Derek Bok, who twice served as Harvard’s president, has written a new book wherein he responds to critics of elite colleges — on the right and on the left. He doesn’t reflexively defend colleges, admitting that the critics have some valid points. But on the whole, Bok is very pleased with our elites, regarding them as something of a national treasure.

In today’s Martin Center article, I review the book, Attacking the Elites:
What Critics Get Wrong—and Right—About America’s Leading Universities, which I found to be not very impressive.

First, there is the matter of “eliteness.” Bok holds onto the notion that because a college is thought of as elite it does great things for students, setting them on a path far better than they would otherwise have had. That’s not the case. Places like Harvard don’t necessarily educate students any better than do non-elite schools, and often they do worse because the faculty are so wrapped up in their research and publishing that they neglect the students. And in praising the elites, Bok ignores the many bad ideas that have emanated from them, such as the DEI mania.

As for the left-wing critics, Bok finds merit in some of their arguments that the elites are not doing enough to solve the world’s problems, but pleads that there are limits to what college leaders can do.

To critics on the right, Bok says that the leftist faculty aren’t indoctrinating students but admits that these critics make a valid point about the intellectual lopsidedness and the way it obstructs clear thinking.

In a chapter I found most unpersuasive, Bok argues that the attacks on “diversity” preferences are mistaken. He cites his own 1998 book on that but none of the more recent criticism of racial preferences by writers who show the harm such preferences do.

I’ll give Bok a C+.