Something has gone profoundly wrong in  American higher education. It is visible at the top – that is, at the leading universities – and, as usual, it then tends to filter down to the more standard institutions.  Yale University gave me my first academic job (Assistant Professor of Psychology) many years ago and, since then, I have often heard from former colleagues about disorder and decline in its “sacred halls.”

Nathan Harden, a frequent contributor to Ricochet and recent graduate of Yale, has done a  book telling the sad story and trying to search out its causes. Here’s our recent discussion about how hedonism and mindlessness have undermined tradition and intellectual seriousness at one (and not the only one) of our great educational strongholds.