Fire three-quarters of all college professors, eliminate 56.79% of all departments, expel 78.7% of all students, and the country might stand a chance of surviving

If that’s too drastic, just eliminate all state and federaal funding for universities and tax their endowment funds at the highest tax brackets.

Physical design of universities alienates marginalized students: study

The design aesthetics of American institutions of higher education often make students from lower-socioeconomic and racially minoritized backgrounds feel like outsiders on their own campuses, claimed a group of scholars in a recent article published in the Educational Psychology Review.

“Many institutions of higher education were created by and for wealthy White men, to educate ‘young men of good hope’ for careers in law, medicine, and other high-status professions,” the scholars wrote.

“Today, intentionally or not, American institutions of higher education continue to serve the interests of wealthy White people and they have done little to dismantle socioeconomic and racial inequity.”

Together, they argued, these feelings of being an outsider are downstream of the “exclusionary function” of public spaces like parks and libraries on college campuses.

American universities are designed as “defensible spaces” that “undermine inclusion and perpetuate inequities” through territoriality, surveillance, and symbolism, the scholars noted.

The scholars responsible for the August 2025 article include Diane-Jo Bart-Plange from the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Boston College, Kyshia Henderson from the University of Chicago Department of Psychology, and Kelly Hoffman and Sophie Trawalter, both of whom have listed affiliations with the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and JP Morgan Chase.

….

Campus surveillance programs, according to the article’s authors, disproportionately impact students from lower-socioeconomic status and racially minoritized backgrounds. 

Symbols such as university logos and mascots, the authors argued, serve to “reaffirm wealthy and White students’ belonging,” while Antebellum architecture, “markings of exclusive groups,” Confederate monuments, and statues of figures such as Thomas Jefferson, can “signal to racially minoritized and lower-SES students that they do not belong.”

Other exclusionary symbols noted by the authors include the Greek organizations, Star Trek posters and soda can pyramids in computer science buildings, ornate plaques near gates,

“ and anything celebrating individual self-expression or independent thinking.”

….

…. For statistical reasons, the authors noted, they were unable to assess the behavior of racially minoritized students in a similar manner. Therefore, it remains unknown where racially minoritized students feel comfortable kissing and walking barefoot.

Suggested ways of doing this included more land acknowledgments, the abolition of campus police forces, erecting multicultural centers, and renaming or removing buildings and statues honoring the Confederacy. 

Someone’s tax dollars are paying these geniuses’ salaries, and that’s a pity.