Written by: Hunter Klosty and Harrington Shaw
Trust in our institutions of higher education is at an all-time low. According to bestselling author and professor Jonathan Haidt, this occurred when two titans collided on campus: excessively coddled Generation Z students, and faculty and administrators who completely lost sight of their academic mission.
At a sold-out event in UNC’s student union auditorium, Haidt explained how the revolutionary effects of smart devices and social media networks have entirely shifted the university landscape – and not for the better. Sponsored by the Student Free Speech Alliance, UNC AFSA, Heterodox Heels, and the Program for Public Discourse, the discussion delivered a potent message on how to reverse the decline of higher education to a plethora of top-level UNC administrators, faculty, students, and alumni.
During his speech, Haidt explained what has happened to American universities over the course of a decade in three distinct, but interconnected realms. He asserted that Generation Z has become highly sensitive through a highly unprecedented upbringing surrounded by advanced technology, that universities have lost their main mission of educating and exploring the truth and have instead engaged in a misguided act to bring about social justice, and vast structural stupidity that has negated the intellectual nature of individual figures within universities.
Haidt explained that the human mind has two fundamental “modes,” which he refers to as “discover” and “defend.” In “discover mode,” the brain is willing to approach stimuli, accept challenges, learn and grow. It is in this way, according to Haidt, that “is how you get the most out of a college education.” However, Gen Z arrived to college in the opposite manner. According to Haidt, “what happened to universities in 2014 is that the students arriving, all of the sudden, were in defend mode.” This not only led them to be more prone to anxiety and depression, but caused them to seek out adults, administrators, and groups to protect them from threatening experiences.
Haidt pointed out examples of this across the country during the mid-2010s, with prestigious institutions such as Yale and UC Berkeley instituting policies surrounding that suppressed freedom of expression, and instead aimed to boost student’s emotional-wellbeing, apparently threatened by differing opinions and perspectives. As this trend has continued into today, with the rise of trigger warnings, a lack of constructive dialogue, attacks on free speech, and the implementation of DEI policies, mostly directed at the suppression of conservative expression, Haidt talked through the erosion of public trust in universities by Americans who are registered as either Republican or Independent.
Haidt was highly critical of the slew of policies that undermined the brand of excellence and absolute honesty that epitomized American universities. In what has become a hot button issue in today’s political dialogue, Haidt was explicitly dismissive of DEI bureaucracies which have become increasingly commonplace in universities across the country, saying that “no part of it is demonstrably working, a lot of it is backfiring.” Haidt gave a further condemnation of the culture created by DEI, saying that “Identitarianism is completely incompatible with the mission of the university. Any organization that embraces identitarianism becomes mired in conflict.”
While critical of the direction of American universities on a whole, Haidt made the point that universities could change for the better in three simple steps. He argued that universities needed to transition from defend mode to discover mode, that truth needs to replace social justice, and curiosity and love of learning needed to replace fear.
Although Haidt argues that much needs to change for the vitality of American universities to survive, he did assert that because of unique cultural and political aspects, universities of the South were more friendly to intellectual excellence and absolute honesty. Furthermore, Haidt informed the audience, much to their satisfaction, that his high school aged son was favoring attending UNC next fall.
The full lecture and discussion can be seen on the UNC AFSA YouTube Channel.