LETTER TO THE EDITOR: The character and purpose of universities

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/09/2025 (192 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An opinion piece in the previous issue of this newspaper (University classrooms are too one-sided, Think Again by Michael Zwaagstra) asking readers to “think again” quoted several national opinion polls reporting that university professors and students are disproportionately politically left-of-centre. One consequence is that right-of-centre students then feel that their views are not welcome in the classroom, and hesitate to express them for fear of receiving lower grades. This was said to suppress free expression of “honest and genuine” thoughts, and thereby to violate not only free speech, but the very diversity that the political left values.

While it is correct that most university “classroom discussions are consistently one-sided,” it is not due to partisan politics. It is instead driven by focused pursuit and privileging of actual factual truth, however uncomfortable that may be at times. The ultimate objective of university education is not “diversity of thought,” but rather accuracy of thought. Open and scholarly debate is the means, not the end. Scholars themselves have diverse perspectives, even within academic disciplines, and when they openly acknowledge their subjectivity, they rely on intersubjectivity as the only reliable means of inching toward accuracy.

Yes, “universities should be places where all ideas are welcomed and explored,” but while all opinions certainly have a right to be expressed, not all are equally accurate portrayals of actual reality. Some are truer than others, and the purpose of education is not merely to grant equal credibility to all, but to acquire the cognitive skills necessary to decipher the better explanations of reality. Perhaps the survey data cited suggest the left is a little closer to truth?

That’s the whole purpose of all education. If all ideas and opinions have equal merit, we may as well shut down not just universities but the entire education system, and free everyone to live their own reality in the chaos that would ensue.

Thankfully, the knowledge that education disseminates has progressed, and yes, some opinions have indeed been left behind. For example, it is no longer acceptable to opine that women should not attend university because they lack the intelligence and it is not their role to do so. Nevertheless, students remain free to insist, for another example, that the earth is flat, but doing so legitimately warrants a failing grade. Therefore, to assert that “a campus where everyone looks different but thinks the same is not meaningfully diverse” is to confuse and conflate the participants, the process, and the purpose of comprehending reality as correctly as possible.

Alas, universities are now routinely castigated by the political right as bastions of leftist “woke,” which is slang and slur for being awakened, and which ironically in return casts the political right as unawakened. Are they, by their own language, ideologically asleep, or perhaps in some state of false consciousness perceiving existence not in accord with reality? Regardless, the calling of higher education is to enable all students to see the unseen, to see the strange in the familiar, and to question the answers given, say, by prevailing neoliberal ideology.

Furthermore, it’s fully appropriate for professors (and high school teachers) to assume they know more about what is true in their field of study than their students do. After all, unlike their students, they have devoted their professional lives to exploring the truths of their discipline in the greatest depth and detail possible. That is the very essence of research-driven higher education.

When I teach an Introduction to Sociology class at the University of Manitoba, I reasonably assume that I have accessed more accurate knowledge about social structures and patterns of human behaviour as shaped by human interaction than my students have. I then communicate some of that knowledge to them, respectfully taking into account and engaging as much as possible their backgrounds, perspectives, and opinions. That’s the whole point of the whole enterprise, which would otherwise be pointless.

Loss of trust in academic and scientific expertise, and social institutions more generally, is becoming endemic in our society. Perhaps Canadians are not far from emulating Donald Trump’s attacks on universities. Evidently, he believes he knows more than any and all academic experts, as one cap he frequently wears declares “Trump was right about everything.”

Sadly, but apparently, I cannot write this defense of higher education without sounding biased, arrogant, and “woke,” thereby proving the point of other writers who also denounce my profession.