By Sheldon Greaves

Higher education is under siege. While the occasional headline describes the most recent teapot tempest on campus, a very real years-long conservative war on higher education continues. It’s no secret that many conservative voices decry academia as places of “indoctrination” and “cultural Marxism” (whatever the hell that means). They complain about campus “cancel culture” even as they spend millions to cancel and suppress intellectual and academic freedom. This is particularly true at public universities, where outside forces fight to bend the curriculum to reflect conservative ideology, even if those views hold up under scrutiny. Failing that, they are working to create their own schools with programs rooted in right wing ideology rather than intellectual rigor. Perhaps most tellingly, a 2017 survey found that an astonishing 58% of Republicans believed that universities have a negative impact on American society.

The War on Universities

Other examples abound. Professors deemed too “dangerous” (i.e., liberal) are tracked on the Professor Watchlist, an obvious tool for intimidation. A new Florida law mandates an “intellectual survey” to monitor the political leanings of students and faculty. Governor DeSantis recently barred several Florida professors from from testifying as expert witnesses in a voting rights lawsuit against his administration. Moreover, universities are being lured by fat donations if they agree to accept faculty who not only go against accepted scholarship and conventions, but lack the qualifications expected of university professors. Often these instructors cannot be disciplined or fired by the university as part of the deal. Some schools, to their credit, have pushed back against these pseudo-intellectual pretenders.

A recent report over at Salon details how Boise State University is bowing to repeated assaults on intellectual freedom driven by the state legislature and other crusaders of conservative ideology.

An Alternative Model: The Dissenting Academies

As traditional higher education comes under increasing pressure, it’s worth looking at alternatives. I’ve discussed some other learning community models such as the Free University Movement or the underground Freedom University, but one of the most fascinating emerged from the aftermath of the English Civil War.

As part of the Restoration, Parliament moved to eliminate one of the points of contention by passing the Act of Uniformity of 1662. The Act established “form of public prayers, administration of sacraments, and other rites of the Established Church of England, according to the rites and ceremonies prescribed in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.” Adherence to this standard was required in order to hold any office in government or the church.” In order to teach at a university (which basically meant Oxford and Cambridge), one had to swear to abide by these rules. About two thousand clergy refused, and were therefore forbidden from teaching. In those days, most clergy were cross-trained in either law or medicine, so many turned to those occupations. However, a number of them decided to form their own institutions. The result was a loose network of small schools and colleges that became known as the Dissenting Academies. Schools would consist of a very small faculty, sometimes only one or two instructors, and at most a few dozen students. Schools tended to specialize. A student would attend one school to learn law, another for philosophy, and so on.

Because they fell outside the mainstream, the Dissenting Academies were free to employ some of the latest teaching methods and experiment with new curricula. This informal educational network circumvented legislation and bureaucracy that kept traditional schools hidebound. What is particularly interesting is that for more than a century afterwards, the very best undergraduate education in Britain was to be had through the Dissenting Academies, even though they were not officially recognized. However, students could then go to other universities in Germany or Scotland, sit for exams, and receive a diploma up to and including a doctoral degree.

New Dissenting Academies?

As pressure against public universities increases, I keep coming back to this idea. Could something similar be created today? What if a bunch of eccentric thinkers, activists, professionals, recovering academics, and other concerned citizens formed networks of informal educational institutions capable of dodging the slings and arrows aimed at larger institutions? Could such a network form partnerships with traditional universities? I believe it’s not only possible, but a really good idea, if executed well. One thing I learned from the experience of building a university from scratch is that much of what we assume about higher education can be done differently.

More to the point, it seems to me that there is a crying need for universities that will temper strong minds guided by equally strong consciences. There is a sense that traditional universities are not willing or able to truly resist the authoritarian pressures that beset them. Perhaps a smaller, looser, more imaginative approach is needed.

What do you think?