arbiters of truth and virtue

American universities are having to cope with the wind of hostility from the Trump administration. According to US Vice President J D Vance, universities are the enemy. From the position of a conservative politician, Vance's assessment is quite correct. Academia is opposed to conservatism generally, and completely intolerant of Trump's version – which, bombastics aside, isn't really any more extreme than Reaganism. (During his first term, I highlighted the blatant bias against Trump exhibited by Oxford University Press's politics blog.)
   Steven Pinker, writing in defence of Harvard, asserts that the motivation for the attack on academia is "to cripple civil society institutions that serve as loci of influence outside the executive branch". But it's just as plausible that the motivation is to limit the power of institutions that now serve as unaccountable arbiters of truth and virtue.

US colleges are trying to fight back. The Chronicle of Higher Education has just published a guide to help colleges change public perceptions.

Reputations in higher education are notoriously hard to shift – and today, the headwinds are stronger than ever. Many Americans question whether college is worth it, dismiss the value of the curriculum, or believe campuses push radical agendas.

But referring to colleges 'pushing radical agendas' may be missing the point. The agendas that are being habitually pushed these days aren't any longer 'radical'. They've become the norm, at least among intellectuals.
   The idea that one might choose not to intervene in society, in order to produce more 'just' outcomes, has become inconceivable to the kind of people who teach humanities. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that if there are any of them who feel differently, they're not permitted to say so.
   It's the divergence of political and moral norms between academics on the one hand, and the public at large on the other, that's the problem – finally being addressed after years of avoidance, however clumsily.
   We are long past the stage of 'tenured radicals'. We're at the stage where narratives have been almost entirely changed to suit the preferences of an intellectual class. A class which (statistically) favours intervention, because it increases its scope for exercising power.

Read more in:
POWER-MAD AND HYPOCRITICAL:
Why professors love Marxism.