Universities are not in the education business. They are in the misty-eyed nostalgia business.
A key part of their revenue consists of donations from aging alumni whose fond memories of late nights with good buddies and first loves serve as a sort of fountain of youth. These emotionally attached older graduates also help ensure that public subsidies to higher education continue to flow without interruption.
But praising Hamas’ “historic attack on the colonizers” for showing “the creativity necessary to take back stolen land” — as the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at my alma mater, Tufts University, just did — is more than most alumni can take. At Tufts, President Sunil Kumar followed SJP’s bloodthirsty communique with a mealy-mouthed statement mourning “the loss of life and those who have been injured in this intense and widespread conflict” and offering counseling resources to students.
Like the profligate child who pleads not to be cut out of his inheritance, Mr. Kumar adjusted his story as necessary to keep the misty-eyed nostalgia money flowing. But students do spend a lot of time in their Greek life events, doing club activities, and cheering at the football games. This is by design. Colleges don’t earn a lifetime of donations from misty-eyed alumni by working them to the bone and threatening to fail them out. But they do cultivate enduring emotional attachments by offering a rich set of social activities and clubs.
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