This is evidence that elite institutions are finally getting serious. The report tackles the problems straight on, and McInnis’s public response has been admirably direct. We can be relieved things are finally getting better.
Verdict: OVERREACTION. The frank talk is welcome. It’s heartening to see Yale take this on. But it’s easy to talk the talk; the challenge is walking the walk. Look, the recommendations are sensible. They include reforming financial aid to lower costs, setting clear and transparent standards for the admissions process, reducing the campus bureaucracy, and combating grade inflation by establishing a 3.0 mean grade point average for Yale College. That said, none of these ideas are novel. The hard part will be making those changes in the face of faculty resistance, entrenched bureaucracies, and institutional inertia.
If the follow-through is the hard part, we’re sunk. No one has any idea how to drive change at big universities.
Verdict: OVERREACTION. Institutions like Arizona State, Vanderbilt, and the University of Florida have made big strides on changing the status quo. Progress is possible, if difficult. It helps, of course, if campus leaders are thoughtful about the political and institutional dynamics.
In any event, it’s a big deal that the report bothers to specifically address classroom devices, urging a default “device-free policy” from which faculty may deviate only for “compelling pedagogical, research, or practical reasons.” In K–12 schooling, distraction from phones and other devices is a huge issue. Why should higher ed get a pass? That’s why it’s great to see Yale’s faculty taking this stance.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. I’ve interviewed several college presidents over the past couple years and had extended conversations with many others. I’ve been struck by how laissez-faire they’ve all been about classroom devices. When pressed, they uniformly lament ubiquitous cell phones and screen culture, then shrug and explain that classroom norms are set by individual faculty who are instructing “digital natives.” The wishy-washy attitude and shoulder-shrugging resignation from leadership places faculty in an untenable situation. Professors don’t want to appear out-of-touch and they don’t want to get stuck playing device cop. The inevitable result is distraction-filled classrooms, where students may spend more time sending texts, checking social media, or betting on DraftKings than taking notes. This is where new campus norms could be a very big deal.
Along with the rise of institutional neutrality policies and the dismantling of DEI machinery, the report is a clear sign of a sea change in higher education. Public backlash and Trump’s pressure have finally broken through, and higher ed leaders are course-correcting after the arrogance and excesses of the past decade.
Verdict: OVERREACTION. Whoa, Nelly. Not so fast. Wesleyan’s president took to the New York Times to (very politely) deride the report’s approach as an ineffectual, defeatist “defense strategy.” Days after the report was issued, former Columbia University president Lee Bollinger argued at the New America Foundation that “We need a NATO for universities,” which would allow higher ed to mount a collective defense against external pressures. In the same conversation, the University of Delaware’s Dominique Baker compared institutional neutrality to norms in Nazi Germany. In D.C., more than a few higher ed mandarins quietly dismissed the report as “nothing new.” Meanwhile, just last week, AEI’s Mark Perry documented that the University of Michigan’s massive DEI apparatus has been rebranded and repackaged rather than “shuttered” (as had been claimed).
In short, it’s far too early for higher ed reformers to proclaim victory. Yale’s report is a promising chapter, but most of this tale is yet to be written.
