> Perhaps the stupidest idea that everyone takes for granted is that higher education in the United States is left-wing. … > Whatever else colleges and univer

> Perhaps the stupidest idea that everyone takes for granted is that higher education in the United States is left-wing. … > Whatever else colleges and universities do in the United States, they define and police our most consequential social hierarchy, the dividing line between a prosperous if precarious professional class and a larger, often immiserated, working class. The credentials universities provide are no guarantee of escape from paycheck-to-paycheck living, but statistically they are a near prerequisite. > The academy itself is incredibly hierarchical. Within a university, distinctions reign between a graduate student or postdoc, an adjunct, an assistant professor on tenure track, an associate versus full professor. These ranks are salient and consequential, treated as legitimate and earnestly policed.