The Myth of the Academic Social Contract

Conservative attacks on higher education have often expressed unique ire for feminist and gender studies as emblematic of a left-wing bias and overemphasis on identity in U.S. universities. Such critics of higher education long for a recentering of education that emphasizes the triumphs of Western civilization to restore universities’ social contract with the U.S. taxpayer. This brief essay offers a critique of the idea of an academic social contract, and notes that the targeting of gender may signal not just a right-wing ideological takeover, but an authoritarian one.