Abstract
This article offers a broad sketch of claims regarding the university's public purpose in the 1960s while noting that a vision of the university as an autonomous forum for moral debate cut across the seemingly insurmountable divide between young radicals and their liberal elders. Read through the lens of educational philosophies, the era's clashes did not simply pit liberal advocates of political neutrality against radical exponents of political commitment. Rather, many radical activists—and some liberals—believed that the university should cut off many of its ties to the wider society to gain a more critical purchase on it. Indeed, critics of Clark Kerr's bureaucratic multiversity often hewed to a surprisingly traditional conception of higher education.
Highlights
This article offers a broad sketch of claims regarding the university’s public purpose in the 1960s while noting that a vision of the university as an autonomous forum for moral debate cut across the seemingly insurmountable divide between young radicals and their liberal elders
They noted, ignorance meant slavery in the complex modern world. They urged each “student-cog” to assert “the right to know” along with something even larger: “It is ours to demand meaning; we must insist upon meaning!” In the vision of the Steering Committee, a free university organized by the students themselves and operating alongside official classes would provide both knowledge and meaning
The free university would catalyze a nationwide revitalization of liberal education, putting a true institution of higher learning in the place of Kerr’s knowledge factory
Summary
This article offers a broad sketch of claims regarding the university’s public purpose in the 1960s while noting that a vision of the university as an autonomous forum for moral debate cut across the seemingly insurmountable divide between young radicals and their liberal elders.
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