, but are certainly valuable. Especially in the much-maligned humanities. And rewarding popular but malign nasties.
Economic considerations can hardly be ignored when balancing budgets, but educational vision can and should shape program reviews, too. Cutting programs like queer or women’s studies may save less money than cutting an engineering program, but it would help elevate a different vision of professionalism and respectability on campus […]
Though sociology may, in some cases, have higher enrollments than electrical engineering, the money spent on sociology as it currently exists is less consistent with a university’s educational mission. Heavily ideological, partisan disciplines exert untold costs on universities. They make ideological orientations respectable. They attract ideological faculty, who must be appeased on committees. They devalue serious research.
Another approach would be to look at the ideological balance of academics teaching course. When communications or anthropology academics are self-described 100 per cent left to far-left wing, time to clean house. Another good place to start is Florida’s foundational higher education reform bill, SB 266.
That law targets “programs . . . based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”
Simply swap out ‘United States’ with ‘Western civilisation’. Academic freedom? You don’t have or clearly want any now: you want rigid groupthink. Fine, then do it on your own dime: completely eliminate taxpayer funding for institutions that refuse to reform.
At the very least, sack so-called ‘academics’ whose only mission is, clearly, to spread hate.
Labor and Coalition MPs have united to call for tougher workplace laws so universities can sack anti-Semitic staff and researchers, in a bipartisan attempt to break the “toxic” wave of anti-Jewish hate spreading from campuses to the rest of the country.
Amid escalating attacks and threats against Jewish Australians, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has caned some vice-chancellors for failing to punish “brazen misconduct’’, warning that a “toxic environment” in universities is stoking anti-Semitism.
‘Brazen misconduct’, such as bussing toddlers to campus and teaching them to chant anti-Semitic hate slogans and exhortations to violence. Such as screaming abuse and waving money at elderly Jewish ladies, or physically threatening Jewish academics. Such as showing lecture slides with the Nazi swastika superimposed on the Israeli flag.
“What the committee found was a disturbing prevalence of anti-Semitism that has left Jewish students and staff feeling unsafe; hiding their identity on campus and even avoiding campus altogether.
“The committee witnessed brazen incidents of anti-Semitism go without consequence or leadership by some of our university vice-chancellors.’’
There’s another recommendation for you: sack every vice-chancellor. There’s at least $40 million saved, for a start.
Next, start revving up the D9s.
