America has an Ivy League problem. With each day comes a new ridiculous headline or opinion poll showing how Ivy League students, alumni, and administrators are growing increasingly out of touch with common sense. This growing divergence, coupled with the disproportionate influence of Ivy League graduates in the public sphere, has sparked new levels of outrage and animosity against these institutions. The average Ivy League graduate holds starkly different policy views from his non-Ivy counterpart, including the job performance of President Biden, the use of consumer controls to “fight climate change,” and even the importance of individual liberty. On campuses, students openly voice their support for terrorism, disrupt classes, and intimidate fellow students. This social rift is doing real damage to American culture. It is not, however, an insurmountable challenge.
A month ago, Fox Nation captured these trends in Poison Ivy, Pete Hegseth’s exposé of the Ivy League’s moral and intellectual decline. I had the privilege of being featured in the special alongside my friend and fellow student Alexandra Orbuch, where we discussed our experiences as conservative Princeton students, particularly in the wake of Hamas’ October 7th attacks on Israel. The special traced the Ivy League’s takeover by progressives, starting with the colleges’ Protestant origins and following their Dantean descent into secular progressivism. Despite including some optimistic perspectives, namely from Princeton professor Robert P. George, the special ended with little hope for the universities’ futures. Many of those featured, including Kaleigh McEnany, Meghan McCain, and Pete Hegseth, questioned whether they would allow their kids to attend their Ivy League alma maters.
Although understandable, their pessimism is misguided. Despite the ideological capture of Ivy League universities, it would be a mistake to leave them, especially given the opportunities to change them from the inside. When it comes to these historic institutions, the conservative response should be attack, not retreat. If the recent months and years have demonstrated anything about higher education, it is that a conservative presence is crucial to combatting the excesses of progressivism. If conservatives abandon the Ivy League, then who will challenge political orthodoxy on these campuses? More importantly, if conservatives retreat, who will be invested in restoring these institutions to a role that embraces their deep history and maintains truth and excellence as guiding principles?
Although the “Ivy League” has itself become a metonym – and epithet – for elite, progressive-dominated higher education more generally, one must not neglect the unique histories of its eight constitutive universities. Seven of these eight are so-called “colonial colleges,” institutions which preceded, and in many ways shaped, the United States. If conservatives are still serious about maintaining the American Founding as their political lodestar, they must fight to preserve the institutions that were crucial to its development. To abandon historic institutions because they are currently controlled by ideological opponents is to cease being conservative, at least in any meaningful sense of the term.
This task, however, will not be easy. It will take a level of dedication and fortitude not recently seen in conservative politics, but it can be, and will be, possible. It is here that a look to the Founding itself – particularly as experienced by my own university – can provide a lesson from which today’s conservatives can learn.
During the early months of the American Revolution, Princeton University – then called the College of New Jersey – was caught in the crossfire of war. In December of 1776, the Continental Army was beleaguered, cold, and dwindling. The British had swiftly captured New York and New Jersey, and Washington’s men were pushed back into eastern Pennsylvania. The town of Princeton was overrun by redcoats. Across the country, the American people awaited a miracle. Luckily, the miracle came.
On December 19, pamphleteer Thomas Paine – renowned for his revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense – published the first number in a series called The American Crisis. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” Paine declared. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” A week later, in the early morning hours of December 26, Washington’s army made its famed crossing of the Delaware River, surprising and defeating Hessian troops in Trenton. To a demoralized Continental Army, Paine’s words were as forceful and rousing as a battle drum.
A little over a week after the Battle of Trenton, these same soldiers ran across a British force in Princeton, just a mile from the college that today bears its name. After a 45-minute engagement, the American troops emerged from the smoke victorious, forcing the British troops to retreat further from New Jersey. Shortly after the battle ended, Washington and his army, including a 19-year-old artillery commander named Alexander Hamilton, recaptured the college from the British. It proved to be a turning point in the war, and it breathed new life into the revolutionary cause.
Just as Paine’s words held the key to retaking Princeton from the British in 1777, they hold the key to wrangling America’s elite universities away from their prevailing ideological commitments. Luckily for conservatives, the momentum is shifting. Last year, the Supreme Court finally put an end to race-based affirmative action, paving the way for universities, especially highly-selective ones, to be true to their promise of holistic evaluation. Ivy League universities faced the greatest public accountability in recent memory after antisemitism exploded on their campuses, culminating with the resignation of the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, in response to worries about the decline in admissions standards during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dartmouth and Yale became the first Ivy League schools to reinstate their standardized testing requirement for admissions.
While positive, the progress wrought by these changes will be for naught if not followed by a continued effort to reform these universities. Crucially, if this effort is to have any chance of meaningful success, it must come from within. Students are vital in maintaining conservative pressure on Ivy League universities, especially on their professors and peers. Combined with strong campus infrastructure like the James Madison Program at Princeton and the Buckley Institute at Yale, a robust conservative student presence serves as the sole counterbalance to the beliefs held by a majority of their peers.
Ivy League universities are certainly not the paragons of elite higher education in America. There are countless universities at which students can receive a quality education that prepares them for a successful and purposeful life. Nevertheless, the eight Ivies are historically important, resource-rich, and well-networked institutions from which conservative students can greatly benefit. Going forward, conservatives should not relish the decline of America’s first universities. The reputational damage suffered by Ivy League schools should not be an opportunity for schadenfreude – it should be an opportunity for reflection and change. If conservatives view the Ivy League not simply as a metonym for progressive elitism but as a collection of eight historic institutions ripe with potential, they can begin the necessary work of reorienting them towards a mission centered on truth, knowledge, and pride in a common American heritage. To begin these changes, there is no better place to start than with the students themselves.
So, to prospective students, I encourage you to apply to schools in the Ivy League. Apply to schools you think might be “too progressive.” Apply to schools where you might be outnumbered. Follow the advice from Thomas Paine and embrace the challenge ahead. Be a winter soldier. You will not regret it.
(George Washington in Front of Nassau Hall, Edward Percy Moran – Princeton University Art Museum)
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