Ben Sasse: University Trustees Have Their Heads in the Sand

Loony jargon sloshing out of our universities isn’t new. But this particular provocation comes as many campuses are in crisis mode. The Trump administration has moved aggressively against grotesque antisemitism tolerated by elite schools. Universities have fought back, accusing the administration of extortion in pursuit of political sound bites. But the locus of the problem—and of eventual reform—is neither the faculty lounge nor the Oval Office. It’s the boardroom.

Modern universities are officially governed by regents or trustees. Board members are typically prominent people with consequential jobs who exhibit great accomplishment and judgment. But for too long, when confronted with anti-intellectual activism, politicized inquiry and attacks on campus free speech, trustees have buried their heads.

Most trustees by disposition aren’t fighters; they’re consensus-builders. They want to celebrate events that bring students and faculty together, like homecoming and graduation. Few joined their boards to patrol intellectual boundaries or invite scrutiny for asking too many questions. Many have written big checks in support of scholarships. Others are nostalgic for their own formative college experiences. They expect in return only football tickets and sympathetic consideration from admissions officers when their children or grandchildren apply. They have time and money, and they benevolently want to “give back.” They didn’t come to fight.

That’s too bad, because the radicals have already brought the fight to universities—and somebody in charge now needs to decide if this kind of work counts as credit toward tenure. Does activist scholarship entitle one to promotion from assistant to associate to full professor—with the attendant raises? At the most basic level, does spending professional time like this entitle scholars to relief from teaching obligations? The norm at top universities is to offer such relief for the performance of actual research.

The hyperprogressive authors of the Nature essay aren’t outliers. Politicization has long poisoned the humanities. In recent years it’s begun to corrupt the sciences too. In 2020 public-health researchers advised churches and nursing homes to close their doors as a vital public-health response to the Covid pandemic. Many of these same scientists endorsed mass protest gatherings in memory of George Floyd. Consider, too, how psychological associations have come out against their own studies on gender dysphoria. Some favor irreversible mutilation of children.

Board members who choose to remain silent as institutional standards slip tend not to view themselves as cowards. They think the rot they see spreading all around them is out of their hands. “Shared governance”—which means that boards and presidents can’t unilaterally decree curriculum without engaging the faculty—is a good principle. But in practice it has come to mean that the most bureaucratically committed faculty (and often radically unrepresentative faculty senates) have dominion over the curriculum, with no sign-off from or even genuine understanding by board members.

What can serious boards do? Taking responsibility begins with honesty: Things aren’t right in higher education, and boards must be part of the solution.

Things won’t look the same at every college. A Christian school can and should take a different approach to education than a land-grant university or an engineering college. But in every case, boards are meant to clarify and defend their institution’s unique mission. This doesn’t require antagonizing the faculty. Most professors don’t support the woke revolution. Boards exist to speak up for everyone who believes in the institution’s mission and to keep faith with its founding principles.

Boards need to take two immediate, concrete steps. First, demobify the campus. Lay out policies for both speakers and hiring that encourage greater intellectual diversity. American higher education is the world’s best—but radicalism and hyperpoliticization are endangering that.

Second, decide what to fund, and explain why. Merely repeating last year’s budget isn’t leadership. At most universities, two-thirds of all expenditures are personnel costs. So what is the cost of teaching each major, and the core curriculum, and other elective courses? Can it be broken to a credit-hours-generated level? And for research: What kinds of scholarship is the school subsidizing, to what types of measurable outcomes, and why?

Some professors who have never known accountability will kick against demands for transparency as an infringement on academic freedom. Hogwash. Every institution has limited money and mindshare. Board members can’t possibly claim to be doing their jobs if they can’t explain in simple terms what they fund and subsidize—and what anti-intellectual cant they tolerate.