Prof. Younkins's review of "Retaking College Hill"
A Battle for the Soul of an American University
This novel of ideas is about a small group battling to reestablish the mission of one great Ivy League university based on reason, classical Western education, and liberty. It is the story of a courageous group fighting against the postmodern model of higher education. Retaking College Hill ((RCH) portrays the multitude of problems that American colleges face today and recommends a strategy to respond to them. The innovative strategy followed in RCH reminds me of of the ingenious strategy of the strikeby John Galt and his band of "men of the mind" in Atlas Shrugged.The crusade undertaken to save the heart and soul of this one particular elite university involves many areas such as: mission; admissionspolicies including lower requirements and quotas and racial preferences for diversity; political correctness, tribalism, and victimology; cancel culture including the suppression of views of campus speakers with whom the woke majority disagrees; the grooming of students to become warriors for social justice; easier courses; character assassination and removal of right wing and libertarian professors and administrators; penalties for micro aggressions; abandonment of the university as a forum for open discourse; and the university as a vehicle to cultivate leftist political action...
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This novel of ideas is about a small group battling to reestablish the mission of one great Ivy League university based on reason, classical Western education, and liberty. It is the story of a courageous group fighting against the postmodern model of higher education. Retaking College Hill ((RCH) portrays the multitude of problems that American colleges face today and recommends a strategy to respond to them. The innovative strategy followed in RCH reminds me of of the ingenious strategy of the strikeby John Galt and his band of "men of the mind" in Atlas Shrugged.The crusade undertaken to save the heart and soul of this one particular elite university involves many areas such as: mission; admissionspolicies including lower requirements and quotas and racial preferences for diversity; political correctness, tribalism, and victimology; cancel culture including the suppression of views of campus speakers with whom the woke majority disagrees; the grooming of students to become warriors for social justice; easier courses; character assassination and removal of right wing and libertarian professors and administrators; penalties for micro aggressions; abandonment of the university as a forum for open discourse; and the university as a vehicle to cultivate leftist political action...
Read more.
