Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Balkinization

Legal Commentary

: Balkinization

The Blind Spot of Liberal Academics

By Jack M. Balkin

I recently attended an A-list panel on ?Distributive Justice? at a philosophy conference, with papers by Harvard philosophy professors Michael Sandel and Thomas Scanlon, and University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann.

There was a lot of serious philosophical analysis of the adverse consequences of today?s huge wealth disparity, sprinkled with enthusiastic bashing of mammon-obsessed CEOs and hedge fund managers, and lamentations about what this means for our country, from the corruption of politics to the growth of gated communities. President Gutmann, especially, launched a heartfelt barrage against the manifold forms of social injustice that now plague our society.

I?m down with all that. CEOs and hedge fund managers are engaged in an obscene money grab. Many bad consequences follow from the wealth disparity. No question.

I couldn?t help but think, however, that if we are going to allocate blame for social injustices then higher education should be a prime target of critical scrutiny as well.

More and more people, from the poor to the upper middle class, are finding a traditional avenue to success?a college or graduate degree from a top institution?closed for financial reasons. The immediate blame for this rests not with the greedy rich taking too much of the pie but with the policies implemented by institutions of higher learning: the relentless, obscene (same word fits) tuition increases of the past twenty years, presidents earning close to a million dollars a year, star faculty drawing healthy six figure salaries while doing less teaching, merit scholarships supplanting need-based scholarships, major building projects, and the accumulation and hoarding of billion dollar endowments. Higher education at the turn of the 21st century, at least at elite levels, is getting ever fatter with nary a thought about the adverse social consequences of its engorgement.

Elite liberal academics frequently condemn the corrupting power of money without acknowledging that our institutions are complicit in producing consequent social harms. Access to economic opportunity in our society is parceled out through higher education degrees, particularly from elite institutions. But it is now financially prohibitive for people to obtain these prized tickets to opportunity. Current tuition levels force middle class families to take out a second mortgage, scrimp on their retirement fund, saddle their kids with $100,000 in debt, or send them to State U. Poor families don?t have even these options, and may well give up on the dream of college. And then there is the additional cost of graduate education?

After much prodding and threatening questions about their non-profit status, a few elite institutions recently have taken steps toward supporting students from low income families, but this does not change the basic situation for most Americans.

Higher education is directly contributing to the conditions that create inequality of opportunity in American society. Two of the panelists mentioned (in passing) the cost of higher education, but this was said in a detached manner, as if someone else was responsible for jacking up tuition to $35,000 per year.

A serious argument can be made that institutions of higher education, particularly elite institutions, are inflicting greater damage to social justice right now than all the CEOs and hedge fund folks pulling down $30 million-plus a year.

[Type the rest of your post here.]

Full post as published by Balkinization on June 03, 2008 (boomark / email).