HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Universities’ Universal Irrelevance:

Unremarked in the recent demonstrations at Princeton University demanding the removal of Woodrow Wilson’s name from the university’s school of public affairs is the fact that universities once played a major role in American national politics. No better example would be Wilson himself who rose from the leadership of Princeton to the governorship of New Jersey and then to the White House.

Nowadays, if universities play any role at all, it is as a foil for candidates deriding the excesses of political correctness or as objects of public indignation for the outlandish misbehavior of their athletes. In terms of political stature, the university today is not just a nullity; it is an absolute liability. . . .

Contempt for the muzzling of unpopular opinions has reached portions of the public that have had little contact with institutions of higher education. Too many campuses have become the domain of euphemism and inoffensiveness rather than vigorous debate. Most horrifying of all is when they become places of inquisition and persecution based on the contagion of hysteria, such as occurred at Duke and the University of Virginia when fabricated allegations of sexual abuse produced a purge mentality worthy of the Red Guards in Maoist China. It should be no surprise, then, that it is more profitable for politicians to revile universities than to identify with them other than, perhaps, with their football teams.

The most charitable explanation for the decline of the political potency of universities is that they are part of a more general disrepute for institutions: government, the scientific establishment and journalism to name just a few.

Yes, all our institutions have, to greater or lesser degree, fallen into the hands of idiots.