Since it is ever more obvious that the current academy functions primarily to replicate an increasingly inequitable status quo, it is hard to imagine how it could be restructured to serve a more democratic purpose without external pressure for something like universal free higher education. Whether or not the campus unrest of the long sixties and the still ongoing backlash against it aborted a promising effort to broaden access to that education is hard to tell. Perhaps the time has come to restore that earlier promise. If we do, however, we must heed the demand of the much-maligned sixties radicals for the academy to become relevant as well as accessible. If nothing else, the university of the twenty-first century must stimulate students to think critically. It’s a cliché to be sure. But open and well-trained minds are essential if we are to retain a democratic polity and–dare I say it–save the earth.
–Ellen Schrecker, The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s, 454.