The fifth pillar of democracy: Is it time for a ‘NATO for higher education’?

In an era of political encroachment and legislative mandates, higher education institutions are finding that their role as knowledge creators and powerful engines for economic growth provides little shelter against coordinated attacks against the sector. A recent conversation, co-hosted by the Alliance for Higher Education and New America, explored this crisis and the need to implement a collective and unified defense to protect the sector’s autonomy, as opposed to isolated institutional responses. 

Lee Bollinger, president emeritus of Columbia University and former president of the University of Michigan, called it a "NATO for Universities." His new book, University: A Reckoning, expands on this concept and the challenge colleges and universities have had in asserting their autonomy and protection through the First Amendment, which stands in contrast to the media’s success on this front. “[Higher education] has not established, in society, our stature, our gravitas, our defense of what we are and what we can be and what our responsibilities are, as other sectors, most notably the press, have.”

The panelists, in addition to Bollinger, included Dominique Baker, an associate professor at the University of Delaware and an Alliance Fellow and Kevin Carey, vice president for work and education at New America. The conversation was moderated by Alliance President and CEO Mike Gavin. 

In coverage of the conversation, Susan Greenberg of Inside Higher Ed highlighted the how the discussion placed the issues of the moment in historical context: 

“Bollinger said universities were caught ‘flat-footed’ by Trump’s relentless assault on higher ed; Baker said she wasn’t surprised, given her prior experience in Texas, where the Legislature sought to control university operations in an all-out effort to win federal research funding. ‘A lot of the authoritarian policies that we are seeing nationally have actually been tested in states previously,’ she said.”