To the Editor:
“‘It Is Facing a Campaign of Annihilation’: Three Columnists on Trump’s War Against Academia” (Opinion, nytimes.com, March 15) seems to perpetuate a caricature of higher education as left-leaning, politically one-sided and obsessed with issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. Yet these institutions are run by boards of trustees disproportionately drawn from the worlds of business and technology.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, four of the most common undergraduate majors nationwide lately have been business, the health professions, the biological and biomedical sciences, and engineering — hardly bastions of leftist thought, and certainly fields that have historically been mainly white and male.
The number of students in the humanities and the social sciences (other than economics) has greatly declined, because of students’ financial anxieties and because of American priorities that extend far beyond academia.
If departments in these underresourced fields, and the women and minorities and their allies within them, have pressed for greater acknowledgment in recent decades, that has at best served as a marginal counterweight to the overwhelming conservatism of the institutions in which they sit.
Victor Luftig
Crozet, Va.
To the Editor:
The Trump administration’s targeting of higher education violates constitutional tenets and democratic norms, but it’s also true that colleges and universities themselves have not acted legally and democratically at times.
Allowing encampments and building takeovers reflects poor leadership. Incidents involving speech prohibition and contracts making faculty hiring political are antidemocratic.
Young students require established and implemented policies. Freedom of expression and intellectual contributions are not excuses for laissez-faire leadership; rather they are values that require supportive policy boundaries. Academic freedom has been grossly misinterpreted as encouraging aggressive political advocacy, sometimes fostering violence and harassment that clearly undermine sustaining democracy.
Innovative pursuit and transmission of knowledge do not require that universities act like moral and political arbiters. Universities’ current alarmism ought to be replaced by strategic change plans.
Donald Vredenburgh
New York
The writer is an emeritus professor at Baruch College, City University of New York.
To the Editor:
“The Devastating Toll of Musk’s Aid Cuts,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, March 16), brings our attention to a harrowing statistic: More than 1.6 million people could die within a year without American H.I.V. aid and prevention programs. This alarming number underscores the life-or-death consequences of recent policy decisions that slash funding for essential services.
Current and planned federal funding cuts are decimating programs related to health care, nutrition, immigration and education. Attempts to weaken the Affordable Care Act will limit the ability of millions of families to get access to quality, affordable health care, a basic human right.
Cuts to U.S.A.I.D. will be especially devastating for children in low-income countries who depend on U.S.-funded programs for food, vaccines and medical care.
These policies convey an insidious and problematic societal message of exclusion and disregard that will make it difficult for children and youths from all backgrounds to thrive.
By witnessing these initiatives being enacted in cruel and unethical ways, they will begin to internalize a disturbing worldview that lacks a foundation that emanates from compassion and morality.
Our children will grow up in a world that increasingly normalizes blatant discrimination, distrust and a lack of empathy that can only perpetuate inhumane acts and existing inequities in civic society.
Do we really want this for our children? We hope not.
Michael Weitzman
Donna Koller
The authors are members of the International Society for Social Pediatrics and Child Health.
College Collaborators
To the Editor:
Re “Colleges Apply Police Tactics on Protesters” (front page, March 30):
Someday these great colleges and universities will be famous for their knowing and quick collaboration in the collapse of our democracy. Especially shameful because they know better.
Ann Schaetzel
Brooklyn
#Opinion #Differing #Portraits #American #Campuses
