Modern Age * Summer 2017 In 2016, Northwestern University political science professor Jacqueline Stevens was barred from campus nominally on the grounds that her presence raised safety concerns for some of her colleagues. Stevens is a long-time critic of university administrators, whom she has accused of inappropriate corporate ties. She had also been among the most vocal opponents of Northwestern's plan to appoint retired General Karl Eikenberry to head a new global studies institute on the Evanston campus. Stevens made the mistake of questioning the validity of spousal and diversity hires at Northwestern, ostensibly frightening sensitive colleagues and making herself vulnerable to harassment charges. Consequences of the unholy alliance The alliance between administrators and campus activists would be a bizarre political curiosity if it were not so damaging to America's colleges and universities. Allowing left-liberal activists to have their way on college campuses threatens to transform an institution that had once stood for free expression and the critical examination of all ideas into a restrictive "safe space" ruled by a new thought police. Allowing administrators to have their way on college campuses is damaging in a slightly different way. When governed by the faculty, colleges tend to develop curricula that are exciting and challenging, as well as research agendas that have changed the world. From the perspective of administrators, however, only the fiscal bottom line matters. The curriculum is evaluated not from an intellectual perspective but from its capacity to bring paying customers to the store. Coming at it from different perspectives, administrators and campus activists seem 46 modernagejournal.comhttp://www.modernagejournal.com