Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson spoke with Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger about a string of high-profile controversies in higher education, including the case of Alex Sheay, a Brown University student journalist who was cleared of misconduct after challenging the school’s bloated bureaucracy.
Sheay, a student writer for the conservative campus paper The Brown Spectator, had emailed all 3,800 university administrators asking what they had accomplished in the past week—a pointed but direct inquiry into the administrative sprawl fueling rising tuition costs. At Brown, tuition and fees are expected to top $93,000 per year next year. The university responded with hostility, threatening Sheay and even accusing him and his fellow editors of causing “emotional harm” and violating obscure technology policies. Administrators went so far as to allege a trademark violation simply for using the word “Brown” in the paper’s name.
Henninger noted that what happened at Brown is part of a much broader pattern. “This is what they do,” he said, reflecting on his own experience at Northwestern, where similar tactics were used against alternative student publications. He criticized the unchecked expansion of university administrative staff, recalling how Harvard’s job listings ran for pages and included thousands of positions unrelated to teaching or research. “There’s no real oversight,” Henninger added, noting that unlike CEOs in the private sector, university presidents rarely face consequences from trustees for poor performance.
The conversation shifted to another example of campus dysfunction: a report from Pepperdine Law School describing how over a third of students receive exam accommodations—mainly extra time under the Americans with Disabilities Act—raising questions about abuse of the system. One student, Noah Worksman, wrote a petition raising concerns and was summoned by the administration for allegedly creating a “hostile environment.” Henninger and the hosts agreed this was part of a culture that rewards conformity and punishes dissent, even when students are simply raising valid questions.
Henninger praised the Trump administration’s renewed focus on higher education reform, especially its willingness to challenge elite institutions on substantive grounds. He pointed to the Department of Education’s move to review Columbia University’s accreditation as a pivotal moment. Accreditation, he said, is the “Achilles heel” of these schools—something they cannot afford to lose and a rare source of meaningful leverage.
The conversation later turned to President Biden’s competency in office, following a directive from Donald Trump calling for an investigation into whether senior aides covered up Biden’s mental decline. While Henninger acknowledged the optics of the move could appear political, he argued that the reality of an incapacitated president being shielded from the public deserves scrutiny. He compared the situation to the final years of Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, when his wife and doctor reportedly made decisions on his behalf. Henninger said hearings would be worthwhile to determine who was effectively running the country and whether the public had been misled.
Finally, the hosts and Henninger discussed growing voter concern over inflation and the ballooning national debt. Referencing Senator Mike Lee’s proposed constitutional amendment to oust all members of Congress if inflation exceeds 3%, Henninger chuckled but didn’t dismiss the sentiment behind it. He noted that while fiscal issues used to be ignored by the public, the scale of the debt—now well over $30 trillion—is starting to resonate. With the 2017 tax cuts set to expire at year’s end, Henninger emphasized that passing a “big, beautiful” tax bill is now essential to avoid a steep economic hit. He welcomed pushback from fiscal hawks like Senators Rand Paul and Ron Johnson but acknowledged that some form of spending will likely be attached to ensure passage.
As tuition climbs, bureaucracy expands, and public trust in institutions erodes, Henninger and the hosts concluded that a serious reckoning in American higher education—and government more broadly—is long overdue.