June 24, 2013

"Is it possible to accept lucrative subsidies from dictatorships, operate campuses on their territory and still preserve the values that make American universities great, including academic freedom?"

"The schools all say yes, pointing to pieces of paper — some of them undisclosed — that they have signed with their host governments. The real answer is: of course not."

43 comments:

Achilles said...

The fallacy here is that modern universities actually like the freedoms Americans enjoy. They do not. Most public universities are run by people who yearn for Chinese Totalinarian States. They live to indoctrinate students and intimidate dissenters.

They feel right at home in China. I think we should subsidize an effort to put them all on a boat and ship them there.

jimbino said...

The real question is:

Can a person justify working for a public university, considering their rampant racism, sexism, suppression of free speech, drug screening and exclusion of conservative and libertarian professors?

The obvious answer is: of course not.

Brent said...

Depends. A lot of variables on this one.

edutcher said...

Call it the CNN doctrine.

Anonymous said...

"academic freedom"? A mythical being, aka the tooth fairy.

bagoh20 said...

So the higher values become clear: prestige of being international, diverse, worldly, tolerant, and of course, leftist. They all clearly overpower any desire from the prestige of freedom, openness, knowledge, honesty and human rights.

Such puffed up posers.

Achilles said...

edutcher said...
Call it the CNN doctrine.

6/24/13, 12:21 PM

Nice.

Today is one of those good days where it seems like justice may actually win a fight or two over tyranny. At least until our government goes bankrupt next year.

Achilles said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

NYU has become a disgraceful scam perpetrated on gullible parents. Their behavior reflects the worst excesses of Wall Street firms.

Achilles said...

AReasonableMan said...
NYU has become a disgraceful scam perpetrated on gullible parents. Their behavior reflects the worst excesses of Wall Street firms.

6/24/13, 12:38 PM

Was this satire?

Jquip said...

No, it is not possible for American universities to accept subsidies from the American government and retain their greatness.

cf. The current discussion about Affirmative Action.

Nomennovum said...

I fail to see how American universities are being run in any significant way differently in unfree countries from the way they are being run in the US as far as academic freedom is concerned. PC is PC is PC. Just because China's version might wear the face of the regime in Beijing doesn't make it any more authoritarian than the versions found in Manhattan or New Haven.

The US has lost the moral high ground.

Nonapod said...

I wonder if all this will ultimately hurt their enrollment and endowments, their bottom line. That's probably the only way they'd change their behavior. Given that the decision makers are obviously pretty much morally bankrupt I don't think public shaming is enough.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Achilles said...
Was this satire?


No. You now need to argue that NYU isn't a scam.

madAsHell said...

Why am I starting to view diplomas as tulip bulbs??

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Achilles, here's some background.

Nomennovum said...

Don't forget, academics largely think like Thomas Friedman and are about as avaricious.

roesch/voltaire said...

Yes we here at UW-Madison are jailing libertarians and conservatives, torturing them and using their spare parts for medical research-- get real folks there is an difference between human right abuses in China, and so-called PC think of both the right and the left. Now when it comes to money, and money from China, it seems to appeal to all stripes who hold their hand out for factories in China, whether to produce autos, or students.

Achilles said...

AReasonableMan said...
Achilles said...
Was this satire?

No. You now need to argue that NYU isn't a scam.

6/24/13, 12:52 PM

The entire university system, and public education system as well, are a scam. They are institutions that are peopled with subversive leftists and are funded with involuntary contributions of an electorate that the universities scorn. They undermine the freedoms that are the foundations of our society with our tax dollars.

To the extent that Wall Street is a part of this is big business teaming up with big government to undermine the average citizen and our freedoms. But blaming the failure of universities on Wall Street is stupid. The fault lies at the feet of progressive ideology that believes in crony capitalism and university indoctrination.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Achilles said...
But blaming the failure of universities on Wall Street is stupid.


I didn't blame Wall Street. I said that they had copied the predatory excesses of Wall Street. NYU is responsible for its own behavior.

NYU is a uniquely awful example of the commercialization of higher education. My sympathies lie with the middle class parents who scrimped and saved to send their kids there thinking they were doing the right thing by their kids.

Achilles said...

AReasonableMan said...
Achilles, here's some background.

6/24/13, 12:57 PM

I agree. To the extent that corporations get bailouts and subsidies from government through lobbying you are right there is a similarity to the university system that is supported by our involuntary contributions.

Here is the difference:

People who run private companies and get large compensation for it have to perform.

University professors/administrators do not.

But as long as a private entity in the free market has to survive on voluntary transactions there is always an incentive to provide value. It is when they team up with big government to suck the life out of taxpayers I have a problem.

Achilles said...

Adding to the above when large corporations like GE get massive subsidies from democrats and other big government patrons in exchange for lobbying dollars that is garbage.

Nonapod said...

the commercialization of higher education

Imagine if there really was a full commercialization of higher education. Imagine if institutions received no public money at all in any form whether it be from subsidies, grants, or student loans. Imagine if they actually had to live and die on their own merits in a free market. Would crap like this occur?

Mountain Maven said...

We are looking hard for a college for our son, where he will be educated, not entertained and indoctrinated. And will graduate with employable skills. Very difficult.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Nonapod said...
Imagine if there really was a full commercialization of higher education.


I don't think it would be pretty, as NYU shows pretty clearly.

The big state universities have been the great engine of advancement for middle class families for decades and largely continue in this role. If these institutions were to go bad, things would get pretty bleak for the middle classes.

I understand the frustration with left-leaning Arts and Law departments, but hard science, computer science, engineering departments etc. are by and large not ideologically driven departments and they are the foundation of any decent university.

DADvocate said...

We have problems with academic freedom in this country. All universities really care about is money and the left wing agenda.

Renee said...

NYU is division III in their sports program as well.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

How many of these universities really offer a useful education? Aren't they just selling a brand and insisting on 4 full years of tuition (plus overpriced room and board) regardless of achievement?

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Dictators are people too.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

They get spied on by the NSA too you know.

Obama said he was going to help them out, and once he got in, what happened. One of them died of Cancer and Obama didn't even visit.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

He didn't even send Biden to the funeral.

I'm Full of Soup said...

NYU and its ilk hire criminals like Kathy Boudin or Bill Ayers, indocrinate their students to hate the for-profit sector, give big loans to the school execs yet demonize the for-profit sector.

Carnifex said...

It's kinda an easy topic prof. Another day, another example of leftist universities being at heart totalitarian. Hoo hum... Not feeling up to snuff today.

rhhardin said...

Lefties took over universities long ago.

ricpic said...

Each university should have its own casino in order to further plunder its students and free it from dependence on the revenue stream from government.

Rosalyn C. said...

I just read an article about the extra compensation given to NYU administrators. N.Y.U. Gives Its Stars Loans for Summer Homes Kind of embarrassing.

Also, academic freedom has been seriously threatened by political correctness/leftist ideology on American campuses, so the bar for freedom of speech is very low. Maybe that's why no one worries too much about the compromises involved in partnering with repressive governments.

SteveR said...

The NCAA, another fine example.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

And yet academics bitch about physicians taking pens and cups from pharmaceutical companies, claiming that it will influence a doctor's decision in prescribing products.

dmoelling said...

The University foreign student scam is one of the largest in the world. Foreign students in the US pay full list price (usually up front) with the goal of both a degree and potential US immigration. I saw this as a nuclear engineering student back in the 1970's. Our university bid on enrolling a large group of Iranian students (back under our ally the Shah) but lost it to MIT. We got a group of South Koreans instead. (MIT got stuck when all the students were marooned with the Iranian revolution).

Now the University got the profits from these students requiring no scholarships etc. Our department got a fuller group, but tried to keep the foreign student fraction under 50% so the more free thinking American style would not be swamped by the test and score driven foreigners.

The overseas governments had some influence then but that is much, much lower than if you locate a campus in their country. You might as well give up any pretense of independence and also need to accept creation of a less prestigious degree.

Seeing Red said...

Was it here I read the story about Colorado schools? Other states want to use their models, they're teaching all the fun buzzwords like "social justice."

Methadras said...

Hmmm, fellow traveling leftists taking money from a tyrannical leftist government and setting up shop there? No!!! Really? And people have the temerity to call this hypocrisy? Sounds like consistency to me.

Jupiter said...

"I understand the frustration with left-leaning Arts and Law departments, but hard science, computer science, engineering departments etc. are by and large not ideologically driven departments and they are the foundation of any decent university."

The rot is spreading, through biology and "sciences" like psychology and sociology.