Academic Politics

Five years after news accounts raised the specter of U.S. campuses awash in “political correctness,” academics and political activists are still battling over the direction of higher education. The academic community, said to be dominated by liberals, has provoked a conservative backlash that is reaching new degrees of mobilization. Some critics charge that many professors try to indoctrinate students rather than educate them, and that tenured faculty superstars do little teaching. Others complain about the rise of multicultural studies and campus anti-harassment codes. In the face of such challenges, academics accustomed to a significant say in the governance of colleges and universities are revisiting age-old debates about the limits of academic freedom.