To understand what’s happening, you need to see how the backlash against higher education began. You need to trace its roots in the 1960s, its evolution through the culture wars of the 1980s and ‘90s, and into the current populist fray. Then you need to do something about it. Professors, administrators, students, and concerned citizens can no longer stand on the sidelines, shaking our heads and deploring the potentially devastating consequences. The simple truth is this: For decades, outside forces have — both consciously and unintentionally — undermined the integrity and quality of public higher education in America. And time and time again, a divided academic community has failed to combat them effectively. We can and must do better. Seeds of resistance are sprouting. Together, we must nurture their growth. There is no time to lose.
It is ironic that even as Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, and their ferociously anti-Communist colleagues trampled on free speech and individual rights, higher education embarked on a golden age. American colleges and universities emerged from World War II with a new, more democratic mission. Thanks to the GI Bill that sent veterans to college, even elite universities opened their doors to upwardly mobile students from the lower classes. Enrollments doubled and tripled. New faculty members appeared on campus — less genteel and, in some cases, more academically ambitious. Most of the expansion occurred at public institutions: Teachers colleges became four-year liberal-arts colleges that then morphed into universities that offered graduate degrees.
The golden age had its darker side, however. Women and people of color faced serious discrimination. Although the political chill of McCarthyism eventually receded, vestiges remained. In many states professors still faced loyalty oaths, while speaker bans kept Communists and other leftists off many campuses.
But the American dream of high-quality, affordable mass higher education was suddenly within reach of many more Americans. Tuitions were low, if not free. State legislators showered their colleges and universities with seemingly unlimited largesse. The federal government plowed money into scientific research, especially after the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik satellite in 1957. Universities came to be viewed as essential for national security. Professors benefited the most; research grants proliferated, while graduate enrollments grew exponentially.
Never again would higher education enjoy as much prestige.
Everything changed on October 1, 1964, when several thousand Berkeley students surrounded a university police car and for more than 30 hours refused to let the officers take a civil-rights organizer to jail for disobeying a University of California regulation that banned the recruitment of students on campus for outside political activities. For the first time, students at a major American university engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience against their own institution.