Social Context (Fred Speaking)
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Wait a minute. The bald assertion that this university reflects the hierarchies of power and privilege in the surrounding society is just a piece of radical rhetoric.

Of course there is some truth in what you are saying. The state legislature is a power in the larger society and it creates and funds the university. Big business is a power in the larger society and the university often considers its needs when it establishes programs of study. For example, we wouldn't encourage students to major in computer science if there weren't a brisk demand for people with computer skills.

But in some ways the university community is quite different from the larger society, and some of those differences are relevant to your argument. It is obvious that people with very liberal social views on race, gender, religion, sex, and sexual orientation are much more influential on campus than elsewhere. No one would deny that. Especially in the liberal arts there is a marked liberal leaning among the faculty and graduate students. I'm not saying that that is good or bad. My point is simply that in this very important respect your claim that the university mirrors the hierarchies of the larger society is incorrect.

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