Crisis on college campuses: What university presidents can learn from the Founding Fathers

In this book excerpt from "Life After Power," author Jared Cohen shares the campus controversy during Thomas Jefferson's tenure at the University of Virginia — and what can be learned from it today.

Then, recently, amid rising campus antisemitism and the Israel-Hamas war, prominent university presidents made a controversial appearance on Capitol Hill. After that, scrutiny on them and what’s been going on at their campuses skyrocketed. Within weeks, two of the presidents had resigned. A mask-wearing mob of students had torn across the University of Virginia’s lawn, throwing bottles of urine through the windows of their instructors’ homes. The three Founding Fathers were disciplinarians scolding entitled students, and they took their roles seriously and had the students’ respect. Jefferson was far too overcome with emotion and disappointment to speak. He burst into tears, so shaken that he had to sit down. Why had a student mob so disturbed Jefferson? Because, he believed, the mob threatened the future of the university, and with the founding generation dying out, the country needed its universities to succeed in order to pass the torch.   Jefferson wanted the school out of the business of indoctrination, and for it to teach students how to think, not what to think.  The school was flawed, but it was to be a place where leaders were educated and learned to recognize their faults, and thus drive progress. Higher education sets the United States apart from other countries, and the freedoms that make it possible attract the best and brightest.  Jared Cohen is a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is "Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House" (Feb. 2024, S&S). 

With trust in higher education likely to fall further, historian Niall Ferguson wrote in The Free Press, "The question is whether we … can do something about it?"