John Adams Warned Us About the Professors

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | October 2, 2026 | Sherman Criner

[karpov]

For the first time in its history, the American Association of University Professors has endorsed a political candidate, and—you guessed it—he’s a democratic socialist. On July 30, the organization formally endorsed democratic socialist Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for U.S. Senate in Michigan’s Democratic primary, positioning him as a “fierce champion for debt-free and tuition-free higher education” and an ally in its fight against “the Trump administration’s ideological assault on the sector.”

This decision is, of course, deeply dangerous.

For one, it signals to an entire generation of young people that to be college educated in America is, well, to be a democratic socialist. As is the case with these sorts of things, many conservatives have therefore characterized the AAUP’s endorsement of a Marxist politician as a clear, revolutionary break from our liberal traditions of institutional neutrality, academic freedom, and open inquiry. Other, more thoughtful conservatives lament how one of the nation’s historic academic institutions, prided for its evenhandedness and academic stature, has “transformed into little more than another advocacy organization.”

But what if precisely the opposite were true? What if these professors, in endorsing El-Sayed, were not throwing off or altering the tradition of American higher education, but fulfilling its end? Allow me to explain.

Today, when Americans discuss solutions to social ills, we almost instinctively do so through the lens of education. If one community struggles with crime, poverty, or another oft-discussed system, we attribute it to unequal access to education. If another enjoys greater wealth and influence, we look for educational advantages—elite schools, legacy admissions, expensive college counselors, or other forms of privilege. Our politics are utterly saturated with this language of opportunity and access.

This faith in education rests upon a particular understanding of human nature.

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TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: aaup; academia; dsa; sicialism; socialists

[fruser1]

Experts from ancient times told us that human sacrifice was a good idea because it regularly fed the gods of death and would therefore avert natural catastrophes that killed many people in one fell swoop.

In today’s society, we no longer have human sacrifice, but we still have experts.

[Fungi]

Endowment market values of US private institutions, FY2024–FY2025
1 Harvard University MA $55.67 $51.98 +7.11%
2 Yale University CT $44.15 $41.44 +6.53%
3 Stanford University CA $40.79 $37.63 +8.38%
4 The Trustees of Princeton University NJ $36.42 $34.05 +6.94%
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology MA $27.37 $24.57 +11.37%
6 The University of Pennsylvania PA $24.81 $22.35 +11.01%
7 University of Notre Dame IN $20.09 $17.90 +12.26%
8 Columbia University in the City of New York NY $15.92 $14.78 +7.68%
9 Northwestern University IL $15.17 $14.21 +6.74%
10 Johns Hopkins University MD $13.73 $13.06 +5.14%
11 Washington University in St. Louis MO $13.30 $11.98 +11.00%
12 Duke University NC $12.32 $11.89 +3.60%

Values are in Billions.
And yes, I would guess many of these professors are from these schools, and not one of these schools offers free tuition. So why don’t these professors start with their own schools? Stupid question.

[doc maverick]

These professors are just bottom feeders who parasitize their graduate students and the taxpayers.
Many are cuckoo, anti-Christian, anti-Jew and are pompous atheists.

[Political Junkie Too]

There was an interesting passage in the biography John Adams, by David McCullough, where Adams writes of teaching (home-schooling!) his son John Quincy, who was seventeen (that would be in 1784):

If you were to examine him in English and French poetry, I know not where you would find anybody his superior... He has translated Virgil's Aeneid... the whole of Sallust and Tacitus' Agricola... a great part of Horace, some of Ovid, and some of Caesar's Commentaries... besides Tully's [Cicero's] Orations...

In Greek his progress has not been equal; yet has he studied morsels of Aristotle's Politics, in Plutarch's Lives, and Lucian's Dialogues, The Choice of Hercules in Xenophon, and lately he has gone through several books in Homer's Iliad.

In mathematics I hope he will pass muster. In the course of the last year... I have spent my evenings with him. We went with some accuracy through the geometry of the Preceptor, the eight books of Simpson's Euclid in Latin,.. We went through plane geometry... algebra, and the decimal fractions, arithmetical and geometrical proportions... I then attempted a sublime flight and endeavored to give him some idea of the differential method of calculations...[and] Sir Isaac Newton; but alas, it is thirty years since I thought of mathematics.

Letter from John Adams to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, former tutor to John Quincy Adams, pp. 324-325

-PJ

[real saxophonist]

I know this is about John Adams, but Thomas Jefferson, Founder of the University of Virginia, had something to say about those vile Muslims.

[Recompennation]

Mostly those who could not get a real job so they stayed in school and attrition’d their way along to the tenure fixtured placearooo.

[Retain Mike]

"democratic socialist"

If you reason forward from ancient Greece, I can't imagine a better example of an oxymoron.

[Varsity Flight]

Professor Wilson.

[Varsity Flight]

Bryn Mawr College, Wesleyan University, Wilson on the faculty at Princeton University 1890 as a professor .

[marktwain]

A good essay. Worth reading.