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By Vince Bielski
RealClearInvestigations
If Johns Hopkins University wanted to signal its seriousness about creating an alternative to the left-leaning orthodoxy that permeates higher education, it couldn’t have done better than the recent hire of economist Peter Arcidiacono. Arcidiacono, a devout Roman Catholic, faced campus protests and sleepless nights after publication of his empirical findings that affirmative action can be harmful to minority students who aren’t academically prepared. He was in the spotlight again for providing the evidence in the landmark 2023 Supreme Court ruling against Harvard that effectively killed affirmative action in higher education.
Yet few realize that Arcidiacono supports affirmative action if it’s targeted properly, making him the kind of unpredictable conservative thinker, eager to engage contrary views, that appealed to William Howell. The dean of the new School of Government and Policy, Howell was so smitten with the economist that he also made Arcidiacono vice dean over the faculty.
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Sociology has long taken on society's biggest questions — inequality, social movements, declining birth rates — questions Pamela Paul notes shape political and cultural fault lines. But according to one sociologist quoted in the piece, the field has drifted from producing "intellectuals who think deeply and insightfully about the world" toward producing technicians and activists instead — prompting him to wonder aloud whether the discipline should simply be liquidated. The essay ties this to a critical spring report from Vanderbilt and Washington University describing a pattern of politicization across the social sciences.
One year after Columbia signed its resolution agreement, the university remains something of an example, for others in the sector and for the Trump administration. But what many have called Columbia’s capitulation hasn’t been a full win for either side.
If you’re looking for a reason to despair over the state of American education, there are many places you could start. Something that deserves more attention is damage to free expression—not in the classroom but in the public sphere of high school: the realms of student newspapers, student government, and other aspects of everyday life. School is meant to prepare students for the real world, but too many institutions are training kids to be silent.
