A new academic year is upon us, and colleges and universities are still struggling to uphold the norms of free speech and reasonable discourse on campus. Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, suddenly resigned last month after intense scrutiny following a semester of protests and encampments, as did three deans over antisemitic texts. Harvard and UCLA face major lawsuits brought by Jewish students seeking relief for discrimination. There are more examples of the turbulent state of higher education, from intrusive oversight by university systems to reversals on long-held positions against boycotts.
Even though many academics and commentators have explored why higher education has gone off track—and how reformers might course-correct—it is worth stepping back to notice how today’s campus disputes are just one more theater in the culture wars. The intolerance and mutual antipathy of ideological…
