Universities in the Crosshairs: Larry Summers and Lee Bollinger with Robert Costa

In a moment when campus culture wars dominate headlines and government is putting enormous pressure on universities to change, two titans of American academia meet for a rare public conversation at 92NY.

Lawrence H. Summers, President Emeritus of Harvard University and former US Treasury Secretary, and Lee C. Bollinger, President Emeritus of Columbia University and one of the nation’s leading First Amendment scholars, take on a question that cuts to the heart of American intellectual life: When the conservative media and federal authorities say that elite universities have been captured by a progressive ideology that is destroying higher education, are they right, or are universities still essential engines of free inquiry and democratic renewal in which a wide-range of perspectives and viewpoints can be expressed, explored and critically examined? The stakes could not be higher: Billions of dollars in federal funding; the future of some of America’s oldest and most important institutions; and the character of our country’s leadership for generations to come. Is American higher education at risk?

Summers raises concerns that universities may have become too one-sided in their thinking and are risking public trust, while Bollinger believes such claims have been overstated and that universities continue to reflect a broad range of ideas.

Moderated by Robert Costa of CBS News and CBS Sunday Morning, this event launches the new season of 92NY’s Dialogue Project, a series dedicated to modeling civil, incisive public debate at a time when it is urgently needed.

Don’t miss this chance to witness two of the sharpest minds in higher education wrestle with a question that will shape the future of intellectual life in this country.