DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: God and Man at Yale at 75.
The purpose of Gamay (the publisher’s abbreviation) was clear. “I propose,” Buckley explained in the foreword, “simply, to expose what I regard as an extraordinarily irresponsible educational attitude that, under the label of ‘academic freedom,’ has produced one of the most extraordinary incongruities of our time: the institution that derives its moral and financial support from Christian individualists and then addresses itself to the task of persuading the sons of those supporters to be atheistic socialists.” Yale, widely believed a fortress of conservatism, had lost its sense of mission as a private university, and its alumni, a large and loyal group of donors (customers), Buckley suggested, might play a more proactive role in shaping educational policy through its elected representatives (trustees).
Buckley anticipated the ensuing uproar. Every major periodical devoted space not to careful consideration of the book’s propositions but mostly to distorting and misrepresenting them, while leveling ad hominem attacks on Buckley. The gist of the outrage exhibited by leading voices in the public and private sectors was that Buckley was a draconian menace ruling with an authoritarian fist to shape the university, where Woodbridge Hall would resemble the Kremlin and trustees the Politburo issuing ukases in between five-year plans. As well, Buckley was compelled to question the sanity of a Yale trustee who declared, “the book is one of which has the glow and appeal of a fiery cross on a hillside night. There will undoubtedly be robed figures who gather to it, but the hoods will not be academic. They will cover the face.” Such is what Gamay drove otherwise nice and intelligent people to say.
Plus ça change:
Every 6 months or so all of academia takes a break from their important scholarship in order to remind us that each and every single hillbilly luddite stereotype about higher education being a cocoon of berserk shrieking Stalinist savages is 100% correct.
— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) August 20, 2026