In this piece on Minding the Campus, Professor Robert Paquette of Hamilton College discusses the opposition he encountered from leftist faculty members when he sought to establish a new academic center called the Alexander Hamilton Center at his school, Hamilton College. Paquette’s faculty opponents won Round 1, getting the administration to squash the idea. (The Center would have done outrageous things like studying the importance of property rights. Can’t have such atavistic ideas at a “progressive” campus.)
As he explains, though, he and his colleagues won Round 2. They will establish the Alexander Hamilton Institute separate from the College.
This controversy is most illustrative of the high degree of politicization in American higher education.
