I certainly agree with Professor Shariff's quoting my friend Nicholas Christakis about how, once the universities politicize themselves, they have opened the door to being, themselves, targets of political attacks. It is essential for universities to keep their reputation as disinterested pursuers of the truth, not captive to a particular ideology, because the threats can come from both directions. In the United States, the threats now from the federal government are worse than the threats from within, because the government is so much more powerful, but the threats are coming from both directions.
