Let's Reset Universities’ Moral Compass by Withholding Philanthropy

Not that long ago, the mission of higher education was to educate by teaching students critical reasoning, the skills of open discourse, and a broad context of information to help them understand the world, our country’s values, and the economic and political environment in which we live. So much of that has seemingly been lost to the worship of opinions, biases, and political correctness. To reverse this trend, universities’ financial supporters must rethink their philanthropy.

It is nearly impossible to impart reasoning and discourse skills when students are sheltered from ideas they dislike and uncomfortable feelings. Yet that is exactly what most colleges do now. What is a “safe space” other than a protective shell against challenges to one’s worldview? What are “trigger warnings” other than permission to exclude what is disturbing? What are “speech codes” other than empowerment to use coercion to suppress ideas the establishment doesn't like? Getting by on campus for many students has become like mimicking the three monkeys’ “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” And yet universities are supporting, rather than discouraging, the suppression of individuality and non-conforming thought and behavior.

The implications of this excessive intellectual sheltering are pervasive throughout academia. Disappearing are broad-based core academic requirements that include the study of great literature, an apolitical view of history, and what was quaintly called “civics” in the past. There are likely many classes available that force students to reason and think for themselves, but few, if any, appear in the mandatory academic program. What is so wrong with students experiencing discomfort or challenging their worldviews to broaden their perspectives? Shouldn’t they be exposed to Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman as well as John Maynard Keynes? 

Professors understand incentives and disincentives. They see the mandated sheltering as a license to depart from their job of provoking constructive discourse and disagreement and instead to engage in indoctrination that comports with their own personal views. They often become “ideology magnets,” attracting mainly students who enjoy reveling in the confirmation bias of a safe echo chamber. This phenomenon is yet another way that universities shirk their mission.

Then there are the corrosive effects of DEI – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. These often improbably huge campus bureaucracies are the engine of sheltering and groupthink. DEI offers “protection” in the form of tribalization – the perfect growth medium for prejudice and alienation – and a hair trigger for any perceived slight, insult, or anything deemed exclusionary. But the protection is illusory.

At our alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the DEI staff were quick to take sides with Hamas supporters because they are deemed the oppressed, while Jews, despite their tiny minority presence, are the oppressors. “Inclusion” is selective but not protective on most campuses. Any doubters should listen to an MIT doctoral student describing how DEI abandoned them after Oct. 7, forcing them to skulk through back entrances, and to the shameful testimony of the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania on Dec. 5, when they failed to condemn the violent actions of protesters advocating genocide against Israelis and Jews.

There could hardly be a polarizing concept more powerful and destructive than the false binary characterization of oppressor and oppressed now embraced by DEI theology. A grotesque example occurred in October at Stanford University, where, in a required freshman course, a lecturer asked all the Jewish and Israeli students in the class to raise their hands and then, based on their identities and ethnic backgrounds, physically separated them from their classmates into “colonizers” and “colonized.”

A significant failing of DEI is that it champions Marxism – equal outcomes – relabeled as equity, at the expense of competition and the building of self-esteem through achievement. Excellence is no longer the goal, and high achievers are redefined as oppressors in the DEI worldview. DEI orthodoxy even equates ambition with the reviled “whiteness” and “white supremacy.”

Perhaps the most pernicious long-term effect of DEI is how university administrations now feel obligated to take political stances and speak on behalf of their student bodies. That is not their job, and as a result, they magnify polarization on campus, create competing “sides,” and open the door to inappropriate behavior at an educational institution. One need only look at the recent turmoil over Israel, the Palestinians, Hamas, and Jews to see how the flames of ideology are stoked by the intellectual cocoons offered to students in academia today. Where is the realization that inhumanity in the form of brutal rape, murder, beheading, and kidnapping is never justified by political grievance? That should have been an inherent part of education, as should the concept of tolerance for opposing views.

Harvard University last week once again championed the causes of irresponsibility and the absence of consequences for criminality when the Harvard College Administrative Board reversed its decision to suspend five students for committing various crimes during the pro-Palestine encampment earlier this year. The College informed students on July 9th of their updated disciplinary charges, which saw the suspensions downgraded to probations of varying lengths.  

Lastly, in their pursuit of these misguided principles, universities have grossly overexpanded their numbers of administrators and bureaucrats, driving up the cost of attendance. DEI bureaucracies are a key driver of cost bloat. Schools have thus burdened a generation or more of students with excessive debt while at the same time allowing them to escape what was once referred to as a “liberal education” suited to preparing students for diverse careers. Majors such as gender studies or ethnic studies – and their various counterparts and derivatives – tend to be biased recitations of history and have little to do with open minds, open discourse, and critical thinking. In practice, they are an invitation to bias. Moreover, these courses require spending that drives up the cost of all degrees yet produce graduates with limited earning potential to repay their loans.

It will require a major sea change for universities to recapture their integrity and reset their moral compass. They need to create real protections – of opposing viewpoints without rancor, intimidation, or closedmindedness. They need to allow students to resolve their own issues within relatively wide boundaries, but without intimidation or fear of physical harm. And they need to slash administrative costs, most importantly DEI, and recruit professors who value open discourse and learning through constructive debate.

How can we achieve that? There is no more potent motivation than donors ceasing philanthropy to the universities until these changes are implemented. We hope many others will join us in adopting that strategy.

A shorter version of this article appeared in the Washington Examiner.

Andrew I. Fillat spent his career in technology venture capital and information technology companies. He is also the co-inventor of relational databases. Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is the Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health. They were undergraduates together at M.I.T.