‘I Was Wrong’: UCLA Professor Admits Conservatives’ Fears Were Justified About Leftist Academics In The Workforce

One academic critic admitted that he was wrong regarding the influence leftist scholars would have on mainstream culture.

Russell Jacoby, author and professor emeritus of history at University California Los Angeles (UCLA), wrote a book in 1987 dismissing conservatives’ fears that students of postmodernism and critical pedagogy would wreak havoc on American culture. 35 years later, in an article Tablet admits that conservatives were correct.

“In 1987 I published ‘The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe’ which elicited heated responses,” Jacoby. “Only now do I see I got something wrong — as did my critics.”

Jacoby claimed that he wrote the book to respond to several bestselling books of the eighties, which speculated that Marxist-derived Critical Theories would be taught in universities to produce leftist activists who would cause chaos in Western civilisation.

“I argued that the conservatives should awake from their nightmare of radical scholars destroying America and relax; academic revolutionaries preoccupied themselves with their careers and perks,” Jacoby. “If they made waves, they were confined to the campus pool.”

Jacoby believed at the time that these academics were too focused on advancing their careers on campus to care about public discourse. 

“They penned unreadable articles and books for colleagues,” Jacoby. “They were less subversive than submissive.”

Jacoby now realizes that he “missed something” He didn’t know this at the time he wrote his book. “the dawning takeover of the public sphere by campus denizens and lingo.”

Jacoby is a historian who studies intellectuals and education. Jacoby attributes this to changes in the university landscape over time. In the 1950s, there were very few public leftists who taught in American universities. Their numbers had increased rapidly by the 1980s but the growth of universities in the United States slowed down in the 1990s, particularly for the Humanities. Many of the jobs that they had hoped to hold as university faculty positions are no longer available.

“In my own department in 10 years we went from accepting over a hundred students for graduate study to under 20 for a simple reason,” Jacoby. “We could not place our students.” 

“The hordes who took courses in critical pedagogy, insurgent sociology, gender studies, radical anthropology, Marxist cinema theory, and postmodernism could no longer hope for university careers,” He added. 

Therefore, leftists who wanted to become university professors were forced to join the workforce. “sensibilities and jargon they learned on campus.”

“It is the exodus from the universities that explains what is happening in the larger culture,” Jacoby. “The leftists who would have vanished as assistant professors in conferences on narratology and gender fluidity or disappeared as law professors with unreadable essays on misogynist hegemony and intersectionality have been pushed out into the larger culture.”

“They staff the ballooning diversity and inclusion commissariats that assault us with vapid statements and inane programs couched in the language they learned in school,” Jacoby went on. “We are witnessing the invasion of the public square by the campus, an intrusion of academic terms and sensibilities that has leaped the ivy-covered walls aided by social media.”

“The buzz words of the campus — diversity, inclusion, microaggression, power differential, white privilege, group safety — have become the buzz words in public life. Already confusing on campus, they become noxious off campus,” He added.

Jacoby continued to discuss the many manifestations of activist capture in our trusted institutions over the past years, including the New York Times publication. op-ed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton advocating for military intervention during the George Floyd riots in 2020, and the paper’s staffers said they felt that the piece put them “in danger.” The article caused so much public outrage, that James Bennett, the op ed editor, was forced into an apology and had to resign.

“When employees protest that they feel unsafe because their company is publishing an offensive article or book, we know what university courses they have taken,” Jacoby. 

“When the ACLU drops any mention of the First Amendment from its annual reports; when one of its directors declares, ‘First Amendment protections are disproportionately enjoyed by people of power and privilege’; and when its counsels its own lawyers to balance free speech and ‘offense to marginalized groups,’ we know they studied critical race theory,” He continued.

The article is a marked departure from Jacoby’s previously held views, as he now recognizes that opposition to freedom of speech comes almost exclusively from the Left. 

“The self-righteous professors have spawned self-righteous students who filter into the public square,” Jacoby said. “The former prospered in their campus enclaves by plumping each other’s brilliance, but they left the rest of us alone.” 

“The latter, their students, however, constitute an unmitigated disaster, intellectually and politically, as they enter the workforce,” He concluded.

Jerry CoyneThe bestselling book was written by, an evolutionary biologist who is also a prolific author. “Why Evolution Is True,” A website hosted by the

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