Universities Are Poor Substitutes for Churches as Centers of Liberal Moral Formation
Source: Jay Caspian Kang. "How the University Replaced the Church as the Home of Liberal Morality | The New Yorker." February 17, 2026. www.newyorker.com
The Gist
The author argues that universities have become the new churches for liberal Americans, but they're terrible at this job. Unlike churches that welcomed everyone, universities are expensive and exclusive, so the activism they produce only helps other privileged people instead of creating real change for society.
Conclusion
The university should not serve as the primary moral and ethical center of liberal culture, as it is fundamentally unsuited for this role and produces ineffective social justice movements
Premises
- Universities have replaced churches as the center of liberal moral imagination over the past 30 years
- Elite universities are intentionally exclusionary institutions that only serve a privileged subset of the population
- University-based activism suffers from 'elite capture' - focusing on internal institutional changes rather than broader systemic reform
- Modern protest movements processed through university-educated elites produce limited results (corporate HR changes, academic reforms) rather than meaningful social change
- The church-based civil rights and sanctuary movements of previous eras achieved more substantial reforms than contemporary university-incubated movements
- Education polarization creates a quasi-religious divide where college and non-college populations don't share the same values or sense of community
- A moral system centered in expensive, exclusive institutions cannot effectively reach or represent the broader population
Assumptions
- Moral formation requires inclusive, accessible institutions rather than exclusive ones
- Effective social justice movements need broad-based community support beyond elite circles
- The church historically provided better moral infrastructure for progressive movements than universities currently do
- Elite capture is an inherent problem when privileged institutions lead social movements
- Moral authority should come from institutions that serve all social classes, not just the educated elite