“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe! You have to make it fall,” the Argentinean Marxist Che Guevara once declared.1 At the time he was referring to Fidel Castro’s role in the Cuban revolution. But his words seem apt for today’s college campuses, where American students are the revolutionary apples, and higher education is busy tree-whacking.
Universities in the United States are increasingly trading their academic mission for a social mission. They see themselves as responsible for contributing to solutions for the great problems of our time. These conscience-troubling problems include racism, the unequal distribution of wealth, and impending environmental catastrophe. To combat these issues, universities are changing curricula, policies, and the spirit on campus.
The primary direction of the movement seems to be top-down. College presidents set the tone by declaring their institutions’
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