Fixing Higher Ed: The Bailey-Caplan Convo

The legendary sex researcher interviews me on social returns, wokeness, austerity, and much more

Michael Bailey is one of the world’s foremost sex researchers, best-known for the ahead-of-its-time The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism (2003). Alice Dreger profiles Bailey in her Galileo’s Middle Finger, chronicling the persecution Bailey suffered simply for arguing that autogynephilia is a major cause of gender dysphoria.

Last month, Michael Bailey interviewed me on higher education, focusing on my most controversial views. Here’s his list of questions:

1. Although I want to focus attention on what in higher education is worth saving, let’s begin by discussing what is wrong. Just this week you cosigned what I believe is an important statement from the Manhattan Institute, “The Manhattan Statement on Higher Education.” Can you tell us more about that statement? Like how did it happen, and what are its main points?

2. The statement pinpointed two recent crises that revealed big problems: the 2020 Summer of George Floyd and the past two years of pro-Palestinian protests. To what extent do you think that universities have declined, and when did this happen?

3. Why did it the recent decline happen?

4. You have compared the recent politicization of universities to the McCarthy era. Which is worse?

5. In thinking about what is worth saving in universities, it is useful to make some distinctions:

a. Educating students versus scholarly research

b. STEM versus Social Sciences versus traditional Humanities versus the new “Studies”

6. “Case Against Education” focuses on students. Too many students spending too much time in school. Signaling is costly (that’s the point to some degree). Given this perspective, tell us how concerned you are about current educational trends, with respect to educating students. Should we care about meritocratic admission, for example, and if so, why? Should we care what students are taught, if they don’t retain much anyway?

7. You think that government funding of higher education has been a main contributor to students’ signaling-related wasted time. Has it contributed to the recent problems in higher education? How much government funding for higher education (i.e., educating students) should there be, and what restrictions should there be?

8. You write less about scholarly research, even while conducting a great deal of it. You write about being grateful for being a professor–having one of the best jobs in the world. (I agree with you.) You are endearingly modest.

I have strong opinions about trends in research scholarship, and I’d like you to weigh in:

a. First, scholarly research can be quite important–not just a nice way to earn a living. (In fact, I think your work exemplifies this.)

b. This is true even in the social/behavioral sciences, which are increasingly dismissed in favor of STEM.

c. Because of this, ideological capture of scholarly research has been especially harmful. Especially in social-behavioral science.

d. In most disciplines, it takes high intelligence to do scholarly research worth caring about. So, trading meritocratic selection for other considerations (like diversity) is especially harmful in hiring faculty.

e. Perhaps the legal case was easier to make against affirmative action in undergraduate admission, but practicing affirmative action in faculty hiring is much more damaging.

f. Btw, too many students go to college. Do we have too many research faculty? By what multiple?

9. The problem with faculty hiring compared with student hiring is that objective criteria are less clear. So, there’s more room for ideological discrimination. Got any suggestions?

10. Some argue for “ideological diversity” or “political diversity”–increase the number of Republicans, conservatives, or whatever. This may be a lot better than nothing, and it may be the best we can do, but there’s a lot of dumb stuff going on in the Right too. Is there any hope for simply “open inquiry with clear, rational, thinking?”

11. If you had the power, would you close departments and disciplines in universities? If so, which?

12. What is our attitude about Trump’s attacks on certain prestigious universities? Do you think that Columbia’s dealmaking will actually improve things, for example?

13. How do you feel about being a university professor right now compared with one year ago? Are we headed in a better, or a worse, direction?

14. Among intellectuals who accept there are big problems in higher education, there is a spectrum of urgency and willingness to intervene. On the more urgent/interventionist end is Chris Rufo. Recently, Steven Pinker argued against the Trump administrations attacks on Harvard. Where are you on that continuum?

15. What do you think about the following organizations/individuals that have been trying to change things, in different ways:

a. Heterodox Academy

b. FIRE

c. University of Austin

Curious to hear my responses? Watch the video below.