what is higher ed coming to?

We’ve all heard the recent claims by the likes of Ann Coulter that America’s universities are too liberal and too out-of-touch, that more conservative faculty need to be hired, and that far-out professors with unpopular views, like Ward Churchill, need to be quarantined away from our impressionable children. Well, today’s Washington Post follows the idea as it ripples down to the level of individual Americans struggling to send their children through school. With lots of examples of seemingly pointless courses like, “Pornography and Evolution,” and responses from shocked parents, the article reads like a John Stossel piece. (The article in the Post is even entitled, “Hey, Profs, Come Back to Earth“.)

I was going to get indignant and say something about academic freedom, and how the argument shouldn’t be about whacky out-of-the-mainstream faculty with tenure, or the occasional silly course title, but about the role of government in assuring affordable education for all Americans who aspire to pursue it… but then I got this email from a college student in Illinois and it became clear to me that perhaps there really is something truly wrong with the higher ed in our country. Here’s the note:

Where can I find your biography? I’m quoting you in a class, and I don’t really know your history.

One wonders just what he’s quoting, and how much his parents are paying to make it possible.