SOURCE: “To Reform the Academy,” in Saturday Review, Vol. 54, July 17, 1971, pp. 54-55.

In the following essay, Ohmann faults Degradation of the Academic Dogma for blaming the politicization of American universities on post-World War II political developments rather than late-nineteenth-century educational reforms.

How should colleges and universities deal with student unrest and the other stresses that afflict them?

A: “They must restore legitimate authority, mainly that of the faculty, and enforce traditional, and proper, standards of intellectual achievement.”

B: “Nonsense. That's what got us in trouble in the first place. Colleges must put aside rigidities of course, credit, test, grade, and the whole repressive machinery. Listen to students. Give them a voice in policy and control over their own education.”

C: “You're both addressing yourselves to symptoms, not the disease. This is a sick society, and eruptions on the campus are a proper, though inarticulate, response to the war...