The radicals fabricate an ugly classroom disruption, crying racism and pretending that students are being triggered by the study of Huckleberry Finn. Someone must be found guilty of something! What else are college years for other than to cultivate conspicuous compassion and parade one’s elaborately fine-tuned insights into the unquestionable righteousness of victimhood? What better cause than racism, and why not Russell, whose syllabus contains too many white men? Besides he has already bruised the sensitivities of a student by respectfully deflecting her attempts to hijack class time with the endless SJW struggle sessions that she wants to conduct upon him. That is, until he is targeted by student radicals in search of a soft target for their manufactured outrage. He faces his tenure-decision year as the novel unfolds.ĭevon epitomizes professional fulfillment and personal contentment for Russell. He seized a propitious moment and managed to get hired at Devon, and to do his job well. Raised as a working-class Southerner, Russell worked his way through the academic ranks without the benefit of anything a sensible person could call privilege. The main character is the hapless and soon-beleaguered Ephraim Russell, a professor of nineteenth-century American literature. Indeed, the children seem to be in charge while the professoriate and administration is either on board with Social Justice culture or running scared of its warriors. The student body is comprised of a mix of grade-hungry achievers, boorish fraternity boys, academic status seekers, and others (“the silent majority”?), but a vocal and determined set of social justice warriors sets the tone. A super-wealthy (and non-taxpaying) institution focuses on expansion and “upgrading” its brand. At the top, a burgeoning administration takes its cues from the corporate world, speaking its vocabulary and pursuing its aims. Johnston may have graduated when they still showed music on MTV, and he has never worked in higher education, but this sure-handed and entertaining satire not only has its fingers on the pulse of contemporary academe, it has taken its X-rays and done the lab work to see just what ails it. In Scott Johnston’s satirical first novel Campusland, Devon (located in the small Connecticut city of Havenport) is a thinly disguised version of the author’s alma mater, Yale. Or maybe the question has become not whether but how quickly will college administrators cave? Milton Strauss, president of fictional Devon University reaches his limit in a few days, promising- you guessed it-$50 million for-right again-minority faculty hiring and minority student programming. Would the president of an elite university cave in to the demands of campus militants to the tune of $50 million in order to buy temporary peace? In case four years of nonstop reports of campus cancel culture have blurred your memory, here is a reminder: Peter Salovey, President of Yale, did just that in 2015, promising to plump up minority faculty hiring and to throw lots more money at already existing minority-oriented programs.
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