It’s informed dissent.
When politicians who graduated from Ivy League schools speak out against them, they’re often called hypocrites. Think of Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Ron DeSantis and Elise Stefanik. In 2024, Rob McCarron, who heads the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, called it “unfortunate, and ironic, when individuals who have benefited greatly from a college education, and continue to reap those benefits, are the most vocal critics of higher education.”
I’m occasionally on the receiving end of this claim myself as a result of my Ivy League degree and vocal criticism of higher education. But I don’t recall agreeing either to keep my mouth shut or express only gratitude as a condition of acceptance. I never pledged an omertà when I matriculated.
So let’s talk. The day after the 2016 presidential election, I arrived at my class at Yale as an undergraduate to find an empty room. A few minutes passed. Another student walked in. We sat there looking at each other, confused. Then an email arrived from our professor. It was a dark day for democracy, he wrote. Class was canceled.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Rob Henderson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He has a PhD in psychology from the University of Cambridge and is the best-selling author of “Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.”
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