DIY University in Austin?
Is higher education in America broken? Let’s briefly rehearse the now-familiar laundry list of grievances—ideology squelching free inquiry, an increasingly brazen spirit of censoriousness at many elite schools, skyrocketing tuition fees and mushrooming student debt—and it soon becomes apparent why there are growing concerns across the political spectrum.
Panos Kanelos, former president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, has had a front row seat to these developments and he’s done waiting. In a piece on his Substack page, he announced his departure from St. John’s to found the University of Austin, a fledgling project that already boasts an impressive roster:
“We count among our numbers university presidents: Robert Zimmer, Larry Summers, John Nunes, and Gordon Gee, and leading academics, such as Steven Pinker, Deirdre McCloskey, Leon Kass, Jonathan Haidt, Glenn Loury, Joshua Katz, Vickie Sullivan, Geoffrey Stone, Bill McClay, and Tyler Cowen.
We are also joined by journalists, artists, philanthropists, researchers, and public intellectuals, including Lex Fridman, Andrew Sullivan, Rob Henderson, Caitlin Flanagan, David Mamet, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sohrab Ahmari, Stacy Hock, Jonathan Rauch, and Nadine Strossen.”
It’s hard to avoid the fact that this list also reads a bit like a who’s who of firebrands and intellectual provocateurs, so much so that some like Gordon Gee (current president of West Virginia University) have been a bit more circumspect about their involvement, hastening to point out that they’re serving mainly in an advisory capacity. (After all, it would be a bit self-defeating for the current president of a state school to argue that all higher education is irrevocably broken.) It doesn’t help that the University of Austin’s advertising strategy opts for gaudy promises like “forbidden courses,” which will presumably turn a blind eye to the deadening effects of what this group believes to be a politically correct ideology.
I won’t rehearse the proliferation of hot takes on Twitter. Google it and see for yourself. Needless to say, many don’t regard this project as a noble aspiration. Kanelos anticipated this response, of course: “We welcome their opprobrium and will regard it as vindication.” No doubt, somebody will channel Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option picture and point to Noah’s scoffing neighbors as he and his family hammered away at the massive ark in the boiling afternoon sun.
My own hot take on Twitter was: “Subaltern Counterpublic University.” Nobody laughed. Shocking, I know. Before I explain, let me highlight what I take to be one of the more salient features of this story, namely, the impetus of fear. In the recent book that I co-wrote with my father, Stuart McAllister, we outline three major misconceptions present in many of our homes: Fear Protects, Information Saves, Spiritual Education Belongs to Experts. The book is written with Christian households in mind, but I think it has a bearing here, since higher education is such a general source of anxiety for parents in our cultural moment. For the sake of argument, let’s expand these misconceptions to include those who hold to a traditional view of humanity and thus reject the progressivist script.
In a stimulating piece for Harper’s, Alan Jacobs appropriates Nancy Fraser’s “subaltern counterpublics,” her phrase for the spaces that marginalized people are forced to carve out when they’re not offered a seat at the table in the public sphere. Rather than rise to the challenges of the changing cultural tide, Jacobs argues that Christians and those of a more traditional bent frequently retreat and opt for the creation of “subaltern counterpublics.” Jacobs’ examples are provocative: Wheaton College, the University of Notre Dame, Christianity Today, and First Things, to name a few. Setting aside whether these institutions can rightfully be characterized in this way, I’d like to argue that the Fear Protects mindset is of a piece with this ambition. Here’s how we define it in the book:
“The fear protects mindset views the world outside the church as so thoroughly compromised that anything more than a modest level of engagement risks contamination. It fosters a highly insular way of life that seeks to build a wholesome counterculture of alternative institutions for the education and nourishment of its members.”
We’re quick to point out, of course, that there really is no “out there,” culturally speaking. But setting that aside, what’s any of this got to do with this intrepid group of thinkers who are absconding from their elite hubs? In a word, it’s a retreat to build a new house with seats waiting at the table: Subaltern Counterpublic University.
Am I arguing against all such efforts? By no means. Bearing in mind that there is no airtight fortress against the surrounding culture, I for one am deeply grateful for the spiritual respite available to me in my church. I also aim to make my home a safe and wholesome environment for my family and I don’t see this endeavor as vain escapism. What I want to avoid, however, is becoming entrenched in an us-and-them mindset, one that villainizes my neighbor. Not only does such a posture pose a grave danger to my soul. It also perpetuates the very cultural habits I wish to decry: pride, paranoia, tribalism, virtue signaling, bad faith, and spiritual elitism, to name a few.
Is higher education really so wrecked that we need a DIY university to protect us from the contaminating influences of political ideology? (The fact that several people affiliated with the project are currently employed by top-tier universities is telling, for instance.) And what’s the main motivation for such an endeavor? If it’s fear, as I suspect it is, then I think we can expect more of the same from it, no matter how many forbidden courses are on the roster.
