Higher education is in crisis. Majors in the humanities have been in decline for many years, and universities are often criticized for being dominated by political correctness and student activism. But are these two things related? Are students responding to a longstanding technocratic and vocational ethos in universities that ignores moral agency? Could it be that student activism reveals an understandable need for moral and even religious reflection overlooked in academia?

Ross Douthat of the New York Times joins Tom Merrill of American University to discuss the roots of the current situation of academia and the prospects for a renewal of the humanities.