This has been over 50 years in the making. When I matriculated to MIT in 1976 the Administration was trumpeting that the percentage of female students was up to 21% from 9% and they were working hard to get it higher. The sex discrimination part of DEI is the worst element. People want to focus on race, and while the discrepancies there are the greatest, sex discrimination is orders of magnitude higher.
Look, in the end, the math just doesn't work. A hugely disproportionate number of girls go into soft stuff like social work, "non profits", all the various categories of Arts. That just doesn't leave enough girls to go into STEM and make it 51% female (or greater). There are preference differences in the sexes. And, IMHO, viva la difference !
The other thing that I think simple justice requires is that the worst DEI offenders get sued for compensatory and punitive damages. Basically, according to VDH, white males had almost no chance to get admitted to the best schools or get any job in academia. These people deserve compensation for an organized conspiracy to deny them their civil rights. In some cases, university administrators can be help criminally liable if the conspiracy is ongoing. Hansen as I recall says that 20% of the freshman class is white.
It will be easy to let these liabilities slip away but the only to prevent future violations of our civil rights is to impose significant costs. The analogy with Jim Crow is convincing to me. Eisenhower used the National Guard to enforce desegregation orders. And Democrat governors stood in the school house door until arrested. Today Democrat governors are once again in open defiance of civil rights and immigration law. Eisenhower was right in what he did,
Regardless of the biases introduced by federal funding, it provides support for otherwise financially strapped Americans to migrate upward (American dream), and at the time keeps the pipeline flowing with new blood for American technical excellence. Most technical Ph.Ds change fields from their dissertation anyway. But all this concern about federal funding is really off the topic. The topic is really about de-woking the universities policies of differentiating between people based on color, ethnicity, religion and promoting some and holding back others, its about tolerating unacceptable behavior by students and paid instigators disrupting and threatening others on campus, and all the other stuff in the points outlined by Roger. The only reason raised by those who oppose federal funding is to allow universities to continue to perpetrate these un-American and illegal policies.
In the long run, universities must pursue the policies of the people who fund them. State universities do what the state governments want. Private universities will try to please their contributors and, to a lesser extent, full-fee and bright students. No universities have the right to ignore the wishes of those who fund them, including the organizations that fund research for the large research universities. That includes the Trump Administration and whatever administrations follow. In my opinion, it is largely the growing intrusion of government into university funding that has corrupted university policies.
That's why it is best to separate government and education, just as we separate government and religion. That includes government funding for student finance, research, etc. Student loans should be from private lenders. Student grants and scholarships should be provided by the university or other private sources. There is absolutely no reason to believe that politicians and bureaucrats know what's best for universities, students, and the development of knowledge.
The US government should not be funding research except for the direct development of military weapons, combat communications, combat medicine, etc. Otherwise, governments should not be funding research, whether in a university or a research center. Non-military research should be funded by non-government sources, which it once was.
When government funding is out of the picture, we can enjoy a free market in higher education. Universities will need to vigorously compete for non-government donors, students, and faculty in a free market. In that case, universities will become more amenable to pursuing rational policies for students, faculty, and the pursuit of new knowledge. And, I predict that the cost of education will fall substantially over time under the pressure of free market competition.
“It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United States. HHMI spends about $1 million per HHMI Investigator per year, which amounts to annual investment in biomedical research of about $825 million.”
I think that federal funds for graduate student research is a good thing, and supports a continuously evolving population of highly educated scientists, engineers, and social scientists who represent the elite of our nation's intellectual strength. When I was a grad student, the $100/month I got for my assistantship allowed me to scrape through, and the equipment I worked on was also paid for through government grants. I can't claim that the country would be at a great loss had I not gotten my Ph. D. and worked in research for 60 years thereafter, but the country would be at a great loss without my generation – of which I was only one. The system is not perfect. Government grants favor the current common narrative. As always the people giving out the money are not usually as smart as those applying for it. But I am thankful to this country for having given me an opportunity to advance myself through accomplishments and I hope that to some extent I justified the expense. The universities need to get back to teaching and research, and not allow themselves to become lured into politically driven biases while providing bases for public demonstrations that can only interfere with their main goals: educating and advancing knowledge.
The consensus of Ferguson, VDH and Steven Kotkin was that there is no way the Universities will reform without prodding by the Government.
There are some excellent comments in this stream that are spot on. The Universities are so far gone that it will require an intervention to set them on a sustainable course.
I have a Ph. D. and I was an associate professor at the Polytechnic Inst. of Brooklyn and full professor at the University of Texas. I supervised six students who received Ph. D. degrees. I have over 100 publications. I agree with every single element in the proposed Trump social contract, and I would add two more: [1] That campus police will be upgraded so that it can quickly and efficiently tear down and disperse student uprisings, camp-ins, break-ins, malingering groups imposing a threatening environment to other groups, interference with meetings, speeches and presentations, and prominently displaying placards and banners supporting terrorist organizations and enemies of America. [2} That participants (students and paid instigators) detained for involvement in the banned activities listed above, be promptly turned over to civil police and charged with enforceable crimes, and the university shall see through to the end that the students go to trial with all due evidence preserved until conviction.
American universities have functioned without any significant interference under the existing “social contract” at least since WWII and the result is landing in true totalitarian territory. If you think I’m exaggerating, let me share from my communist experience as a student in the early ‘80s. There was, of course, plenty of ideological garbage and nasty repression, the faculty had to be Communist Party members (which meant political conformity, “healthy social origin”, no relatives in capitalistic countries). However, at least “exact” sciences were spared ideological interference; there was no “social justice” mixed in math or physics, no evaluation of faculty or students based on political activity. Discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion, as well as propaganda against your own country, in teaching or student behavior, was forbidden (and strictly enforced, like everything else). I would be the last person on earth to vaunt the “merits” of communism, but I can tell you that in this respect it was a healthier environment then what some American universities provide today.
It is a difficult problem of figuring out how to pay for something where the benefits are only know after decades. Often that is the nature of university R&D. People can do their best to suss out the successes from the failures but it is ultimately a guessing game. When faced with a challenging problem it is good to simplify. A good start on that is to separate non-R&D from R&D. Mixing the two muddles the economic waters to the point of little to no visibility on the efficacy of the organization. In short, university education should economically be completely separate from R&D. They can live together and eat together but their funding and more importantly their justifcation for funding must be separate if there is to be any hope of controlling either. With that separation the outcome of each can be judged against their funding. Churning out graduates that can't find a job? That is a losing operation. Separation not only makes judging each organization easier but prevents shenanigans by administrators moving money from place to place completely contrary to visibility and efficacy.
The article mentioned science many times leaving the impression university R&D is all science. There is a great deal that is not science (or inappropriately categorized as such) in many universities. That too should be a separate economic bucket for the same reasons.
Teachers get hired. If they are also doing R&D that's fine and it is two separate jobs. Good researchers don't necessarily make good teachers. Everyone should be clear on what the objectives are for each job.
Good points. I have mixed emotions. I agree that some researchers are not very good teachers, but some are. On the other hand, I worry that what is taught gets too far from current science. This is where having researchers teach is useful.
Eliminate all government funding of universities and colleges. Then they are free to do what they like, problems solved. The government just corrupts them anyway and doesn't add any value. In fact, government involvement reduces value, since they just raise their tuition as high as they like, since the government will always pay.
R&D can continue to be conducted by universities, corporations, research institutes, etc. Non-profits, like most universities and research institutes, should rely entirely on private donations. The only exception should be federal funding for the development of military weapons, vehicles, combat communications, combat medicine, etc.
Public sector R&D, outside of defense, is not needed in my opinion. Most of it is political BS anyway. Except for defense all R&D should be private, with a profit motive, which is far superior to a political motive which is what we have now. Defense R&D would be run from the War department, as it always has been. At least their motives are only rarely political. No more Peter Dazak/Covid BS, no medical research, keep that in private hands also. Universities, colleges and other research centers need to raise their own money. Make them work for a change.
“We Already Have a Social Contract for Universities. It can still work if universities get their act together”
And, in the same way, if socialists or at least the people voting for them would “get their act together” and would finally, after endless experiments, understand that rent control actually makes the situation worse, then we wouldn’t have a Mamdani poised to become the mayor of NYC.
Should we put our faith in this wishful thinking, for both issues, or maybe we should start thinking of something more realistic?
Roger, with due respect, I fail to see the logic of your response. Not only that public R&D didn’t end communist rule, but in the normal world (that is, outside leftist LaLaLands), when you try something for a few decades and it ends in disastrous ways, you change your approach. Again, no offense meant, but it seems to me you’re asking for nothing more than letting this “social contract” continue, with the vague hope that universities will somehow get their “act together”. Specifically, how more decades do you think we should wait? How many more generations of brainwashed young people are acceptable?
B. Should we have publicly funded R&D at universities?
I come down as a yes to both.
As a professor for 24 years I am certain that my students (or their parents) go good value for money in my classes. I know lots of faculty for whom that is true as well. Is it always the case? No. I have often said that I would not want my own kids to have enrolled in the program I taught in (one reason I left!).
Also, as a recipient of millions in federal research grants over the years, I also think the taxpayer got good value for money. Is that always the case? No. See Sarewitz and Pielke on the Neglected Heart of Science Policy for a deeper discussion.
Roger, I am also in favor of universities and publicly funded R&D at universities, as long as there’s a careful audit of value vs cost and clear rules to stop things going astray. And certainly nobody has any reason to get personal and question the value of your classes or those of many other honest, hard working professors, many of which I know personally.
However, again with all due respect, this is absolutely NOT the question here. You have written an entire article in support of the idea that “we already have a social contract” for universities and it would work “if only the universities would get their act together”. In other words, your solution is “business as usual”, let’s hope somehow the good in people prevails.
Well, this contract has not worked, the situation is disastrous, the reputation of both universities and scientists is in tatters, which is a very serious problem for the society, so, as your reader and subscriber, I believe it’s only fair game to ask why are you so supportive of a failed system and do not seem to look forward to a revamped, enforceable social contract. Again, I’m trying to be as respectful as possible, but I can’t help but notice that each time I ask this fundamental question, your answers wander to unasked, unrelated questions.
I’ve not heard that publicly funded R&D ended the Cold War.
According to Google AI: “The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, not through a single "victory" but a combination of factors, including the Soviet Union's internal economic and political issues, and pressure from the United States' military and economic policies under presidents like Ronald Reagan. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms played a crucial role, inadvertently leading to the collapse of the communist system he was trying to reform”.
Roger, does eliminating extreme left aberrations such as reverse racism, hate for western civilization or anti-Semitism feel like a battle we’re about to win? I wasn’t born at the end of WWII, but I was working when the Iron Curtain fell, we were freed and the Cold Ear ended. Believe me, with all of Trump’s attempts notwithstanding, we’re still very far away from winning this battle. In fact, things look so bad that we might need a new contract between universities and the society, but this time an enforceable one.
Universities seem to tolerate racism (when it is done by the "correct" people) and social pathologies that are not tolerated elsewhere in society. In fact, today's universities often seem to foment them.
I'm absolutely confident that taxpayers of centrist and right-learning politics find this to be far outside of the "social contract."
As you know, I'm nearly a free-speech absolutist and his shouting racial slurs in a publicly owned football stadium is within his rights. But this type of behavior is one of the (many) reasons universities are held in low esteem.
This has been over 50 years in the making. When I matriculated to MIT in 1976 the Administration was trumpeting that the percentage of female students was up to 21% from 9% and they were working hard to get it higher. The sex discrimination part of DEI is the worst element. People want to focus on race, and while the discrepancies there are the greatest, sex discrimination is orders of magnitude higher.
Look, in the end, the math just doesn't work. A hugely disproportionate number of girls go into soft stuff like social work, "non profits", all the various categories of Arts. That just doesn't leave enough girls to go into STEM and make it 51% female (or greater). There are preference differences in the sexes. And, IMHO, viva la difference !
The other thing that I think simple justice requires is that the worst DEI offenders get sued for compensatory and punitive damages. Basically, according to VDH, white males had almost no chance to get admitted to the best schools or get any job in academia. These people deserve compensation for an organized conspiracy to deny them their civil rights. In some cases, university administrators can be help criminally liable if the conspiracy is ongoing. Hansen as I recall says that 20% of the freshman class is white.
It will be easy to let these liabilities slip away but the only to prevent future violations of our civil rights is to impose significant costs. The analogy with Jim Crow is convincing to me. Eisenhower used the National Guard to enforce desegregation orders. And Democrat governors stood in the school house door until arrested. Today Democrat governors are once again in open defiance of civil rights and immigration law. Eisenhower was right in what he did,
Regardless of the biases introduced by federal funding, it provides support for otherwise financially strapped Americans to migrate upward (American dream), and at the time keeps the pipeline flowing with new blood for American technical excellence. Most technical Ph.Ds change fields from their dissertation anyway. But all this concern about federal funding is really off the topic. The topic is really about de-woking the universities policies of differentiating between people based on color, ethnicity, religion and promoting some and holding back others, its about tolerating unacceptable behavior by students and paid instigators disrupting and threatening others on campus, and all the other stuff in the points outlined by Roger. The only reason raised by those who oppose federal funding is to allow universities to continue to perpetrate these un-American and illegal policies.
"The Great Feminization" by Helen Andrews is one of the lenses I've been trying on for size on these issues lately. https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-great-feminization/
I think it might explain a lot of the changes in universities, law, medicine, and public education.
In the long run, universities must pursue the policies of the people who fund them. State universities do what the state governments want. Private universities will try to please their contributors and, to a lesser extent, full-fee and bright students. No universities have the right to ignore the wishes of those who fund them, including the organizations that fund research for the large research universities. That includes the Trump Administration and whatever administrations follow. In my opinion, it is largely the growing intrusion of government into university funding that has corrupted university policies.
That's why it is best to separate government and education, just as we separate government and religion. That includes government funding for student finance, research, etc. Student loans should be from private lenders. Student grants and scholarships should be provided by the university or other private sources. There is absolutely no reason to believe that politicians and bureaucrats know what's best for universities, students, and the development of knowledge.
The US government should not be funding research except for the direct development of military weapons, combat communications, combat medicine, etc. Otherwise, governments should not be funding research, whether in a university or a research center. Non-military research should be funded by non-government sources, which it once was.
When government funding is out of the picture, we can enjoy a free market in higher education. Universities will need to vigorously compete for non-government donors, students, and faculty in a free market. In that case, universities will become more amenable to pursuing rational policies for students, faculty, and the pursuit of new knowledge. And, I predict that the cost of education will fall substantially over time under the pressure of free market competition.
I am not convinced that the federal government needs to be funding, through universities, significant non-military research activities.
I worked for IBM for 31 years and they spend a significant amount of money each year on R&D. They have some 53,000 patents.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/274821/ibms-expenditure-on-research-and-development-since-2005/
I see other organizations, such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, that also do significant research. Here’s the Wikipedia page for HHMI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hughes_Medical_Institute
“It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United States. HHMI spends about $1 million per HHMI Investigator per year, which amounts to annual investment in biomedical research of about $825 million.”
Here is a really interesting paper that seeks to quantify the counterfactual of significantly less federal funding for medical research: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aeb1564
I think that federal funds for graduate student research is a good thing, and supports a continuously evolving population of highly educated scientists, engineers, and social scientists who represent the elite of our nation's intellectual strength. When I was a grad student, the $100/month I got for my assistantship allowed me to scrape through, and the equipment I worked on was also paid for through government grants. I can't claim that the country would be at a great loss had I not gotten my Ph. D. and worked in research for 60 years thereafter, but the country would be at a great loss without my generation – of which I was only one. The system is not perfect. Government grants favor the current common narrative. As always the people giving out the money are not usually as smart as those applying for it. But I am thankful to this country for having given me an opportunity to advance myself through accomplishments and I hope that to some extent I justified the expense. The universities need to get back to teaching and research, and not allow themselves to become lured into politically driven biases while providing bases for public demonstrations that can only interfere with their main goals: educating and advancing knowledge.
I linked to this Hoover Inst. video in your last post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Gm1OR2SPg
The consensus of Ferguson, VDH and Steven Kotkin was that there is no way the Universities will reform without prodding by the Government.
There are some excellent comments in this stream that are spot on. The Universities are so far gone that it will require an intervention to set them on a sustainable course.
I have a Ph. D. and I was an associate professor at the Polytechnic Inst. of Brooklyn and full professor at the University of Texas. I supervised six students who received Ph. D. degrees. I have over 100 publications. I agree with every single element in the proposed Trump social contract, and I would add two more: [1] That campus police will be upgraded so that it can quickly and efficiently tear down and disperse student uprisings, camp-ins, break-ins, malingering groups imposing a threatening environment to other groups, interference with meetings, speeches and presentations, and prominently displaying placards and banners supporting terrorist organizations and enemies of America. [2} That participants (students and paid instigators) detained for involvement in the banned activities listed above, be promptly turned over to civil police and charged with enforceable crimes, and the university shall see through to the end that the students go to trial with all due evidence preserved until conviction.
I would add that students convicted would be expelled, and those convicted with student visas be deported.
American universities have functioned without any significant interference under the existing “social contract” at least since WWII and the result is landing in true totalitarian territory. If you think I’m exaggerating, let me share from my communist experience as a student in the early ‘80s. There was, of course, plenty of ideological garbage and nasty repression, the faculty had to be Communist Party members (which meant political conformity, “healthy social origin”, no relatives in capitalistic countries). However, at least “exact” sciences were spared ideological interference; there was no “social justice” mixed in math or physics, no evaluation of faculty or students based on political activity. Discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion, as well as propaganda against your own country, in teaching or student behavior, was forbidden (and strictly enforced, like everything else). I would be the last person on earth to vaunt the “merits” of communism, but I can tell you that in this respect it was a healthier environment then what some American universities provide today.
Roger, what do you think of Danielle Allen's argument that the compact must be rejected but universities should use it as an excuse to revisit their social contract with society and come up with a counter compact? https://open.substack.com/pub/therenovator/p/why-im-excited-about-the-white-houses?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=9z4i4
It is a difficult problem of figuring out how to pay for something where the benefits are only know after decades. Often that is the nature of university R&D. People can do their best to suss out the successes from the failures but it is ultimately a guessing game. When faced with a challenging problem it is good to simplify. A good start on that is to separate non-R&D from R&D. Mixing the two muddles the economic waters to the point of little to no visibility on the efficacy of the organization. In short, university education should economically be completely separate from R&D. They can live together and eat together but their funding and more importantly their justifcation for funding must be separate if there is to be any hope of controlling either. With that separation the outcome of each can be judged against their funding. Churning out graduates that can't find a job? That is a losing operation. Separation not only makes judging each organization easier but prevents shenanigans by administrators moving money from place to place completely contrary to visibility and efficacy.
The article mentioned science many times leaving the impression university R&D is all science. There is a great deal that is not science (or inappropriately categorized as such) in many universities. That too should be a separate economic bucket for the same reasons.
So who teaches the students if these are separated?
Teachers get hired. If they are also doing R&D that's fine and it is two separate jobs. Good researchers don't necessarily make good teachers. Everyone should be clear on what the objectives are for each job.
Good points. I have mixed emotions. I agree that some researchers are not very good teachers, but some are. On the other hand, I worry that what is taught gets too far from current science. This is where having researchers teach is useful.
What do you mean by "universities ... have taken on institutional stances that are actively in opposition to ... (especially) centrists"?
Minor typo just before the last quote.
Eliminate all government funding of universities and colleges. Then they are free to do what they like, problems solved. The government just corrupts them anyway and doesn't add any value. In fact, government involvement reduces value, since they just raise their tuition as high as they like, since the government will always pay.
Who then conducts public sector R&D?
R&D can continue to be conducted by universities, corporations, research institutes, etc. Non-profits, like most universities and research institutes, should rely entirely on private donations. The only exception should be federal funding for the development of military weapons, vehicles, combat communications, combat medicine, etc.
Public sector R&D, outside of defense, is not needed in my opinion. Most of it is political BS anyway. Except for defense all R&D should be private, with a profit motive, which is far superior to a political motive which is what we have now. Defense R&D would be run from the War department, as it always has been. At least their motives are only rarely political. No more Peter Dazak/Covid BS, no medical research, keep that in private hands also. Universities, colleges and other research centers need to raise their own money. Make them work for a change.
While no other universities are in the financial position of Harvard, I keep wondering what endowments are for?
“We Already Have a Social Contract for Universities. It can still work if universities get their act together”
And, in the same way, if socialists or at least the people voting for them would “get their act together” and would finally, after endless experiments, understand that rent control actually makes the situation worse, then we wouldn’t have a Mamdani poised to become the mayor of NYC.
Should we put our faith in this wishful thinking, for both issues, or maybe we should start thinking of something more realistic?
Winning WW2 and the Cold War was more than wishful thinking. Both were the direct result of publicly funded R&D.
Roger, with due respect, I fail to see the logic of your response. Not only that public R&D didn’t end communist rule, but in the normal world (that is, outside leftist LaLaLands), when you try something for a few decades and it ends in disastrous ways, you change your approach. Again, no offense meant, but it seems to me you’re asking for nothing more than letting this “social contract” continue, with the vague hope that universities will somehow get their “act together”. Specifically, how more decades do you think we should wait? How many more generations of brainwashed young people are acceptable?
If the questions here are:
A. Should we have universities?
B. Should we have publicly funded R&D at universities?
I come down as a yes to both.
As a professor for 24 years I am certain that my students (or their parents) go good value for money in my classes. I know lots of faculty for whom that is true as well. Is it always the case? No. I have often said that I would not want my own kids to have enrolled in the program I taught in (one reason I left!).
Also, as a recipient of millions in federal research grants over the years, I also think the taxpayer got good value for money. Is that always the case? No. See Sarewitz and Pielke on the Neglected Heart of Science Policy for a deeper discussion.
Roger, I am also in favor of universities and publicly funded R&D at universities, as long as there’s a careful audit of value vs cost and clear rules to stop things going astray. And certainly nobody has any reason to get personal and question the value of your classes or those of many other honest, hard working professors, many of which I know personally.
However, again with all due respect, this is absolutely NOT the question here. You have written an entire article in support of the idea that “we already have a social contract” for universities and it would work “if only the universities would get their act together”. In other words, your solution is “business as usual”, let’s hope somehow the good in people prevails.
Well, this contract has not worked, the situation is disastrous, the reputation of both universities and scientists is in tatters, which is a very serious problem for the society, so, as your reader and subscriber, I believe it’s only fair game to ask why are you so supportive of a failed system and do not seem to look forward to a revamped, enforceable social contract. Again, I’m trying to be as respectful as possible, but I can’t help but notice that each time I ask this fundamental question, your answers wander to unasked, unrelated questions.
I’ve not heard that publicly funded R&D ended the Cold War.
According to Google AI: “The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, not through a single "victory" but a combination of factors, including the Soviet Union's internal economic and political issues, and pressure from the United States' military and economic policies under presidents like Ronald Reagan. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms played a crucial role, inadvertently leading to the collapse of the communist system he was trying to reform”.
This is more consistent with how I understand it.
Roger, does eliminating extreme left aberrations such as reverse racism, hate for western civilization or anti-Semitism feel like a battle we’re about to win? I wasn’t born at the end of WWII, but I was working when the Iron Curtain fell, we were freed and the Cold Ear ended. Believe me, with all of Trump’s attempts notwithstanding, we’re still very far away from winning this battle. In fact, things look so bad that we might need a new contract between universities and the society, but this time an enforceable one.
Hi Roger, while I agree with what you write, I believe the issue is broader.
This item from over the weekend: https://pjmedia.com/chris-queen/2025/10/20/the-party-of-inclusion-just-told-winsome-earle-sears-to-go-back-where-she-didnt-come-from-n4945045 Note the racist who shouted at Winsome-Sears writes that he is affiliated with the University of Colorado - Boulder.
Universities seem to tolerate racism (when it is done by the "correct" people) and social pathologies that are not tolerated elsewhere in society. In fact, today's universities often seem to foment them.
I'm absolutely confident that taxpayers of centrist and right-learning politics find this to be far outside of the "social contract."
As you know, I'm nearly a free-speech absolutist and his shouting racial slurs in a publicly owned football stadium is within his rights. But this type of behavior is one of the (many) reasons universities are held in low esteem.