Silverglate, LLB ‘67, tackles Political Dysfunction on Campus and A World Without Affirmative Action

Boston Herald | Quillette

FIRE co-founder Harvey Silverglate, who is seeking petition candidacy for the Harvard Board of Overseers, recently penned two pieces related to higher ed. In Political Dysfunction Thrives on College Campuses (Herald 1/16/23), Silverglate traces the beginnings to the rise of the ‘administrative university,’ calling for the restoration of civility and cooperation in the universities. A World Without Affirmative Action (Quillette 1/16/23), he urges “creative thinking and real world problem solving to address inequalities in education.

In the Quillette piece, Silverglate explains, “By its very nature…affirmative action treats students of different races unequally. And despite efforts to obfuscate or disguise this, to claim that race is just one small factor in a potpourri of factors, affirmative action inevitably favors applicants of some races over applicants of other races. That the favoritism is supposedly a grain of sand in a beach of other variables and considerations is constitutionally and morally irrelevant.”

He goes on to explain that “even on narrow consequentialist grounds, affirmative action may be a bad policy, one that is both divisive and counterproductive. And diversity, although often laudable, is not without costs, especially if it is artificially manufactured.”

The solution? Address K-12 education. Silverglate not only explains there are “drastic steps needed to improve the education of all public-school students,” but calls on higher ed to help by having the government pay college students to tutor middle and high school students.

In the Herald piece, Silverglate identifies how political dysfunction on campus came to be and what can be done. He points to the 1980s and the rise of the administrative university—“Beginning in the 1980s, control of our colleges and universities started to shift from the professoriate to the administrators – not necessarily to college presidents but, rather, to mid-level lifers. The ‘administrative university’ became the enemy of individualism and fostered, instead, group identities. Those on the political left were favored, while conservatives were derided…The left and right wings of the faculty were at war with each other. Eventually, the conservatives were driven out, with only a token remaining.”

What can be done? “Alumni… must become activists rather than merely a source of annual donations.... Faculty hires must be scrutinized to restore some sense of balance. Admissions practices need to be reformed to restore objective criteria… Courses must be examined for academic merit in order that the curriculum not be watered down to cater to unqualified students.”

The risk? “…What happens on campus no longer stays on campus…To deal with dysfunctionality in the halls of power, we must unite to restore civility and cooperation within other institutions in our diverse nation, especially our colleges and universities.”

Read the Articles:

In A World Without Affirmative Action (Quillette 1,16/23)

Political Dysfunction Thrives on College Campuses (Herald, 1/16/23)

Related:

Harvard Alum Harvey Silverglate Launches Petition for Board of Overseers Candidacy

Harvard Alum Silverglate: Bloated College Administration Makes College Unaffordable (Quillette, 11/2/22)

Walkout at Milton Academy (Quillette, 8/8/22)