We are not here for BUSINESS—Fear University, Inc.

Lixian Huang

Oct 11^th. 2015

Week 4 Blog

ASA 2, A03

Ferdrik deBoer in the article “Why We Should Fear University, Inc” mentions that our universities operate increasingly like corporations nowadays, in which, students and professors act like customers and servants. DeBoer emphasizes that critics embrace “an unhealthy sensitivity” to the “pre-empt potentially unpopular ideas” but are silent to the ones “that are actually expressed”. According to DeBoer, passionate students can be misguided by the administrators to act against the “intellectual freedom” on campus. DeBoer thinks that a future of a “sanitized and smoothed” university is horrifying, and he calls for a new and human campus politics.

I was astonished when I first saw the example deBoer gave about Laura Kipnis in his article—a group of students managed to censor a professor at Northwestern University simply because of a disagreement on ideas. I can fully understand deBoer’s fear about answering complaints in dean’s office, because what the Kipnis example shows is that professors have to be very careful about their argument, otherwise they can be severely punished. I agree deBoer that universities should be places where advanced ideas transmit between professors and students. As a student, I am willing to hear different ideas and disagreements, because I will be able to absorb those advanced sparks to mature my points of view, even if we are not at a same standpoint.  

Question: How can the students identify the misguidance from the university administrators, and eliminate similar “Kipnis tragedy” happen again?ion need to react to balance their racial diversity; however, to mantain the UC Berkeley.ommunities"