Victor Davis Hanson is a historian and an educator, and he understands context as well as anyone. He evaluates the core issues with our nation’s colleges in his latest article.

The sheer madness that has gripped many elite universities since October 7 and the butchery, rape, torture, and mutilation of some 1,000 Israeli civilians by Hamas murderers have shocked the public at large.

Campus craziness is, of course, nothing new. But quite novel for campuses was the sudden jettisoning of prior campus pretenses. Universities have brazenly dropped their careful two-faced gymnastics to reveal at last — unapologetically, proudly, and defiantly — the moral decay that now characterizes American higher education.

He points to several recent news stories involving gross displays of anti-Semitic hatred and intolerance on various campuses to illustrate the moral rot that he argues is not new.

There was plenty of prior evidence to predict the hate-filled, bigoted, campus reaction to the mass murder of hundreds of Jews inside Israel. The ideology of “decolonization” that today condemns Israel, and the West generally, has had many equally rancid predecessors.

Racially segregated housing reappeared years ago as “theme houses.” Effectively segregated, no-go areas are euphemistically known as “multi-cultural rooms.” Any critics who have objected to such institutionalized racism, in Orwellian fashion, have been smeared as racists.

Events that are off-limits to particular races on campus — like separate but equal graduation ceremonies or campus activities — are heralded as “celebrating diversity.”

Joseph-McCarthy-era “loyalty oaths” have returned to campus under the woke veneer of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statements.” Refuse to issue such a personal manifesto — and one will suffer career consequences.

Unpopular or unwelcome questioning of left-wing university orthodoxy is libeled as “hate speech.” Dissenting views are officially censored, slandered and suppressed as “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

Face unproven allegations of “inappropriate behavior” and one can expect to lose one’s 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment rights in any star-chamber university inquiry.

Admissions to universities, along with faculty hiring, retention, and tenure, are predicated on racial preferences and de facto quotas.

Why have Americans put up with this for so long already? A couple of reasons, Hanson says:

One: universities assured America that their preeminent math, science, technology, and engineering departments — along with their professional medical and business schools — remained largely apolitical, research-orientated, and meritocratic.

Those departmental commitments to excellence without political interference had in the past always ensured American dominance in global research and development.

Two: the bachelor’s degree was once acknowledged as solid proof of a general education.

Graduation from college once supposedly certified that a citizen entered the work force with historical literacy, as well as enriched by philosophy, literature, and art.

Graduates also then purportedly understood our Constitution and civic life. They were assumed to have basic computational skills, as well as being versed in inductive reasoning and in analytical reading, writing, and speaking ability.

These things are no longer true, which Hanson explains briefly. And Americans are increasingly less willing to put up with it. So, what can be done? Hanson has a few ideas:

Reform will only come through curtailing the government handouts that fuel multibillion dollar university endowments. Such unprecedented affluence ensures lavish campus budgets that in turn subsidize racist, anti-Semitic, and McCarthyite policies and institutions. …

Stop federal funds to any university that refuses to ensure Bill-of-Rights protections for its students. …

Get the government out of the $1.8 trillion student loan business — and perhaps campuses would understand the concept of moral hazard. Only then would they monitor carefully extraneous expenditures and begin graduating students in four years — with the skills that employers so desperately need and the knowledge that a democracy relies upon.

He concludes:

In short, colleges are now a bad deal — far too costly, too political, and too incompetent in fulfilling their mission to the country. They no longer can deliver on what they were created for, and they simply will not stop fueling things that are not just unnecessary, but downright injurious to the country, scary, and destructive.

Who wishes to continue with all that?

Read the whole thing here.