REUTERS
In the first flush of wins like the Supreme Court ruling against racial preferences in college admissions and the Trump administration’s moves to stop men from competing in women’s college sports, it’s tempting to assume that total victory over wokeness in the academy will come just as swiftly.
But a new Manhattan Institute report brings the necessary reminder that the fight will take far longer — witness the fact that at Barnard the administration is still encouraging pro-Hamas thuggery — but can be won.
The report’s authors, Siri Terjesen and Michael Ryall, point out that relying on federal intervention or “white knight”new college presidents to ride in and restore order isn’t remotely enough, explaining in a memorable metaphor: “Universities are like supertankers moving through the ocean: there is enormous momentum behind their present direction, whichever way that might be.”
Partly it’s a matter of scale: The modern US university is a vast enterprise, with billions of dollars of assets in play and enormous professional and administrative structures to superintend it.
So reform-minded new leadership should not grandstand publicly about the death of woke, but instead slowly and surely populate the administrative level of the college with allies.
That will clear out the choke points for reform controlled by potentially hostile faculty and administrators, a necessary first move before even contemplating a change in direction.
Instead of relying on legal or regulatory thunderbolts from on high, the study advocates for a far more realistic strategy.
It’s far more important, they argue, to fill low-profile but bureaucratically key posts like that of provost with allies than for the president to loudly and publicly champion merit-based, rigorous educational standards.
And that will be true on down the line of any university administration: quiet, steady work from within beats showboating every time.
The study also advocates — correctly — for a massive cutdown on administrative spending and staffing. The authors estimate that the majority of schools could trim as much as 50% on the admin side.
This will not only open up some of those anti-reform chokepoints but also give faculty a greater stake in actually running the places where they teach.
Quick fixes — 100-megaton DEI detonations, or abolishing tenure — will be treating symptoms far more than the cause.
Remember that the process of transforming the American academy into a lefty brainwashing machine took decades.
Those who want to change them back into places of actual education will have to embark on their own long march through the institutions.