Everyone seems to agree that universities have problems and need some kind of reform. But what are the problems and what kind of reforms are needed? Unfortunately, higher education’s pathologies are too pervasive, too widespread, and too entrenched for universities to be able to make the necessary reforms themselves. If universities are to be repaired, the reform must be radical: it must come from those outside the ivory tower.

Brandon Warmke is Associate Professor of Humanities at the University of Florida's Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. He was previously Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University and, during the 2023–2024 academic year, a visiting fellow at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research spans moral responsibility, forgiveness, free expression, and public discourse.

The professoriate wields enormous power over society in the long run. They shape the future elites, especially because a university degree is essential for social advancement. But the academy is not democratically accountable: who is hired and what is taught is determined by the professoriate, not the public. What’s more, the academy is politically homogeneous. Do universities then undermine democratic legitimacy? In other words, do we live in a true democracy, given the unchecked power of the professoriate? This talk will explore the uneasy relationship between democratic ideals and the modern university system as it stands.

Hrishikesh Joshi is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Arizona and a core faculty member at the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom. He previously taught at Bowling Green State University and held a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research focuses on normative issues at the intersection of philosophy, politics, and economics, with recent work on epistemological questions in this area, as well as meta-ethics and ethical theory.