In some ways, Big Higher Ed is in worse shape than Big Oil. For all the flaws of oil executives, they’re not naïve. They expect to have a target on their backs, which is why they spend a lot of time and money courting elected officials and staff on both sides of the aisle, including Democrats who sit on Congress’s energy committees (even if they know the returns may be limited). Higher education hasn’t done that. For a very long time, Big Higher Ed coasted on alumni networks, a bipartisan reputation, and their colleges’ status as big local employers. When the ground shifted, higher ed didn’t. These institutions that collect a fortune in federal funds each year made no effort to cultivate relationships with Republican officials or staff. There’s no trust and no back-and-forth. Arrogance? Ignorance? Insularity? Whatever the explanation, the result was the same.
The failure of university leaders to rally to the defense of Columbia has puzzled many in higher education. It shouldn’t. When was the last time Chevron stood shoulder-to-shoulder with ExxonMobil during a congressional grilling? Do-gooders, advocacy groups, and unions rally to one another’s defense—corporations with toxic brands whistle through the graveyard, thankful they’re not the ones getting buried.
Jonathan Zimmerman, a thoughtful UPenn historian, recently wrote a stirring column urging higher ed to eschew the political litmus tests that have flourished in academia and rally around the shared principles of “freedom of speech” and “due process under the law.” It’s a sensible take. The problem? Many on the right who might be moved by his appeal fear they’d be enabling bad actors rather than securing shared principles. They’re loath to defend institutions that spent a decade stifling conservative speech, trampling due process, and blithely acquiescing to the dubious diktats issued by the Obama and Biden administrations. They don’t buy Columbia’s deathbed conversion and suspect they’d just be helping it escape accountability. This should all be familiar to those who’ve seen Big Oil struggle to find allies even when combating egregious lawfare or laughably arbitrary regulation.
This is an unfortunate state of affairs, especially because many on the right are troubled by Trump’s approach. At The Dispatch, conservative Yale Law professor Keith Whittington argued, “The administration has seized any weapon at hand—without much concern for the legality of how it is using that weapon.” The editors of National Review cautioned, “The entirely ad hoc process followed here is one that can easily be abused.” Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, argued that it was “disturbing to see the federal government exert its power in a way that could cripple one of the nation’s storied institutions of higher education.” AEI’s Preston Cooper praised the changes at Columbia but noted, “Process matters, and the Trump administration should ensure it follows the letter of the law.”
When I’ve made this analogy over the past few months, onlookers acknowledge the parallels but typically add, “It’s going to be a lot easier for Big Higher Ed to turn this around than for Big Oil, though. Colleges aren’t driving climate change or fracking in national parks. They’ve got powerful alumni networks, international prestige, and a stack of scientific and medical miracles. They’re going to be okay.” Maybe. But Big Oil produces something most everyone uses, whether they’re driving to work or flying to Disney World. Even so, the best Big Oil can hope for is an occasional respite when Republicans come to power.
Elite higher education has legitimate concerns about a Trump administration onslaught that’s been unrelenting, frequently ad hoc, and sometimes lawless. But mustering an effective response will require more than high-minded abstractions, jeremiads from associations that have torched their claims to being apolitical, or day-late, dollar-short concessions. More importantly, Big Higher Ed will genuinely have to grapple with its changed stature. I’m not sure its leaders are ready for that challenge. The Atlantic’s Bogost offered a revealing quote, recounting a university official who “admitted to hoping that the problem will just go away.” That leader would do better to muse about how long it took for Big Oil’s problems to “just go away.”
Oh, right.
