Cracks in the Ivory Tower: Perverse Incentives for Leftist Profs

The College Fix has an excellent review of a recent book by Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness titled “Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education.” The book uses an abundance of facts and research to back up the conclusion that much of what we most detest about colleges and universities is due to the perverse financial incentives which inform them.

I particularly enjoyed their succinct discussion of how a woke leftist professor seeks to profit from their contempt for their own institution. Notice how this quote seems to capture much of what is going on right now at Williams College:

Our college/university is systematically racist, heteronormative, classist and sexist. The best way to start down the long road to fixing these problems would be to increase my department’s budget, promote me, let me hire my friends, let me fire my enemies, require that students take my classes, require faculty to push my ideology, make my ideology part of first-year orientation, and give me power over other academic departments. That wouldn’t solve our problems, but it sure would help.

On top of this grab for power and money, the left also seeks to lock in their financial gains by setting up general education classes which students are forced to participate in. These classes ensure that this will always be students in even the most biased, politically correct courses.

All in all, conservative students at Williams College might be wise to study up on Brennan and Magness's book so they will have plenty of intellectual ammunition to put the left in its proper, greedy, self-serving place this fall. If you want more information, check out an interview of the authors at Inside Higher Ed.