This is John Bachelor. This is part of a conversation I have with my colleague Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution about education here in the 21st century, higher education, the university, the college campus, and what's gone wrong with it that

it's become so much in the news and so much a partisan affair, so many doubts, questions

raised, how did we get here? And in this instance Peter explains how it is that the campus, from my experience in the mid 20th century, the campus turned into what appears to be a complete political

party, one political party.

Partisanship.

Peter Berkowitz, the Hoover Institution.

Well, I think actually both factors are. Peter Berkowitz, the Hoover Institution.

Well, I think actually both factors are at work.

It's quite natural when there is a large and dominant majority,

operating for that large and dominant majority to confuse its opinions and preferences

with the simply true opinions and preferences. Now that's particularly pernicious at a university in which the only way to make progress

in knowing is to the encounter with a variety of opinions and working through the arguments

on on either side but also there

was there was definitely an intention to to enlist the universities in the struggle for what used to be called social justice,

what we critics sometimes call the woke sensibility.

So both the natural workings of the majority, but also a concerted effort by a small but significant number of faculty members to

harness the university to its political purposes.

More of this later.

Thank you.