Once a thriving regional university with a strong reputation for the liberal arts, the University of Tulsa is in deep trouble these days. Professor Jacob Howland explains the school’s sad decline in this City Journal essay.

Part of the difficulty is the money the university’s previous administration squandered on athletics, but the real malignancy is the new president’s vision, which Howland describes as turning Tulsa “into a glorified trade school with a social justice agenda.”


The liberal arts are being pushed aside in favor of recruiting first-generation students and offering them occupational training programs — but as Howland observes, few such students could possibly afford the tuition. Leftist ideology is seeping into every corner of the university: a Diversity Action Plan, mandatory training to combat “unconscious bias,” and other progressive goodies. A revealing instance of the mindset in control of Tulsa is that during the Kavanaugh hearings, President Gerard Clancy felt the need to send around a campus-wide letter to comfort students, telling them that they need not worry about their “safety and acceptance” at the university.

Read the whole depressing thing.

There may, however, be a glimmer of hope. Professor Howland has told me that opposition to Clancy’s agenda is building up. It will be very interesting to see how that plays out.