These Are the Kids They Wanted

Elite universities select precisely for the types of students causing mayhem right now.

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451
Pro-Palestinian demonstrate at Columbia University on April 30, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

“If you’re afraid of getting a rotten apple, don’t go to the barrel. Get it off the tree.”

That’s Sean Connery’s advice to Elliot Ness in The Untouchables. I should say it’s the character named Jim Malone’s advice, but let’s face it, Sean Connery always played himself regardless of the role. 

This is a bit of a strained analogy because, well, kids don’t grow on trees among other things. But it gets at what I think is a big part of the problem bedeviling schools like UCLA and Columbia: These are the kinds of kids they wanted. 

I’ll get back to that point in a second, but let’s first review some of the events from yesterday and today that inspired me, against all my plans, to write once again about the campus protests. Yesterday afternoon social media went kind of bonkers—me included—about Johannah King-Slutzky, a graduate student at Columbia, who demanded “basic humanitarian aid” for students illegally occupying Hamilton Hall. The confidence she displays defending her ridiculous demands is truly impressive:

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  1. Mom

    Brilliant! #trulyfreespeech

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  2. Fjmeckel

    I have read this 4 times, and to paraphrase Beetlejuice talking about watching The Exorcist, it keeps getting better, every time I read it. Thank you.

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    Robbutler47

    Just brilliant. And helpful. While I was scratching my head when I listened to King-Stutzky's complaint ( about the lack of quality catering), now I get it. She isn't any less ridiculous, but now the pedigree of her ludicrous perspective is exposed. Columbia is reaping what they sowed.

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    Etreslan

    Just forwarded to my Oxford attending daughter who is far too busy with her studies to encamp!

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  5. Jmgraef

    Some of these things I already knew in this or could have guessed, from my kids’ experiences at UW in Seattle. Many things were new to me, thank you Jonah Goldberg. But having seen Netflix’s “The Social Dilemma” and listened to Sam Harris’ interview with the movie's creator Tristan Harris from one year ago, one wonders what actual thought process and reflection many (not all) students are really capable of these days. Ideas come to them as a contagion already en masse. Many exercise no noticeable independent free will. The actual process of sense observation, leading to insights, reflection, categorization, back to sense observation, and finally to theories and conclusions – who is really doing this anymore in the student body of the elite universities, or in the minds of young people in general? The idea that you could actually not realize that cozying up to Hamas is not that far from cozying up to other death cults such as Hitler’s. That young people could have forgotten, or not investigated for themselves, what motivated Osama bin Laden to hatch the 9/11 plot? Stunning.

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  6. Brian The 2nd

    I would like to see Mr Goldberg address the protests at his elite, selective liberal arts alma mater, Goucher.

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    WKDawson

    The Israel & Palestinian issues aside, ... admittedly a difficult matter to set aside ... a sub-goal of genuine education is to learn to appreciate other points of view. Its application often leaves something to be desired, partly because we are inherently tribal, so we inevitably tend to hang out with people who think similarly to ourselves, even if we are surrounded by a majority of people who think differently from our tribe. Even if you live in a foreign country, you will eventually find yourself longing for conversation with people who share similar values and a common language.

    So, whereas I agree that it seems oft the case that the outcome conforms to what you say, I suspect the reasons that universities (elite or not) make these selections of students are a bit at variance to your view.

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    Tmcke

    This is another piece that is written to say what is really just a conservative talking point, which is to blame much on the elite universities. But who goes to these universities? The children of America's business leaders, best lawyers, best doctors etc. So yes the well to do. And... the universities reflect the wide range of American interests. So we see top notch engineering. The best economists. The best writers and so on. And yes, some social theories are utter nonsense.

    Oh, and the best state universities are not far behind.

    It is not a conspiracy, it is America today.

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    1. Jason Thomas

      What did he "blame" on elite universities? The article says that the universities get the students they want, and what they wanted were students who are trying to undermine traditional power structures...which the universities are part of.

      There's no "blame" there.

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      1. Williams0019

        Agreed. I took Jonah’s point to be that these schools want to blame America and the Joooooooooz (to borrow Jonah’s occasional spelling) for just about everything but he’s playing the Uno reverse card: You reap what you sow.

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    2. Brian The 2nd

      Who else went to them? The writers at The Dispatch.

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  9. AS Upstate

    Amazing article, as usual but I'd like to take a brave stand and defend avocado toast. It's just really good! One of the the best things to emerge out of post cold-war late-capitalist decline.

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  10. Nemmerle924

    I think it would be entertaining to see these protesters in a besieged medieval town yelling down at the encircling army to please let in some food and water to satisfy their “rights.”

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