A Tale of Two Universities
D.A. Ridgely on Feb 14th 2008 11:24 am |
Aside from being the oldest and second oldest universities in the United States, there are vast differences between Harvard University and the College of William & Mary. One is among the richest and most powerful institutions of higher education in the nation, the other typically gets the dubious honor of being among the least affluent of America’s elite universities. One has remained a private institution, never mind how many billions of dollars it manages to secure from public sources. The other, having fallen on hard times following the Civil War, became a “state supported” institution approximately one century ago, never mind that some 80% of its current funding does not derive from the Commonwealth of Virginia. One has some of the most prestigious graduate schools anywhere, the other remains primarily an elite undergraduate institution. One is the alma mater of some of the best Presidents of the United States and the other one is Harvard.
One of the few things they do share in recent years, however, is that both have seen their presidents resign from office after losing the support of the political interests necessary for their continued tenure. In the case of William & Mary’s recently resigned president, Gene R. Nichol, those political interests include a significant number of alumni, some Virginia legislators and, ultimately, the College’s governing Board of Visitors. In the case of Lawrence Summers’ tenure as president at Harvard, while he apparently continued to enjoy support from the de jure controlling Harvard Corporation, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ 2005 “lack of confidence” vote is generally assumed to have marked the beginning of the end.
Both men were embroiled in various controversies during their presidencies. The most notorious in Summers case were probably his confrontation with Cornel West and his remarks regarding possibly innate differences accounting for the far smaller number of women excelling in science and engineering. In Nichol’s case, his decision to remove a cross from the chapel in the historic Wren Building and his most recent refusal to ban a student funded performance of the Sex Workers’ Art Show received the most media attention. In the case of both men, however, there were other, less publicized controversies.
Be that as it may, it would be easy to account for Summers’ downfall as the result of his having fallen victim to Northern political correctness and to Nichol’s defeat as the result of entrenched Southern conservativism. Perhaps there is some truth to that on a superficial level. I have no direct relationship with Harvard and I have expressed my personal views on the Nichol affair elsewhere; but the merits of their respective cases aside, what I find interesting here is the role of both ideology and, insofar as they are different, politics in both cases.
His intellectual integrity aside, Summers is, after all, a liberal Democrat. (And, yes, I’d make the same snide remark about any conservative Republican with intellectual integrity.) That he was insufficiently liberal or ‘progressive’ to satisfy the Harvard faculty shouts volumes about the extent to which there is any real room for intellectual disagreement inside contemporary academia.
But liberals and, even more so, progressives are supposed to love public, i.e., state funded and state controlled education. So it is especially ironic to hear Nichol’s supporters now decry the fact that his contract was not renewed “for political reasons.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is how public institutions and politics work. People with differing views make their respective cases and rally support from others as best they can, especially including the support of elected and other public officials, and whoever has the most political power wins regardless of who is right or wrong.
This is majoritarianism in action. (And no silly comments, please, about constitutional protections for minorities as the solution to the threat of majoritarianism – a sufficiently large majority can eliminate those protections any time it sees fit.) At Harvard, at the very least one can sit back and say, “Well, it’s their own private affair.” At William & Mary and at any other public institution, by contrast, the will of the many will always threaten the reasoning of the few. It’s not about right or wrong, after all; it’s about power. And that is why education, like religion, is too important to be left to the corruptible whims of the state.
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I see your point, but doesn’t the evidence you offer actually tend toward the conclusion that in practice it makes no difference whether higher education is private or public?
In both cases political tensions lead to the removal of a president. Summers’s comments got a lot of press around the country; his removal was at least as much the result of public outcry as the removal of Nichol. A private college, if it wishes to maintain its reputation and income, is just as subject as a public college to “the will of the many”–or at least the vocal ideological hysteria of a few, which I think is a more apt description of both incidents.
Also, you overlook what is, for most people, the most significant difference between Harvard and William & Mary: Harvard undergrad tuition is 40k, while W&M is only about 9k instate. Many excellent state colleges are substantially cheaper than that, including the one I attended. Public colleges create an opportunity for people to get education of a quality that would otherwise be beyond their reach. That, and not some abstract desire for “state control,” is why people–not only “liberals”– tend to support the existence of public colleges.
t_a_w:
Thanks for the comments.
First, I think I already hinted at the fact that the distinction between public and private universities has blurred to the point where it is mostly nominal. You will not be surprised to learn that I generally oppose both state and federal money being spent directly on higher education, at least (see below) in the sense of money not being used in direct support of student attendance.
But private schools, especially rich schools like Harvard, are still far more resistant to direct political pressure than public schools are and it is rare that the “will of the many” defined as an outcry by the general public will have much of an effect on their governance. If anything, it is being “above it all” that contributes to their brand value.
Few undergraduates pay $40k+ a year to go to an Ivy League school just as few people pay the sticker price for a new car. But you and I and everyone else who pays taxes contributed to subsidizing your education and we could have done so just as easily and more effectively by giving you a higher education voucher directly, in which case you, too, could have afforded Harvard. The point is that we must be clear about the difference between the value of an educated general public and the value of public education. The former is a good thing, arguably worthy of tax support. But the latter, that is, the operation of state controlled schools is neither a necessary nor a sufficient method of ensuring an educated public.
“..the value of an educated general public….is a good thing, arguably worthy of tax support.”
Do you really mean that you would support confiscation to fund what should be the private enterprise of individuals?
steven:
That remark had the suspicious aroma of rhetorical sarcasm, but taken seriously that is exactly what I mean. I am not an anarcho-capitalist. I do believe in a minimal state, and while I’m perfectly willing to discuss just how minimal and just what particular services the minimal state should nonetheless perform, such conversations are merely academic in light of the enormous swaths of current government I would gladly see eliminated first.
The least well defended, perhaps because it is the least defensible, aspect of libertarian theory and doctrine is its approach to children. It simply will not do (mind you, that is an assertion, not an argument) to state blithely that children are parents’ responsibility. Of course, they are, but many parents simply won’t or can’t provide for their children’s care, including their education.
That said, nothing is more likely to get me to roll my eyes and dismiss a political argument more quickly than the statement “It’s for the children.” That way lies the madness of the nanny state. But libertarian absolutism is no less mad. If you are deathly ill and ingesting 10 mg of a medicine will effectively cure you but taking 50 mg will kill you, then not taking the 10 mg is just as crazy as taking the lethal dose.
I honestly didn’t mean it as sarcasm. Its just that your statement took me by surprise. Thank you for your reply.
By conceding that the state may confiscate to provide things for children that their parents cannot or will not provide, you are giving away any chance of limiting the power of the state. If the state has the power to confiscate from some for the needs of others, then sustaining a limited government is not possible. What you are saying here is that your next door neighbors, without your consultation or consent, may have as many children as they wish, with no ability or willingness to provide for any of their children’s needs, and with the knowledge that the state can force you to provide for the needs of their children. Does that sound familiar to you, Mr. Ridgely? It does to me. That’s the way things are right now in America.
What you advocate is slavery, plain and simple. Not charity, not morality, but slavery.
Oh, I don’t know, Steven. I don’t recall ever saying anything about permitting people to continue to procreate beyond a certain point after they have demonstrated their inability or unwillingness to care for their children or, for that matter, anything about such parents retaining custody of said children.
Fine, Mr. Ridgely. But still, the power to confiscate property obtained by honest means, regardless of the purpose, is a power that no government should ever have.
Phooey. (No offense, though.) Again, I’m a minimal state libertarian, not an anarcho-capitalist. I don’t believe the concept “property” has any useful meaning outside the state, minimal or otherwise, or that even a minimal state is possible without some coercion in matters such as tax collection. The objective, in my opinion, is therefore only to minimize such coercion.
You are, of course, entitled to believe otherwise. I would only reiterate that there are probably such huge chunks of the current welfare / empire building state that we would probably both agree to eliminate before we ever had to get to the question of tax supported education subsidies that the matter is, for me, purely academic. If you’re interested only in such purely theoretical discussions, you can probably find more interesting and interested opponents than me.