Many conservatives see higher education as a threat to their reactionary and corporate oriented interests and would like to defund higher education, privatize it, eliminate tenure, and define the working conditions of faculty to something resembling the labor practices of Walmart workers.
Henry GirouxThe value of making young people stupid, subject to an educational deficit has enormous currency in a society in which existing relations of power are normalized. Under such conditions, those who hold power accountable are reviewed as treasonous while critically engaged young people are denounced as un-American.
Henry GirouxRuling elite have think tanks, they have research institutes, they've invaded universities, they've monopolized the cultural apparatuses.
Henry GirouxInforming people about the world's problems opens up the possibility to address them and change them. Anything else is simply willful ignorance. I mean, what the hell should we do? Sit around blowing up balloons? Watching Disney-sponsored movies? I don't think so.
Henry GirouxWhile the universities are increasingly corporatized and militarized, their governing structures are becoming more authoritarian, faculty are being devalued as public intellectuals, students are viewed as clients, academic fields are treated as economic domains for providing credentials, and work place skills, and academic freedom is under assault.
Henry Giroux