ABSTRACT
This discussion took place after the conference presentations by Paul Lauter, Michael Apple, Barry Gross, Jeffrey Herf and the editors, and focuses on the issues brought up in their papers and in the debate that followed. As far as we know, it is the only published record of a substantial dialogue between conservative and progressive academics about the future of higher education. It is, of course, easy enough to find polemical essays across the spectrum of such positions, but until now there was no example of academics of the right and the left actually talking with one another, a process that happily blurs the familiar political dichotomies. The participants, notably, include both members and national leaders of several academic organizations recently formed to take these issues to the public—the National Association of Scholars, the Union of Democratic Intellectuals, and Teachers for a Democratic Culture.
