‘The young must be educated into the political regime,’ writes Christopher Rufo.
William Galston disputes my notion that “education is at heart a political question” (“Ron DeSantis’s Illiberal Education,” Politics & Ideas, Aug. 30). There are two ways in which education is indisputably political.
First, the obvious: Public universities are by definition political institutions, in that they are chartered, funded and governed by the state. The ultimate authority over the government rests with the people, who settle the highest questions of public-university governance through the political and legislative process.
Second, in the deeper sense, education is a political concern and the young must be educated into the political regime. “That the legislator must, therefore, make the education of the young his object above all would be disputed by no one,” Aristotle writes in his “Politics.” “One should educate with a view to each sort, for the character that is proper to each sort of regime both customarily safeguards the regime and establishes it at the beginning.” Mr. Galston mistakes modern liberal shibboleths for “classical liberal education.”
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Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Critical Race Theory at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal. He is the author of the new book, America's Cultural Revolution.
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