An example if not a program. The 50 or so Chesterton Academies in the U.S. (growing at such a pace that they will soon exceed 100) plus dozens and soon hundreds more "classical"high schools already provide an education in the liberal arts superior to what most American universities offered even 50 years ago (when Bill and Paul were students; I of course am far, far younger!). The result is that by the time their students graduate high school, they can devote themselves entirely to acquiring marketable skills. Currently most do this at four-year colleges, but that need not be so. Major US corporations increasingly offer certifications as an alternative to degrees. Microsoft does this, as befits a company founded by a man who dropped out of Harvard.
The political shift needed is to get Americans to stop subsidizing four year colleges, which looks hard. But based on poll results this already looks far more feasible than even five years ago. Stop subsidies for college is still something few pundits and almost no politicians will say out loud. As more people do say it out loud it could swiftly become an acceptable, then even majority view.
Disclosure: I am a founder of the Chesterton Schools Network.
Paul writes "our colleges and universities won’t reform themselves, and... they have been almost entirely immune to outside pressure." Nonsense. There has been no serious outside pressure applied to colleges. Outside pressure consists of customers refusing to buy the product. For instance. Anheuser-Busch felt outside pressure when customers stopped buying beer. If customers had complained but continued buying, the advertising team would still have their jobs.
Outside pressure for colleges consists of students not applying, parents not encouraging their children to attend -- or not paying -- and, most importantly, people in many capacities rejecting the college's credentials. When you ask a student who enrolled at Penn why he didn't maximize his potential, then you're applying pressure. When you tell a law firm you've hired that you don't want to see the names of Yale graduates on your bill because the place is a diploma mill notorious for passing students who can't pass the bar exam without paying for supplemental prep courses from outside vendors, then you're applying outside pressure. When you tell the principal at a high school that you're disappointed with the guidance counselor for pushing your child to look at Harvard when it lacks serious core curricular requirements, then you're applying pressure. The Left depends on ego. When you make people feel embarrassed to associate with a college, then you're applying pressure.
Anheuser-Busch did not "feel outside pressure when customers stopped buying beer." It felt outside pressure when customers stopped buying Anheuser-Busch's beer. And customers stopped because there were alternatives.
Higher education lacks non-woke alternatives. The rot has spread throughout the industry, including at state colleges in red states and at Catholic colleges. The few colleges where it doesn't exist aren't sufficient to provide meaningful competition.
The same problems applies to law schools. Law firms would be foolish to reject applicants who did well at Yale in favor of applicants from other law schools. Those other schools are just as woke as Yale, and their graduates will, on average, have less aptitude for practicing law.
Moreover, the corporations that hire law firms are at least as woke as the law firms themselves. In fact, they are pressuring firms to engage in quota hiring, and the like.
Thus, it's fanciful to imagine them "telling a law firm [they] don't want to see the names of Yale graduates on bills." If anything, corporations are telling firms they want to see the names of black and Latino lawyers on the bills. The effective pressure is coming in the opposite direction from the one that the comment above would like to see.
The kind of pressure that's most likely to succeed consists of rich alumni cutting off financial support. We see this happening to some extent as a result of the recent outburst of overt anti-Semitism at big name colleges.
Unfortunately, it hasn't happened, and won't happen, as a response to the more general rot at these institutions. So while colleges can perhaps be pressured into curbing anti-Semitism, they won't be pressured into providing students with accurate core knowledge about the Western tradition.
Conservative alumni can stop making small and medium size contributions. Many have done so. The top colleges with their huge endowments haven't blinked. Nor, with the number of conservative alums decreasing as time goes by, will they.
Your points about corporations being "at least as woke as the law firms themselves," etc. sound valid. That does not refute my point, and in fact exemplifies my point: Rather than colleges being immune to pressure, colleges have not been subjected to significant outside pressure by those in a position to do so.
"Law firms would be foolish to reject applicants who did well at Yale in favor of applicants from other law schools." Based on a few things I know about Yale Law School and making educated if pejorative guesses, I wonder what it means to say that a student does well there. They are graded pass-fail their first year, their third year is useless, and many professors have no regard for the law -- i.e. the Constitution -- at all. I do not trust the significance of the curriculum or the competence of the professors at teaching or grading. So how do we know whether a student does well in the program, and why should anyone care?
As for alternatives, I hoped Pepperdine would stand against the madness, and I was under the impression that SUNY Albany, for instance, is better-regarded for training actual lawyers. Such colleges may not be immune from woke-ness, but most students there don't care about it -- they gain status from their achievement rather than virtue-signaling. If there aren't enough spaces at Hillsdale or St. John's for large numbers of students rejecting Penn or Antioch, demand for such spaces would still affect the incentives for status-seekers. Right now all colleges want to be like Harvard, giving its managers outsized influence regardless of how many students it enrolls. If a few good colleges should acquire enhanced status, they would likewise acquire enhanced influence.
Almost all of the realistic means of applying outside pressure to colleges have been tried. The ones you propose haven't been tried because they can't be. They are pipe dreams, due to the leftist orientation of law firm clients and the lack of effective competitors to woke colleges.
Many conservative alums have applied pressure by withholding donations. Alums have initiated campaigns to reform their colleges. I was involved in such a campaign at my alma mater.
Organizations like ACTA have tried to influence trustees. Organizations like FIRE have pressured colleges to promote freer speech.
Conservative news outlet have called out colleges. Conservative politicians have threatened state universities.
None of this has brought about meaningful reform.
Let's turn to the methods you have discussed. You would like to see clients pressure law schools by balking when they see graduates of institutions like Yale on bills. This is a fantasy because, as you acknowledge, corporate clients are at least as woke as law schools.
Your tirade against Yale may have merit, but it's irrelevant for purposes of discussing what can be done to pressure law schools. What you and I think about Yale, Harvard, Stanford, etc. doesn't matter. Clients think these schools are fine, so major law firms, like the one on whose hiring committee I served, vigorously compete for their students.
The notion of pressuring high school counselors by complaining to principals when they encourage students to apply to Ivy League schools is also a non-starter. For every parent who might make such a complaint, there are many more who would complain vociferously if counselors told their highly talented kids to eschew the Ivy League and apply to Hillsdale or St. John's (Maryland).
I don't doubt that you hoped Pepperdine law school would stand against the madness, and maybe it has. But it hasn't loosened the grip woke law schools like Yale, Harvard, and Stanford have on top undergraduates who want a law degree. Hillsdale, St. Johns, and the handful of other serious non-woke colleges haven't changed the application patterns of top high school students, either.
Nor have you provided any reason to believe they will. "Hope" and "ifs" are not reasons.
As I have been saying for thirty years, the USA will implode under the weight of constitutional freedoms. The Global Elite live in the nation they endeavor to destroy. They fund the destruction from within the very freedoms and protection they despise. There is no reversing this without assisting in this destruction. This Hellish Cancer is just getting started after years of preparation and planning. The patient (USA) has terminal illness which can't be reversed. Prepare accordingly.
Recover some way of educating our children. We have brought up a generation or two of kids who can't think for themselves.
Knee-jerk reactions from republicans: Ban Tik-Tok! Require social media to verify identity!
Americans have to be well enough educated to question the provenance of what they read and see. These kids on Tik-Tok take everything they're told at face value - which is exactly what they've been trained to do in public schools and universities.
An example if not a program. The 50 or so Chesterton Academies in the U.S. (growing at such a pace that they will soon exceed 100) plus dozens and soon hundreds more "classical"high schools already provide an education in the liberal arts superior to what most American universities offered even 50 years ago (when Bill and Paul were students; I of course am far, far younger!). The result is that by the time their students graduate high school, they can devote themselves entirely to acquiring marketable skills. Currently most do this at four-year colleges, but that need not be so. Major US corporations increasingly offer certifications as an alternative to degrees. Microsoft does this, as befits a company founded by a man who dropped out of Harvard.
The political shift needed is to get Americans to stop subsidizing four year colleges, which looks hard. But based on poll results this already looks far more feasible than even five years ago. Stop subsidies for college is still something few pundits and almost no politicians will say out loud. As more people do say it out loud it could swiftly become an acceptable, then even majority view.
Disclosure: I am a founder of the Chesterton Schools Network.
Universities must be defunded and must have their non-profit status revoked until and unless they eliminate partisan indoctrination.
Paul writes "our colleges and universities won’t reform themselves, and... they have been almost entirely immune to outside pressure." Nonsense. There has been no serious outside pressure applied to colleges. Outside pressure consists of customers refusing to buy the product. For instance. Anheuser-Busch felt outside pressure when customers stopped buying beer. If customers had complained but continued buying, the advertising team would still have their jobs.
Outside pressure for colleges consists of students not applying, parents not encouraging their children to attend -- or not paying -- and, most importantly, people in many capacities rejecting the college's credentials. When you ask a student who enrolled at Penn why he didn't maximize his potential, then you're applying pressure. When you tell a law firm you've hired that you don't want to see the names of Yale graduates on your bill because the place is a diploma mill notorious for passing students who can't pass the bar exam without paying for supplemental prep courses from outside vendors, then you're applying outside pressure. When you tell the principal at a high school that you're disappointed with the guidance counselor for pushing your child to look at Harvard when it lacks serious core curricular requirements, then you're applying pressure. The Left depends on ego. When you make people feel embarrassed to associate with a college, then you're applying pressure.
Anheuser-Busch did not "feel outside pressure when customers stopped buying beer." It felt outside pressure when customers stopped buying Anheuser-Busch's beer. And customers stopped because there were alternatives.
Higher education lacks non-woke alternatives. The rot has spread throughout the industry, including at state colleges in red states and at Catholic colleges. The few colleges where it doesn't exist aren't sufficient to provide meaningful competition.
The same problems applies to law schools. Law firms would be foolish to reject applicants who did well at Yale in favor of applicants from other law schools. Those other schools are just as woke as Yale, and their graduates will, on average, have less aptitude for practicing law.
Moreover, the corporations that hire law firms are at least as woke as the law firms themselves. In fact, they are pressuring firms to engage in quota hiring, and the like.
Thus, it's fanciful to imagine them "telling a law firm [they] don't want to see the names of Yale graduates on bills." If anything, corporations are telling firms they want to see the names of black and Latino lawyers on the bills. The effective pressure is coming in the opposite direction from the one that the comment above would like to see.
The kind of pressure that's most likely to succeed consists of rich alumni cutting off financial support. We see this happening to some extent as a result of the recent outburst of overt anti-Semitism at big name colleges.
Unfortunately, it hasn't happened, and won't happen, as a response to the more general rot at these institutions. So while colleges can perhaps be pressured into curbing anti-Semitism, they won't be pressured into providing students with accurate core knowledge about the Western tradition.
Conservative alumni can stop making small and medium size contributions. Many have done so. The top colleges with their huge endowments haven't blinked. Nor, with the number of conservative alums decreasing as time goes by, will they.
Your points about corporations being "at least as woke as the law firms themselves," etc. sound valid. That does not refute my point, and in fact exemplifies my point: Rather than colleges being immune to pressure, colleges have not been subjected to significant outside pressure by those in a position to do so.
"Law firms would be foolish to reject applicants who did well at Yale in favor of applicants from other law schools." Based on a few things I know about Yale Law School and making educated if pejorative guesses, I wonder what it means to say that a student does well there. They are graded pass-fail their first year, their third year is useless, and many professors have no regard for the law -- i.e. the Constitution -- at all. I do not trust the significance of the curriculum or the competence of the professors at teaching or grading. So how do we know whether a student does well in the program, and why should anyone care?
As for alternatives, I hoped Pepperdine would stand against the madness, and I was under the impression that SUNY Albany, for instance, is better-regarded for training actual lawyers. Such colleges may not be immune from woke-ness, but most students there don't care about it -- they gain status from their achievement rather than virtue-signaling. If there aren't enough spaces at Hillsdale or St. John's for large numbers of students rejecting Penn or Antioch, demand for such spaces would still affect the incentives for status-seekers. Right now all colleges want to be like Harvard, giving its managers outsized influence regardless of how many students it enrolls. If a few good colleges should acquire enhanced status, they would likewise acquire enhanced influence.
Almost all of the realistic means of applying outside pressure to colleges have been tried. The ones you propose haven't been tried because they can't be. They are pipe dreams, due to the leftist orientation of law firm clients and the lack of effective competitors to woke colleges.
Many conservative alums have applied pressure by withholding donations. Alums have initiated campaigns to reform their colleges. I was involved in such a campaign at my alma mater.
Organizations like ACTA have tried to influence trustees. Organizations like FIRE have pressured colleges to promote freer speech.
Conservative news outlet have called out colleges. Conservative politicians have threatened state universities.
None of this has brought about meaningful reform.
Let's turn to the methods you have discussed. You would like to see clients pressure law schools by balking when they see graduates of institutions like Yale on bills. This is a fantasy because, as you acknowledge, corporate clients are at least as woke as law schools.
Your tirade against Yale may have merit, but it's irrelevant for purposes of discussing what can be done to pressure law schools. What you and I think about Yale, Harvard, Stanford, etc. doesn't matter. Clients think these schools are fine, so major law firms, like the one on whose hiring committee I served, vigorously compete for their students.
The notion of pressuring high school counselors by complaining to principals when they encourage students to apply to Ivy League schools is also a non-starter. For every parent who might make such a complaint, there are many more who would complain vociferously if counselors told their highly talented kids to eschew the Ivy League and apply to Hillsdale or St. John's (Maryland).
I don't doubt that you hoped Pepperdine law school would stand against the madness, and maybe it has. But it hasn't loosened the grip woke law schools like Yale, Harvard, and Stanford have on top undergraduates who want a law degree. Hillsdale, St. Johns, and the handful of other serious non-woke colleges haven't changed the application patterns of top high school students, either.
Nor have you provided any reason to believe they will. "Hope" and "ifs" are not reasons.
As I have been saying for thirty years, the USA will implode under the weight of constitutional freedoms. The Global Elite live in the nation they endeavor to destroy. They fund the destruction from within the very freedoms and protection they despise. There is no reversing this without assisting in this destruction. This Hellish Cancer is just getting started after years of preparation and planning. The patient (USA) has terminal illness which can't be reversed. Prepare accordingly.
Recover some way of educating our children. We have brought up a generation or two of kids who can't think for themselves.
Knee-jerk reactions from republicans: Ban Tik-Tok! Require social media to verify identity!
Americans have to be well enough educated to question the provenance of what they read and see. These kids on Tik-Tok take everything they're told at face value - which is exactly what they've been trained to do in public schools and universities.