ABSTRACT
Higher education is under assault. This is most evident in the barrage of attacks initiated in the popular press and by right-wing cultural critics against multiculturalism, political correctness, and a variety of other forces that are allegedly undermining what George Will has called "the common culture that is the nation's social cement". The university is suffering from a crisis regarding the relationship between authority and knowledge, and the responsibility of intellectuals in producing social relations that deepen democratic life by extending the range of critical public cultures across diverse economic, cultural, and social spheres. The crisis of the university as a crucial public sphere is also evident in the rhetoric of a currently popular group of diverse, right-wing, public intellectuals who are located and supported financially in the worlds of business, private foundations, and the popular press.
