THAT'S HOW IT IS WITH SACRED PRIORS.

I did not expect "For 'Sensitive Issues,' Read 'Sacred Priors'" to be validated so quickly or by an academician so highly placed.  And yet here we are.  "Garber Says He is ‘Disappointed’ by Student ‘Ignorance’ on Israel-Palestine Conflict."

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 said he was “disappointed” by the widespread ignorance of Harvard students who expressed strong opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict — and their disinterest in learning the facts of the issue.

Speaking at an event in Manhattan, Garber said he was struck both by students who held firm views without a grasp of the underlying history and by those who chose to avoid forming views altogether.

“If you’re going to have strong views about an issue,” he said, “I would hope that at a University you would have the curiosity to learn the facts.”

The remarks mark a shift in emphasis for Garber, who has spent much of the past year warning about deteriorating conditions for free expression on campus. In a December podcast appearance, he argued that Harvard “went wrong” by allowing faculty to inject their personal views into the classroom, a shift he said discouraged open disagreement.

On Monday, Garber made clear he sees the problem extending beyond faculty.

Garber described the attitude among students as “disturbing” and “ignorant,” saying he was especially troubled by a combination of shallow knowledge and reluctance to engage in disagreement.

“What I really felt was most disturbing as a Jewish president, but also somebody who cares personally a lot about the issues that were being discussed, is the level of ignorance among people on all sides of this issue,” he said.

“The lack of knowledge and this unwillingness to have open dialogue pain me even more,” Garber added.

Where to begin?  What is the effect of nearly a half-century now of cracking down on speech that "creates a hostile environment" or is "harassing and demeaning?"  What is the effect of enabling some people to live their illusions because it is "their truth," and you get written up for questioning it, on that curiosity to learn the facts?  And how often have people learned that "dialogue" is a worship-word meaning the relevant deanlet gets to set the wrong-thinkers straight?

The beginning of wisdom might be in discovering how far Harvard has slipped from encouraging anything resembling continual and fearless sifting and winnowing.

He pointed to what he called an “astounding” example: a student who identified as anti-Zionist because they supported a two-state solution — a position Garber said was mainstream in Israel before October 7.

“Students, you would think, would be better informed than usual,” he said.

Garber also recounted a conversation with a “brilliant” student from China who felt pressure to express solidarity with one side or the other despite not having strong opinions on the issue.

The episode, he suggested, reflects a broader campus climate that leaves little room for uncertainty.

Unfortunately, Mr Garber places his faith in process, noting "Harvard’s internal efforts to address bias."

There are easier paths to a better outcome, and if Harvard isn't able to fix things, maybe Yale can.  "Yale Report Finds Colleges Deserve Blame for Higher Education’s Problems."  Good.  I'd really rather be posting train videos.  Twenty years of documenting the foibles of higher education might be bearing fruit.

High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness.

The findings reflect misgivings that Americans have described across years of polling and interviews. But the report, from a 10-professor panel at one of the nation’s most renowned universities, amounts to a damning depiction of academia’s role in cultivating the political and cultural forces that are reshaping higher education’s place in American life.

The report's conclusions are predictably Ivy-centric and might not promise immediate relief for students who did not get the thick envelope and are therefore subject to the ministrations of Student Affairs types who seek to establish their woke bonas fides in order to condition the morale of the oh-so-curated classes at the Ivies.  And yet ...

Universities have faced pressure to help address societal problems, the committee noted, saying they were “expected to be all things to all people: selective but inclusive, affordable but luxurious, meritocratic but equitable.” But, the professors added, “without a clear mission and purpose, it becomes difficult to judge whether colleges and universities are living up to their fundamental commitments.”

Most American schools are far removed from places like Yale, where the estimated annual cost of attendance for undergraduates exceeds $90,000 before financial aid. Administrators at many institutions, most of which cost far less and admit far more students, complain that their schools are unfairly tied to selective universities.

But those broad perceptions are driving debates about academic offerings, taxpayer support for universities, and President Trump’s attacks on a higher education system that predates the nation itself.

It's really very simple: the regional comprehensives, the land-grants, the mid-majors and the like are in the same business as the Ivies, but their Ivy-envy is more in implementing the Student Affairs curriculum than it is in polishing up students' understanding of the Trivium and Quadrivium.

The article does not hint at anything like that path: it being Ivy-centric it's more about pricing and inclusion and the like than about education.  That might not be wise.  At Minding the Campus, David Randall warns that those sacred priors will not ward off the hard rain.

America’s education establishment appears determined to double down on racial discrimination, illiberalism, and rejection of civic responsibility. America’s colleges and universities are defying the Trump administration’s campaigns for American ideals and interests. They apparently believe that what worked with previous American administrations will continue to work.

He posits three delusions under which the pooh-bahs of higher education labor: that their social justice focus has broad popular support; that the industry has the resources to ride Donald Trump out for a couple more years; and that Trump will chicken out.  That might not end well.

Trump’s political party has turned decisively against the status quo in higher education. The other political party is burdened with disaffected students and graduates upset by education’s skyrocketing costs. They will be faint friends to the colleges and universities in any sustained political confrontation. The Trump administration’s current initiatives do not delimit the scope of possible reforms to higher education. They are the last moderate offer that colleges and universities are likely to receive from their opponents. Should the education establishment reject even this limited amount of reform, education reformers are likely to turn to sustained and systematic reform of higher education.

He concludes, "The Trump administration’s proposed reforms are the best deal they can get."