Universities May Offend You. That’s How Innovation Works.
Yes, college campuses are full of oddballs with strange — and sometimes objectionable — ideas. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Academia: Home of the weirdos — and innovators.
Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg
Nearly every story about an American university could start with the caveat: “Most of the people mentioned in this article are either teenagers or at least somewhat crazy.” But, to borrow the parlance of Silicon Valley, higher education’s embrace of oddballs and their out-of-the mainstream ideas isn’t a bug — it’s a feature.
Colleges have always been hothouses of activism that create hostility in some of those outside the campus gates, particularly on the right. This is exemplified in a 2021 speech by Yale Law School alumnus JD Vance titled “The Universities are the Enemy,” and has culminated in the Trump administration’s move to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding to Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, with many more cuts expected soon.