Joe Harte

Colgate University’s Kraynak Institute for the Study of Freedom and Western Traditions hosted University of Florida (UF) Professor Brandon Warmke for a talk titled “Are Universities in Need of Radical Reform?” on Wednesday, April 15. In the talk, Warmke, an Associate Professor of Humanities at UF’s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education, presented his case for the “radical” reform of universities, which he sees as having undue left-leaning political influence.

Kraynak Institute Co-Director and George Carleton Jr. Professor of Philosophy David Dudrick introduced Warmke at the talk with a reference to his recognition from the Heterodox Academy, an advocacy group aimed at addressing viewpoint diversity on university campuses. 

“Brandon was a recipient of the exceptional scholarship award from the Heterodox Academy, and it’s easy to see why,” Dudrick said. “He puts forward thoughtful arguments that are often in support of positions disfavored in the academy. As a result, he gives us the opportunity to engage in the sort of productive disagreement needed for an authentic pursuit of the truth.”

Following Dudrick’s introduction, Warmke began his talk by surveying present opinions on reform in academia. He said that university faculty and administration have three separate schools of thought: that universities need radical reform, that universities only require small internal reforms or that universities are functioning perfectly well.

Warmke said his talk was aimed to convince the latter two camps that they are misguided, and that academia requires serious, internal structural reform. He also said that academic institutions cannot be trusted to undertake this reformation on their own. 

“If academics continue to ignore, justify, deflect, excuse and distract from the kinds of problems I’m going to discuss  …  the result will be devastating,” Warmke said. “Tragically, though, I think that, given the current makeup of academia, universities cannot reform themselves.”

Warmke’s argument for radical reform outlined the rest of the talk. He detailed what he said were the major problems in the current state of academia, argued that these required reform and concluded that this reform must be radical. His talk was also guided by his conception of the purpose of the university.

“I admire universities and what they stand for,” Warmke said. “At their best, a culture of learning, fearless truth-seeking, rigorous argumentation and passing on of a tradition of learning to the next generation of young people.”

In this form, Warmke said, the universities exist in a “social contract” with the American public. In return for good-faith truth-seeking, America rewards universities with the money and trust necessary to carry out their function. In the bulk of his talk, Warmke presented what he saw as evidence of universities’ abandonment of their end of this bargain. 

He first said that universities engage in race- and sex-based hiring. He demonstrated this by displaying recent academic job postings calling explicitly for Black, Indigenous or female candidates. 

Warmke also said that universities regularly engage in “ideological discrimination” in hiring and graduate admissions, particularly against politically conservative applicants. He presented a survey, conducted by Yoel Inbar and Joris Lammers, which found that around 37% of higher-ed faculty would discriminate against a conservative in a hiring decision. 

Warmke said that ideological discrimination also influences job advertising, not just the hiring process. Warmke presented job ads from UC Berkeley, George Mason University, Colby College, UNC Charlotte and other institutions soliciting applications from specialists in fields like “critical race feminisms,” “settler colonial studies,” “queer of color critique,” and “racial capitalism.” These positions, he said, could not be seriously competitive for conservative applicants because of certain necessary ideological requirements. 

“Let’s be honest,” Warmke said. “These are jobs for progressive activists, and there is no right-wing equivalent. Berkeley, UNC Charlotte or Santa Clara, they’re not advertising for a job in Rush Limbaugh studies or pro-life activism.” 

After detailing other similar examples, Warmke described a third sort of ideological discrimination, which he called “politically motivated, selective demands for rigor.” He said that typically rigorous academic journals — including Hypatia, the premier journal in feminist philosophy — occasionally lower their standards for admission for ideological reasons. He gave some examples of papers he thought were admitted to Hypatia on this basis. 

“Here’s [a] paper from Hypatia on chicken ovulation that ‘positions the infertile hen as central to a fuller feminist resistance,’” Warmke said. “I want to stress, you can get tenure with papers in Hypatia.” 

Warmke said that ideological discrimination also takes form as political bias in the makeup of faculty, sharing statistics about higher ed political affiliations and student openness to voice political opinions. He said that, in 2017, 60% of all university faculty identified as either far left or liberal, while only 12% identified as conservative. He also claimed that recent studies have shown that 88% of university students admit to falsely identifying as more progressive than they really are to avoid academic or social retribution. 

“Universities should care more about the search for truth and understanding than they do about promoting political ideology,” Warmke said. “And for that, they need reform.”

Warmke said these cases exemplify three key targets for reform. First, that universities are violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by conducting what he said was race-based hiring. Second, that universities have lost sight of their commitment to truth-seeking by promoting particular political positions. And third, because of these issues, universities will begin to lose funding and trust from the public, facing major cuts and political pressure.

As in his introduction, Warmke said that the reforms targeting these issues cannot come from within the university. He said that universities have faced these issues for too long, and with too little incentive or desire to change, to change course on their own. 

Warmke said that the “radical” reform should take form as legal, social and political challenges to existing institutions. It would include discrimination lawsuits, social coercion from parents and students and what Warmke called “creative” and “destructive” political solutions — the invention of new institutions of higher education and the dissolution of problematic departments within existing ones. 

He closed by regretting that reform may entail political destruction, but said that such measures are necessary to protect what he called the “social contract” between the public and institutions of higher education.

“We are not entitled to the public’s trust, or to their wallets, simply because we have Ph.D.s. We must be worthy of it,” Warmke said. “And to be worthy of it, we must undertake radical reform.” 

An audience Q&A session with Warmke followed and quickly became contentious. Both students and professors questioned Warmke about his conclusions in the talk, and some felt he met their questions with unsatisfactory or hostile answers. 

Sophomore Libi Wolfson said that the Q&A defied an expectation for a more cordial colloquium.

“I, along with most of the students I have spoken with about this event, walked in expecting a much more professional lecture, or even discussion,” Wolfson said. “But by the Q&A, it was clear that the talk had turned out to be a one-sided debate between Warmke and his unimpressed captive audience.” 

Senior Perin Romano asked whether Warmke’s proposed solution to construct new institutions of higher education would result in new problems similar to the ones that framed his Wednesday talk. Warmke asked Romano to rephrase the question multiple times.

“I’m just wondering if there’s a risk for this sort of, like, indoctrination,” Romano said. “You’re referencing for the other side if it opens up this way.”

Warmke responded.

“I’d have to hear more about what your specific concern is,” Warmke said. “That was a little high-altitude. So can you give me a specific kind of thing that you’re worried about?”

Other questions raised addressed viewpoint diversity, gender diversity in male-dominated departments, the ability of universities to reform on their own and IQ and political affiliation.

According to Romano, Warmke’s talk and the ensuing debate exemplified the value of openness to alternate perspectives. 

“Whether any of us agreed or disagreed with Warmke, it mattered that we all engaged,” Romano said. “And I felt especially grateful to have left the talk feeling like I had done serious critical thinking about my education, my community and my role as a curious individual.”

Other attendees, including Wolfson, found the lecture less than fruitful, citing an observed dismissiveness from Warmke as an impediment to productive dialogue. 

“It is the value that Colgate University puts on viewpoint diversity that brought him to our campus, and Warmke seemed willfully ignorant of this,” Wolfson said.