Activism

George Stigler once usefully defined an activist as someone who uses his mouth a lot more than his brain. I note, from an article in the University of Chicago Maroon (the student paper), that Mother Jones magazine, an activist rag that fits Stigler’s definition exactly, declared the University of Chicago seventh in the world for activism, apparently because about 60 students got upset with Taco Bell. When I was an undergraduate there, we used to call the Maroon the Moron, with good reason. It seems not to have changed. But there is one passage in the Maroon’s report that speaks volumes about the state of universities.

Jonah Rubin, a student activist, has been working with SOUL for two years. Last year the organization focused on anti-sweatshop efforts, and it is currently working on hospital employee contract negotiations. Rubin, a second-year, notes his initial impression of the school.
“I was under the impression that [the University] was this fortress of conservatism, but I came in to find activism—and a lot of student support for it,” Rubin said. “Everyone involved was really pumped up.”

Leave aside the question of why he came to the university in the first place. The University of Chicago is hardly a conservative place. It is simply a place where conservatives are less likely to be harrassed (note that I very explicitly do not say a place where they are not harrassed). That is all you need in the academic racket to be perceived as a conservative institution.
On a related note, William Robertson, whose family gave a bundle of money to Princeton, writes in the LA Times about the hazards of giving money to universities. Sounds right to me.