ABSTRACT
The role of universities in the furtherance of social justice, like their role in social criticism, has been a secondary one. Equality of rights, duties, and opportunities has to be ensured in all institutions of society, and putting the main burden of furthering social justice on the universities is as much an indication of social inequality in society at large as regarding the universities as the main centers of social criticism is an indication of oppression. In modern times the main obstacle to achieving social justice in the universities has been the unintentional discrimination against lower classes. Deliberate discrimination on the basis of class background was abolished in all modern university systems during the nineteenth century. The problem of equality in education among nations goes back to the eighteenth century. Until the 1950s there were only a few instances of open and programmatic adoption of political or nationalistic criteria, or both, in higher learning.
