WELL, LIKE BANKING IN THE 1930S IT’S A FAILING INDUSTRY: Should Trump Declare A “University Holiday”?

Everyone will recall that Franklin Roosevelt’s first act as president in 1933 was to close the nation’s banks to prevent a full-scale panic and a collapse of the banking system. It was called a “bank holiday,” probably because the legal basis was more than a bit shaky: it was based on the “Trading with the Enemy Act” of 1917. Recognizing that this legal basis was ridiculous, FDR prevailed on Congress to pass a statute just five days later to make the move legal retroactively.

I wonder whether President Trump ought to consider closing some of the nation’s universities on the simple ground that they’ve become a public nuisance, are in danger of collapsing entirely, or perhaps are becoming a clear and present danger to public safety. This would hoist the universities by their own “safe space” petard. I can think of any number of legal pretexts that are more plausible than FDR’s bank holiday. At the very least, the Trump Administration ought to suspend student loan eligibility for every student majoring in any of the politicized “studies” programs (women’s and gender studies, etc) on the simple grounds of consumer fraud—this isn’t education, and it is not providing students with any skills for the workplace. Why not? It’s essentially the same legal basis by which the Obama Administration went after for-profit vocational colleges. (Of course, the Obama Administration was motivated to attack for-profit colleges precisely because they weren’t reliable nodes of ideological instruction. . .)

It is getting hard to keep up with the latest epic failures of universities to stand up for the civilized values and serious education for which they supposedly exist. Scott writes below about the case of the total meltdown at Evergreen State College in Washington. I’ll add to Scott’s account the statement of Evergreen’s president, George Bridges, that is beyond parody.

We could use some adult supervision. Perhaps Betsy DeVos and the Education Department will start withholding funding for schools that don’t protect student and faculty rights.