The College Fix

It is tempting to place all of the blame for modern campus madness—the protests, the violence, the ruthless ideological conformity—squarely at the feet of the students who perpetrate it. One might also place some blame with liberal professors and administrators who enable and encourage this behavior.

Not so, argues one writer: consider the role that trustees have played in the decline of the American campus environment.

Long-time columnist Walter Williams has argued for years that college trustees could do more to counteract the chaos and ugliness by which so many colleges are known these days. In a recent column for The Daily Signal, Williams notes that “colleges have become islands of intolerance, and as with fish, the rot begins at the head.”

Williams examines the “general trend” of such intolerance, noting the well-documented degeneracy of Evergreen State College, for instance, as well as the phenomenon of “administrators permitting students to conduct racially segregated graduation ceremonies,” a movement he claims “makes a mockery of the idols of diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusion, which so many college administrators worship.”

“Or is tribalism,” he asks, “part and parcel of diversity?”

Highlighting instances of racist and hateful behavior from professors, Williams wonders: “Who is to blame for the decline of American universities?”