Latest / NO FILTER / Trump vs. Education_ Why President_s attacks on universities are driven by _juvenile envy_(MP3_160K)

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Trump vs. Education_ Why President_s attacks on universities are driven by _juvenile envy_(MP3_160K) · NO FILTER

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Administration claims that sudden war on elite universities like Harvard
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: is all about anti Semitism. The Wall Street Journal, though,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: says it goes back farther than that twenty nineteen to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: be exact, and that it actually started with a sucker
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: punch to the face. Joining us now staff writer for
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: The Atlantic, Tom Nichols MSNBC political analysts and staff writer
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: for The Atlantic, Ashley Parker, and judge John Jones is
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: still with us, all right, so Ashley. The Wall Street
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Journal reports that this was an incident that happened on
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the campus of Berkeley in San Francisco. It was a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: gentleman who was representing Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk's foundation,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: trying to organize or trying to recruit people to join it.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: He is on campus. He's not a part of campus,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: but he's on campus. Somebody comes up, also not a
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: student on campus, and sucker punches him in the face.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: This suddenly gets elevated to both Fox News and then
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump, and the idea is born to try
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to go after universities.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean, in some ways it does
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: take place on a college campus and they are trying
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: to recruit students. That's what Turning Point does. But it
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: really has nothing to do beyond that with the university.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: But it is helpful and we've seen this a lot
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: with President Trump and the team around him. They have
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: long wanted. Conservatives have long been frustrated with what they
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: feel is sort of the overwokeness and dei issues of
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: elite universities, and it gives them a chance to escalate
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: this in the media and more broadly to go after
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: universities for free speech violations and talk about with folding
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: federal funding. And this happens at the end of President
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Trump's first term. But another thing just to understand this
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: in context, which I think is important, is in the
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: four years then he is out of power. You have
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Stephen Miller, who went to Duke feels very strong about this,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and other conservatives who care a lot about the education
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  Speaker 2: space using those four years out of power to come
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: up with creative ways to go after elite institutions. And
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: we are now seeing that come to fruition in incredibly
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: major ways. Right now.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Tom is actually saying that this has been a long
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: standing complaint among Republicans and they don't get a fair
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: shake at college campuses. At college campuses are places where
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: people become liberals, they become democrats. They get more educated
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: because they get more educated by byliberal democrats, and then
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: become liberal democrats. They get indoctrinated.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: That's not what a lot of this is about. Look,
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: I was a Republican and I was teaching at an
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Ivy League campus. I taught at Dartmouth for many years.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: I taught at Harvard. Some of what's going on on
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: the right here, and it's an ugly thing to talk about,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: but it's status envy. It's feeling like being part of
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: an out group. As you point it up, you have
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: people like Miller who went to Duke. You have you
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: know Ted Cruz who went to Princeton and Harvard, you
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: have you know all of these people Jade Vance who
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: went to Yale and yet somehow felt like they were
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: part of an out group or a disadvantage group. And
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  Speaker 3: this is like kids who are mad at their high
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  Speaker 3: school deciding that they want to become the principal and
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: shut down all the cool kids clubs. I mean, there
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  Speaker 3: really is a kind of juvenile envy involved here on
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  Speaker 3: the right wing, and you can see it especially in
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: the president who talks about these you know, elite schools
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  Speaker 3: and how you know, how awful they are, but then
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: at every chance he gets points out I went to
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: the universon of Pennsylvania, I went to Wharton, my uncle
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Toad at MIT. So there is this love hate relationship
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  Speaker 3: with people who hate these lead institutions because some part
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: of them desperately wanted to be accepted by them. And
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: wasn't you notice that they're not going after after small
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: boutique schools that are even much farther to the left
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  Speaker 3: in terms of their campuses than places like Harvard or Yale,
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  Speaker 3: which if any anyone who's ever been on a campuses knows, yes,
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  Speaker 3: they have an immense and immensely you know, liberal group
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  Speaker 3: of kids on them, but they also have a lot
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: of really conservative kids who are heading off to Wall
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  Speaker 3: Street and other places. They're not going after small liberal
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  Speaker 3: arts colleges. They're going after the places that make them
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  Speaker 3: feel insecure about themselves, and that psychological condition, I think, unfortunately,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: is driving a huge part of an attack on really
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: what is a national treasure in the United States. I
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: think the universities.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: I think that's a fair point. The pointing out of
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: who they're going after, which colleges the universities are going after.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: They're also saying that they're going to go after the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: UC system. But I wonder, Judge Jones are the president
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: of Dickinson College, so you're in a unique perspective or
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a unique position to comment on this. I wonder if
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  Speaker 1: there is at the just the very attom of it,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: a nugget of truth there or discomfort that many Americans
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: might have been feeling about what they were seeing on
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  Speaker 1: college campuses. The idea that and you tell me this
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  Speaker 1: is totally wrong, The idea that you couldn't debate any longer,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: that certain topics were off limits, that only certain people
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  Speaker 1: could discuss certain things, That it wasn't a free exchange
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  Speaker 1: of ideas. It was a place. It has become places
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  Speaker 1: where it is my way and my way alone, and
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  Speaker 1: if you disagree with this, you're somehow a bigot, you're
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: somehow racist, etc.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, President Garber at Harvard has said, Katie
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: that there's a lot of work to be done, and
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: I agree with him. I think over the years, colleges
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: and universities became places that dissent was not looked on, favorably. Certainly,
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: there's work being done at every college and university in
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: the United States. But just like the administration overstates the
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: case with the judges as we just discussed, they overstate
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: the case again with colleges and universities. I had a
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: beautiful commencement here at Dickinson a couple of weeks ago,
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  Speaker 4: and I've thought about this. You know, if I'd taken
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: the six hundred or so individuals who graduated from my
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: school and said them, you know you're you're now super liberals,
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: and you know, go out and tow the line, and
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: you know that's what you're regarded, they would laugh in
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  Speaker 4: my face. That's not what we're turning out here. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: you know, Tom makes a very good point, a very
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: good point about the boutique universities or colleges like mine.
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  Speaker 4: I guess we haven't been leaned on yet, but I
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: strongly believe that what's happening to Harvard, and they've said this,
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  Speaker 4: I think mister Miller has said this, it's a warning shot.
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  Speaker 4: It's a warning shot to every college and you university.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: They're going to lean on Harvard to the point of
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: all misdestruction and say, look this could be you, This
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: could happen to you, And this is viewpoint. This is
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  Speaker 4: who gets taught, this is what gets taught. This is
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: this is screwing around with college and the university's curriculum,
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  Speaker 4: and it flies in the face of the First Amendment
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  Speaker 4: and academic freedom.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Leo Terrell said this on Fox News. He's the Assistant
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Attorney General for Civil Rights in the DJ He said,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: this is a warning shot. What's happening at Harvard is
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: a warning shot for all colleges, and then he specifically
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: cited the UC system, so that could be coming. But
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I wonder Tom, if you want to just weigh in
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: on what I was asking Judge Jones there about whether
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: whether there was some room to improve on debate and colleges,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and whether whether that is one of the reasons that
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is able to take it to these extremes,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: because he takes something that some Americans might identify with,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: might be uncomfortable with, and then blows it up so
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: big that it becomes a you know, a fixation, and
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: he's able then to justify these major or try to
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: at least justify these major incursions into what are supposed
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: to be private institutions.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, there's room for improvement. No, that's not really a
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: reason why he's doing this. Look, I spent thirty five
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: years on college campuses. I could take a camera every
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: day to campus and find kids arguing with each other
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  Speaker 3: and put it on television and make the college look
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: awful both from the right and left. But colleges do
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: lean left, There's no doubt about it. And I say
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  Speaker 3: that as somebody who was a conservative on a campus.
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  Speaker 3: You know that. To me, there's no argument that college's private,
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  Speaker 3: elite universities lean left in their faculty and in their
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: student body. But I think the judge is absolutely right
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: that the Trumpet is blowing this up as a social
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: as a wedge issue in society to say to the magabase,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: who you know, I mean, most people just don't aren't
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: ever going to interact with these major universities. To say
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: I'm going after people that really deserve it. I'm going
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: to stick it to people that you don't like, instead
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: of doing something constructive, which conservatives did do some years ago,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: to say, listen, we're going to build up other colleges.
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  Speaker 3: We're going to put funding into state universities and other
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  Speaker 3: places where the children of the working class. Do go
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  Speaker 3: and make sure that we can make affordable alternatives. You know,
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: if you don't like Harvard, don't apply to Harvard. But
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: this is not what they're doing. What they want to
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  Speaker 3: do is take these institutions down because they have an
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  Speaker 3: innate resentment of these schools that can't be satisfied really
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: by anything other than just ripping them apart. And that's
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: not really about politics. That's about this particular kind of
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  Speaker 3: movement that's now occupying the White House.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Tom Nichols, Ashley Parker, stick around for US Judge,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Judge John Jones, so many Jays I keep getting tripped up.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being with us today.