LBOSU

Most “news” about higher education is the same old fake surprise or fake branding, treating the permanent purpose of universities as unprecedented and horrible, blaming either Woke or Trump for the sudden eruption of gravity.

Permanent constant: Universities are religious seminaries to impart and guarantee rigid orthodoxy. “Robust debate” and “free thought” are meaningless slogans.

Via RealClear, here’s a genuinely strange development. It’s old in the corporate world but fresh in the collegiate world.

Antioch was the T Rex of woke. It was imparting and guaranteeing the orthodoxy of Social Justice 150 years before anyone else. Unlike most small colleges it seems to have prospered in recent years. The main campus remains tiny (124 students) but it has expanded into branch campuses.

Three years ago Antioch and Otterbein joined under a “nonprofit” umbrella called Coalition for the Common Good.

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Last Friday, the CCG—which is led by Otterbein President John Comerford—voted in private to dissolve Antioch’s Board of Governors, take over Antioch’s bank accounts and interfere with its accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, Antioch alleged in a legal complaint over the decision. Later that day, Comerford sent a termination letter to Antioch President Lori Varlotta, who is also vice president of the CCG and raised questions last year about CCG’s “long-term strategy and financial viability,” according to court documents.

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Standard LBO practice. Move in with a beneficial-sounding structure, suck out the goodies, walk away with a nice juicy tax writeoff. Gravity in the corporate world, new to the collegiate world.

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Irrelevant: Comerford reminds me of Ignacio Comonfort, originally Comerford, a president of Mexico who carried out an LBO against himself for reasons that are still unclear.