NYU Professor Insists American Colleges Aren’t ‘Left-Wing Hotbeds’

NYU Professor Insists American Colleges Aren’t ‘Left-Wing Hotbeds’

Leif Weatherby is an associate professor of German at New York University. In a column for the Boston Globe, Weatherby insists that American colleges are not indoctrinating students in leftism and almost seems disappointed by this.

His argument seems to be from the perspective of someone who supports Bernie Sanders, as he reserves much of his criticism for the corporatization of higher education.

I first heard about the column when it was highlighted by FOX News:

Boston Globe column denies that American colleges are ‘left-wing hotbeds’: ‘Not indoctrinating students’

A new column in the Boston Globe argued that despite a “tradition of conservatives complaining of liberal tendencies on campuses,” “no elite university is driven by left-wing politics.”

New York University associate German professor Leif Weatherby insisted in his piece that though American universities seem to give lip service to leftwing ideas, they are merely corporations tasked with “expanding” their “massive amounts of wealth” and act in “conformity with the rightward swing of our society over the last half century.”

He opened the column declaring, “But here’s the simple truth: No elite university is driven by left-wing politics. It can seem otherwise, because over the course of our young century universities have committed themselves to social justice rhetoric. But they have not committed themselves to social justice.”

Here are some excerpts from the Boston Globe:

Universities are left-wing hotbeds? Nonsense.

Whatever you think of the outcry over speech on college campuses, the past month will surely confirm the general consensus that universities are overrun with radical left-wing views, including “critical race theory,” “decolonialism,” and Marxism. That impression is bound to deepen with Claudine Gay’s resignation this week as Harvard’s president, a situation that played out as another predictable skirmish in the culture wars.

But here’s the simple truth: No elite university is driven by left-wing politics. It can seem otherwise, because over the course of our young century universities have committed themselves to social justice rhetoric. But they have not committed themselves to social justice, which should disappoint the actual left much more than it does. Our national discourse about universities tends to be focused narrowly on the Ivies, which are not representative. But even if we keep the focus there, the idea that universities are hotbeds of left-wing lunatics is just wrong.

It’s true that there’s a good deal of left-wing activism from students and that there are prominent professors voicing antiracist views, like the much-discussed Ibram X. Kendi of Boston University. But these same universities have influential moderates and conservatives and produce figures like Brett Kavanaugh (Yale) and Representative Elise Stefanik (Harvard), and that’s not an accident. As institutions, elite universities flaunt radical rhetoric while acting in conformity with the rightward swing of our society over the last half century.

Does the fact that some people remain conservative while attending these institutions negate the idea that higher education has become radically progressive?

Weatherby then offers more evidence:

The argument that campuses are beset by a lack of “viewpoint diversity” or by outright Maoism runs into trouble when you see that Harvard isn’t pumping out community organizers and beret-wearing literary critics. A whopping 57 percent of Harvard grads go into finance, consulting, or technology; the top landing spots are Google, McKinsey, and Goldman Sachs.

To which I would point out that Google, McKinsey, and Goldman Sachs are themselves hotbeds of leftism.

This is one point where I may agree with the author:

Over the last 50 years, universities have become increasingly corporatized. As federal and state governments have pulled back funding, tuition has ballooned and the customer-service model has flourished. Instead of an emphasis on fundamental research and a liberal arts education, faculty and students must contend with a casualized labor force — the replacement of full-time faculty with adjunct lecturers — endless real estate development, and a bloated class of administrators tasked with promoting student “wellness.”

At the end of the day, however, it is impossible to ignore the hard leftward shift of higher education. DEI policies have been embedded on college campuses across the country, and it is conservative speakers who are regularly shouted down at various schools, while left-wing radicals enjoy the freedom to speak their minds with little to no protest.

Weatherby co-organized this meeting at NYU in 2020: Covering and Confronting the Far Right

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