The Great University Reform Debate at Stanford University

Earlier this month, I participated in a friendly debate hosted by Stanford University’s Classical Liberalism Initiative, on the topic of “Academic Freedom and Higher Education Reform.”
I made the case that the modern university has lost its sense of purpose and requires significant institutional reform, even political recapture, to restore the principles of classical liberal education, while my interlocutor, Princeton professor Keith Whittington, argued for a more cautious approach, emphasizing the values of academic freedom, faculty governance, and institutional autonomy.
My belief is that the old right-libertarian solutions, which rely on procedural values, are doomed to fail. In fact, they are responsible, in large part, for the current mess. Rather than continue to pursue this dead end, I believe that we must revive the democratic governance of our public universities and shape them according to the principles and priorities of voters, who elect legislators to govern state institutions in the interest of the common good.
Sign up for my Substack at rufo.substack.com.

[@uppityglivestockian]

Rufo, you are over the target, and you know what needs to be deployed. Bravo. I continue to track your endeavors because they give me hope. Your colleague to the moderator's right sounds a little too stuck in fear of doing the wrong thing, of being daring or of innovation. I heard no suggestions of what to do, just fear of getting it wrong. A pity. Please keep doing what you're doing, you're very good at it, and America needs a lot more of it. Paz.

[@justinboggin9086]

Rufo hits on something I don't see enough. We have a huge bloat of "academic" classes that are basically just ideological activism. Feminist studies, racial studies and so on. Feminist studies has been around for as long as I can remember (I am 40). These "academics" trained up activists that drove the long march, taking over the administration and turning our schools into what they are now. Purging the admin is obviously necessary but not cleaning up these fake disciplines that are effectively insertion points of activists into power will just get us back at this point again in the future with a different set of buzzwords.

[@foxtrotjulietbravo5536]

Brilliant point Justin! Why didn't I think of that?

[@bensanderson7144]

@@foxtrotjulietbravo5536cos you’re not smart?

[@foxtrotjulietbravo5536]

@@bensanderson7144 - Are you familiar with tongue-in-cheek humor?

[@600micsofacid]

Hit the nail on the head, but sadly these "studies" classes are so ingrained now. It's really a cultural mess. A straight up mind virus has infected every single university.

[@theeuropeanperspective3391]

Agree. This was the reason why Orbán's government in Hungary stopped funding such courses at Hungarian public universities.

[@johnl5316]

Professor Keith Whittington was in the 1st 11 min unbelievably abstract, as if he feared naming the enemy

[@stargazerh112]

He probably is.

[@chriswright5050]

Christopher Rufo seems to be a great guy, very well informed

[@foxtrotjulietbravo5536]

He is Chris! Next to his wife and mom I'm his number one fan!

[@purplephilosophy4454]

Rufo is so thought-provoking as usual. The one question I have, though, is where is the evidence that America's universities are (or were) the best in the world? I have several friends (in different generations, including som who went to college 30 years ago) educated overseas and they have all been shocked at how much more rigorous and robust their education was than what the have seen or have had their kids experience in America.

[@junsu21]

The evidence is in research output, patents and the fact that the world wants to be educated here for undergrad and grad school

[@TheLaughingMustache-oh5ff]

In other words, Universities are corporate monopolies that the state is funding. Anybody see this as backwards? No wonder nobody wants to rock the boat, the corporate world is again socializing the losses for their gain.@@junsu21

[@davidlee3776]

Free speech must be forced on the universities. That must start with firing the enemies of free speech and free inquiry. That includes people who advocate for punishing people in order to shut down debate. Universities must be places of quiet and orderly debate.

[@gethimrock]

Can you explain why universities must be places for debate? Almost every university in the country was not founded with that goal in mind but rather with a specific mission. Also JS Mill even admits that the purpose of free speech is to uproot social norms perpetually. Why should universities do this?

[@teelurizzo8542]

@@gethimrock Because less than 20 years ago, universities were places for debate. Maybe 'debate and free speech' was not the center of their goals, as in writing in their 'mission statements. but debate and free speech were an integral, distinctive characteristic of academic life, debate is part of any intellectual practice. And Who cares what their 'mission' was when it was founded? The fact of the matter is that you could disagree w/o getting mobbed or cancelled, Meaning words and speech were not 'violence' . You were not labeled a 'bigot', 'racist' or a '____phobe' for disagreeing and or wanting to debate issues.

[@gethimrock]

@@teelurizzo8542 the point is that debate and free speech only became an “integral part of university life” much into the timeline of American higher education. Originally schools were founded and had plenty of speech regulations. This is simply the natural order of things because the idea that there is neutrality is simply a myth. The only reason there was “free speech” (which there never really was) is because the leftists wanted to takeover the institutions so they appealed to the charity of the Christians that ran them

[@foxtrotjulietbravo5536]

There are a few sources still around that illustrate how the free speech movement on campus was launched at UCLA-Berkley with a Soviet operative, Tom Hayden whipping students into a frenzy demanding free speech rights in the early '60s. As Chris Rufo referenced, the Long March Through the Institutions is here, pulling into the station at the very least. One of the engineers of that train was Tom Hayden. To learn more about this see: The Venona Papers, William F. Buckley writings and "The Age of Reagan" vols I and II. I post this because there's a happy place between the early '60s and the early '20s. In today's world, Tom Hayden's student activists are now the senior professorial contingent. Students aren't engaging in education but indoctrination. Some of their writing isn't even grammatically correct! Additionally, the federal Department of Education needs to be abolished. Full stop.

[@junsu21]

So you and Rufo will now do the very thing that you accuse the left of doing. You all are so blind that you can’t even see the irony. Rufo does nothing but blaze a path of destruction. Leaders build things. We will see if he can’t actually build anything that lasts. His knowledge of the academy is so weak that the profs on this panel have to keep calling him out on it. All he could say is “I agree”. Smh

[@TheWhitehiker]

Whittington unhappily is not so witty-- we need more engaging speakers like Chris. Enough negative boredom on our side. 'Keeping your head down' wont work at all!

[@TheWhitehiker]

Thanks Chris.

[@aaronkindsvatter5615]

Completely agree on AAUP. Toothless. Feckless.

[@michaelhiggins2562]

All that is well and good -- but -- when the hell do I get to speak freely within the university -- again -- without getting fired by being "a bad name?"

[@Bee89301]

Thank you Rufo for courage and honesty.If we had more people like you world wouldn't be in such a darkness...

[@carolyna.869]

I was just at New College's graduation ceremony where 100% of the students turned their backs on the speaker and screamed through his entire address. The bigoted hive mind that operates there is a direct result not only of bad parenting but of the influence of New College professors. I hope they ALL move on and out and that the school hires real adults in their place. I look forward to seeing my Alma mater accept independent thinking students from good families who are respectful and competent. The current batch of students are not only intellectually limited but they are emotionally manipulative. There are constant attempts at suicide due to the crappy nature at campus. Good students flee from New College at a rapid clip. Yet the original administrators and faculty have done nothing. Drug overdoses are relatively common and when I attended a huge portion of the female population entered into prostitution work. If ever there was a vollege in need of a massive house cleaning in terms of faculty and an upgrade in character of students and atmosphere, it's New College!! The only possible way to go is up.

[@johnl5316]

1968-69 our freshman (required) Western Civilization was wonderful

[@gethimrock]

Which goes to show free speech is actually not what matters but teaching good things

[@foxtrotjulietbravo5536]

@@gethimrock - My point precisely (and which I probably missed by a mile) in my response to David Lee above.

[@junsu21]

So what about making it mandatory to learn about Eastern civilization, middle eastern civilization or African civilization…why only privilege Western civ, and of course, just a very specific spin on that western civ ?

[@johnl5316]

@@junsu21 because we are part of Western Civilization.

[@junsu21]

@@johnl5316 the last I checked the United States is a multiracial democracy. The Supreme Court just gutted affirmative action over its impacts on what race? Oh…give me a second…let me think…oh it wasn’t over European descendants…it was over Asians!! Oh yeah, and then there’s that pesky 13% of our population

[@pugnacious8543]

Christopher Rufo is one the most important conservative voices we have today. He has the ability to distill the salient issues into a clear, easily understood analysis.

[@gethimrock]

The answer here is not more free speech but The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman

[@foxtrotjulietbravo5536]

Exactly! In responding to David Lee above I should have mentioned that.

[@robbehr8806]

Academic freedom is a very abused privilege of academia. More and more, we are seeing America has an academia problem. The biggest enabler of academic abuse is academic freedom, which reduces academic accountability. If academia has taught one lesson to the world, that lesson is the need for accountability. Eliminating academic freedom is an essential step in gaining academic accountability. The First Amendment is enough.

[@michaelhiggins2562]

Accountability? Hell yes!

[@theeuropeanperspective3391]

One problem with the recommendation to have a tighter public/political control of public universities is that in states having a leftist legislature and government this could lead to even more increased leftist control of the universities. Also, whatever reforms Chris institutes at Florida public universities could be undone on the first day a leftist legislature is elected in Florida.

[@TheLaughingMustache-oh5ff]

Those places are already captured...nothing you can do about it. What you hope though is enough conservative liberal arts colleges start pumping out professors as a bulwark against it.

[@dejue]

Rufo has done a tremendous job and has an ambitious mission. Unfortunately, this ship has already sailed. There just isn’t a strong argument “against” the tenets of DEI initiatives because DEI is a world view/ideology. As rufo said, the left fights FOR justice. The right is in defense and is trying to do what was attempted in the 90s with banning record sales and video games etc. it doesn’t work. They aren’t fighting FOR anything specific.

[@TheLaughingMustache-oh5ff]

Sure there is, DEI is already starting to die. The corporate world sees how negative those departments are and are sh*Tcanning them already. If the states in conservative areas start taking more control, they too can delete these departments and get the universities to start focus on their actual missions.

[@michaelhiggins2562]

Too many "forbitten" topics on our university campus'.

[@jclaer]

Our highest purpose should be the preservation of the human species. Our second purpose should be the preservation of civilization. Civilizations require water for their cities. City water requires engineering and diverse sciences. What is science? Science is NOT the most popular view of science practitioners. Science is the process of assuring that all views are discussed all the time. Where might the most popular views come in conflict with our highest purpose? Find examples outside the “Overton Window.” Far outside the Overton window is the question of eugenics. At present, it is politically incorrect to discuss the opposite of eugenics, namely dysgenics. Studies might be able to show that the intrinsic health of the human population is declining, but that’s not easy to measure because medical care is improving. Alarmingly, evidence is coming more clear that population intelligence (IQ) is declining. This is an example of dysgenics. Democracy sometimes achieves management by scientific methods, but it often fails. Properly functioning universities should help democracies succeed. -Jon Claerbout, Cecil Green professor emeritus, 85

[@LaurenceJarvik]

Who was the moderator? He's not identified...

[@michaelhiggins2562]

Get rid of useless degrees. I know someone who majored in Woman's Studies and cannot get a job...

[@carolyna.869]

My mother majored in women's studies and was at director at a Fortune 100 company. Life is what you make it.

[@astronomianova1]

I believe Chris Ruffo is mistaken in his general assessment of universities. In particular about faculty governance (self-governance) and administrators being weak. Administrative bloat has been occurring over the last 30 years and is a major problem. The DEI departments are administrators. Loud and ridiculous faculty are also a problem, but the real problem is administrators who agree with them and have the power to make foolish changes. The administrators are not simply weak minded; too many of them are the problem. If these wacky faculty ideas had no support from the administration, nothing would happen on a university wide scale. Taking away self-governance is an idiotic idea that will ruin universities. You cannot have some overconfident business major making hiring decisions in the atomic and molecular optics division of a physics department. Make policies that incentivize diversity of opinion and enforce the universities core mission of pursuing truth; you can't simply strip faculty of all decisions. Why would experts in any field work there?

[@junsu21]

Bottom line is that Rufo doesn’t really understand how universities work because he’s never had a job at one. He just loves to pontificate and get paid to be the destroyer in chief

[@schmooma1]

You could at least name the people on the panel. Rude

[@davebeha5365]

Can’t hear this well but rufo is a con man of his he easily befuddled so I doubt I missed much

[@schenksteven1]

Rufo is wrong to eschew the libertarian concerns about setting up the rules the right way. He is right that these rules are not ultimately the point. The point (as he says) is building a thriving community that values justice and beauty. But there is significant debate over what constitutes “justice and beauty” and we don’t want rules that shut down that debate. Rufo is fighting against unfair rules by trying to write a set of equally unfair rules.

[@TheLaughingMustache-oh5ff]

wrong, he's fighting against failed rules by setting up new ones that will attempt to succeed.

[@schenksteven1]

@@TheLaughingMustache-oh5ff Succeed at what? It seems to me, that "success" is being defined by Rufo as "removing certain problematic viewpoints from the classroom."

[@TheLaughingMustache-oh5ff]

literally the opposite@@schenksteven1

[@schenksteven1]

@@TheLaughingMustache-oh5ffjust to clarify, you are saying that Rufo is advocating for progressive viewpoints to be taught in the classroom alongside conservative ones?

[@TheLaughingMustache-oh5ff]

yes, he wants open debates and wants intellectual diversity on campus not 20 to 1 leftist to conservative professors or 100 to 1. Most universities have become echo chambers where questioning orthodoxy is seen as bad instead of challenging ideas.@@schenksteven1

[@henpo9]

Classical liberal arts? Sounds vague and potentially even worse than what we have now. I've seen some curriculum's put in place by Desantis team in Florida and often times they have courses that sound rather oriented towards theology. Many classes dedicated to the study of theology in addition to other courses that aren't build solidly upon scientific evidence. It sounds like Rufo and Desantis want to replace the shit with even more shit. We don't need more seminary classes (propaganda) in our schools. Look in the mirror and find a common ground based out of the pursuit for truth.

[@StrategicWealthLLC]

It’s not vague, you’re simply ignorant of the term. Classical education structures learning in 3 stages: knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. If you think about a specific example in terms of a US Government class, it’s KNOWING the US government is based on a constitution, UNDERSTANDING that the US government has 3 branches, and the WISDOM to understand why the House and Senate have different election cycles. To summarize all of the above, classical liberal arts education strikes me as being more focused on ‘the why’ of things…as compared to ‘the what’ and ‘the how’.

[@davidpennmiller354]

That’s an incredibly ignorant comment. Classically liberal education has literally nothing to do with theology and the whole point is that it is based in science and facts.

[@jasonglazer3651]

Science is an excellent tool in those narrow fields susceptible to hypothesis and experiment. Most of life, including the classroom, isn't.

[@languageteachingtruth.6952]

Saying a man is a woman is propaganda, while saying a man is a man and a woman is a woman is the truth.

[@Themangodblessed]

these were terrible rufo takes

[@jburma]

1:40 In case you missed the graphic Chris is debating Princeton University Professor Keith Whittington.

[@michaelhiggins2562]

In North Carolina, the once excellent college system, has gone to hell in a hand-basket.

[@bradbailey1893]

These issues are critical in especially public universities where administrators are politically corrupted and stubbornly unaccountable to democratically elected leaders and taxpayers.

[@justifiably_stupid4998]

Rufo hit the point early. How can you know a school is corrupted if no one can tell it's purpose?

[@bradbailey1893]

@@justifiably_stupid4998 It's easy when administrators are pressing radical political agendas, violating basic legal and civil rights, and exhibiting different actions by group. For example, the recent Stanford Law incident LW students shouted down the visiting judge with the overt support of a DEI administrator (who was placed on leave). And at SF State the female athlete who was invited to speak on Feminist rights was verbally and physically attacked and held hostage (a ransom requested) with no admonishment by university administrators or leaders. If a RW group had done either of these, the students likely would have been suspended or expelled.

[@bradbailey1893]

@@justifiably_stupid4998 Additionally, Rufo's point is a good one for the purposes of setting administrative guidelines and holding the community accountable to a standard.

[@StrategicWealthLLC]

Theses are superb Rufo takes.

[@nancyjimeno7001]

Where is the Q&A portion if this gathering? I teach at a California State University as a lecturer and have for 19 years. I’m done teaching given that I’ve been the target of three inquisitions regarding my propensity to “offend” students with my unorthodox ideas. I’m going to retire and let my fellow taxpayers know that they are funding an institution (the largest university system on the planet) that has has its mission to create social justice advocates, not to educate. Oddly, many do not think I’m telling the truth. It can’t be THAT bad, they argue. But it is. We all need to support Rufo, he’s fighting an uphill battle.

[@UNCHART3DGAMING]

Who the hell is looking for an echo chamber in university? Only folks who already think they know it all and aren’t interested in looking at an issue or problem through the lens of another

[@cathyphillips9120]

The problem is faculty who tell students how to think instead of, introducing them to a full variety of thought and encouraging full free speech, research, respectful debate and critical thinking.

[@mangowizard]

POV you’ve never went to college

[@smelltheglove2038]

And the progressive orthodoxy among the faculty and administrators. The very few professors who don’t subscribe to the ideology are too scared to say anything. We have an issue of cowardice and groupthink.

[@odious5317]

@@mangowizard So what if she hasn’t. She is making about point about how colleges are supposed to operate, and that we need to revert to those ways. Try not being a jackass next time.

[@uppityglivestockian]

@@mangowizard You said "POV (Point of View) you've never went to college" Honestly, that sounds like you've never been to college, either. Or you skipped English in high school, or your high school English teacher was a mercy hire. Step up your game man. BTW, lots of high functioning, successful people also never matriculated. It's all about what you are made of. Paz.

[@StrategicWealthLLC]

@@mangowizard - You meant…”You’ve never gone to college.”

[@johnl5316]

Keith Whittington is addicted to long sentences

[@foxtrotjulietbravo5536]

And the sound of his own voice.

[@davidhill2677]

Waiting for someone to point out the massive presence of administration vs students and faculty.

[@catgolfer1]

After recognizing a member of the Ukrainian army, Stanford will forever be known as the Nazi Indians.😸

[@psyskeptic9979]

I agreed with 2021 Chris Rufo, and I am starting to disagree with the position he has moved to. Signed... a classical liberal academic.