American Higher Education in Crisis

Hubert Rampersad, P.h.D.

“Something is wrong with American higher education; it’s going in the wrong direction. Indoctrination, corrupt DEI policies, antisemitism, corruption, politics, faculty bias, mismanagement, plagiarism, and fake science publishing plague American universities. These issues hinder progress and innovation and endanger lives. The Hamas war has shed light on the values of American universities. It has highlighted a significant failure at the core of American higher education, where the conduct of the faculty and management of these institutions poses an existential threat to America. They need to re-evaluate their values and practices.”–Hubert Rampersad.

“American colleges and universities need to reconsider their corrupt DEI policies, ensuring they are fair, transparent, and effective. While it’s important to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in leadership hiring processes, it’s equally crucial to ensure that the most qualified individuals are selected based on their expertise and capabilities. Simply hiring leaders in response to the Black Lives Matter and gender movement may not guarantee the desired outcomes and could potentially compromise the quality of higher education leadership. To address these concerns, school leaders need to move beyond diversity, equity, inclusion, gender, and race theater, and instead focus on implementing sustainable DEI initiatives. Rebuilding trust in our school leaders requires a reconnection with authenticity, humility, and integrity. By fostering empathy and promoting inner alignment, leaders can create an ethical and sustainable culture of ECO-DEI within American higher education institutions. This shift in focus will not only strengthen the educational environment but also ensure that DEI efforts are embedded in the core values and practices of American colleges and universities, benefiting all members of the community.” –-Hubert Rampersad

DEI at American universities and colleges does not actually promote inclusivity. It is the opposite of diversity of thought. Students are classified into groups based on their race and heritage. DEI is being used as a cover to justify discrimination. Jews are considered “oppressors” by the DEI system, so the discrimination they face is somehow justified by its believers. This kind of ideology at American universities and colleges needs to be eliminated. Survey Shows Minorities Support Death of DEI.

The Hamas war has brought to light the values of American colleges and universities. It has exposed a significant failure at the core of American higher education, where the conduct of the faculty and management of these institutions poses an existential threat to America. It highlights the mismanagement of American colleges and universities and that something is wrong with American higher education. American universities are rife with indoctrination, racism, antisemitism, corruption, politics, faculty bias, mismanagement, corrupt DEI policies, plagiarism, and misleading scientific publications. Higher education in America has become a threat to America. Our corrupt, radical universities feed every scourge, from censorship and crime to antisemitism. Read also “The root causes of our illiberal higher education system”, “Why is Harvard giving Claudine Gay ‘plagiarism privilege’?”, “Higher Ed, Indoctrination and Miseducation” and “Antisemitism issues at elite colleges mask ‘deeper rot’ of DEI dominance in higher education: WSJ editorial.” While there are many ways to address these issues, one approach is to redefine higher education in America by redesigning academic departments and developing a new holistic core curriculum.

On the other hand, envisioning a new normal that embodies empathy, personal integrity, non-racialism, environmental consciousness, circularity, redefined HR roles, good governance, and ethical leadership is essential. The cornerstone of this improved new normal is sustainability, which includes sustainability in design innovation, HR, leadership, diversity & inclusion, corporate governance, and higher education, as illustrated in this figure.

Outdated management and design innovation theories

The traditional teachings on sustainability, corporate governance, leadership, innovation, design, HR, change management, process management, and diversity & inclusion theories taught at top business schools and universities are no longer effective and are causing significant harm to our society. These approaches lack authenticity and a holistic perspective, making them unsustainable and unsuitable for the current era. The shortcomings mentioned above contribute to the lack of sustainability in climate change efforts. I suggest taking the time to read my article on the topic “Why Climate Change Sucks“.

Prominent business schools and universities that teach outdated management theories by left-brain professors can have significant negative consequences. These include inadequate leadership, compromised personal integrity, mismanagement, fraudulent behavior, violating corporate governance rules, financial ruin, widespread corruption, excessive financial waste, reduced creativity, increased racism and discrimination within organizations, and unjustified police violence against innocent black individuals. Unfortunately, these outcomes can cause extensive harm to society.

Many prestigious universities, such as Harvard Law School, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, MIT Sloan, and Wharton, offer a narrow curriculum focused on a single discipline, which can hinder creativity and result in graduates who lack a broad understanding of the bigger picture. Instead, these graduates focus solely on formal corporate governance procedures, superficial change management concepts, short-term innovation, HR strategies, one-sided diversity & inclusion programs, flawed strategic management approaches, and shortsighted process improvement techniques. The following 9 examples illustrate how this approach has adverse effects on society.

Example 1; Corrupt DEI

Bill Ackman, a billionaire and Harvard graduate, has voiced his concern regarding the hiring practices of American universities and colleges. He believes that candidates are being selected based on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, which can limit the pool of potential candidates by excluding those who do not meet certain criteria based on race or gender. According to a recent analysis by Inside Higher Ed, colleges and universities have hired a higher percentage of non-white leaders in the wake of the Black Lives Matter and gender movement, read “Diversity on the Rise Among College Presidents”. This approach does not necessarily lead to the best leaders being chosen and may ultimately harm the quality of higher education in America. Ackman’s comments come after he called for the resignation of three university presidents who failed to condemn anti-Semitic behavior on their campuses. Harvard’s presidential search committee, for example, only considers candidates who meet the DEI office’s criteria. Ackman believes that shrinking the pool of potential candidates based on race, gender, or sexual orientation is not the optimal approach to identifying the best leaders for our most prestigious universities. Read “Until DEI offices are closed, don’t expect better college presidents“ and “Why DEI Sucks”.

Read: “How to Measure and Fix DEI at Universities and Colleges”.

American universities and colleges need to reconsider their corrupt DEI policies, and ensure they are fair, transparent, and effective. ECO-DEI will help prevent hiring left-brain antisemitic racial bias faculty (faculty bias) and promote a more balanced approach to hiring faculty with expertise in personal disruptive innovation, ethics, constitutionalism, civic virtue, family life, religious freedom, and American principles. This approach can help create a more ethical and balanced higher education system in America.

Example 2; The era of design thinking taught at prominent American universities and colleges has come to an end

Intriguingly, institutions like Stanford, MIT, and Harvard continue to adhere to the entrenched and outdated design thinking method that yields uninspired results and numerous design flaws. Read my related article “The End of Design Thinking: Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Design Culture to Fix the World”.

These approaches emphasize analytical thinking, following specific design steps, attending comfortable meetings, completing tasks in a particular order, and utilizing design tools. However, they do not effectively inspire creativity. Some well-known examples of such designs include the botched vaccine rollout in America, Citibank’s loss of $500 million due to an unfriendly loan management tool, the $2 trillion F-35 project, Boeing 737 Max airplane, the T-14 Armata Russian Tank, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Please take the time to read my article “Why OceanGate’s Design Approach Sucks; How the Doomed Titan Sub Tragedy Could Have Been Avoided.”

The tragedy of the Titan serves as a valuable lesson for CEOs who prioritize their personal design choices over critical safety regulations, which endanger human lives. This applies to individuals such as Elon Musk and companies like Boeing, read ““How Elon Musk’s $3 billion Mars rocket failure, Boeing’s 737 Max airplane disasters, and the doomed Titan sub tragedy could have been avoided”. Read also: “Boeing lost its way. Other companies should take heed“; it’s become clear that Boeing’s problems run far deeper. They expose decades of American corporate philosophy gone awry. Boeing is a quintessential example of America’s rotting business culture over the past 40 years. The following figure displays the top 10 reasons for bad designs.

It would be beneficial to take a closer look at the eco-design thinking model, as outlined in my articles “How To Design a Better World” and “Circular & Value-based Design For Sustainability“:

The professor’s creativity, self-innovation, and self-awareness are crucial for fostering creativity and innovation in the classroom. Self-knowledge is the foundation of all knowledge, self-learning is the beginning of all learning, and personal innovation is the root of all innovation. In addition, management theories that lack authenticity and a holistic approach are not viable in the long run. Read my article “5 Steps to Cultivate Authenticity, Integrity, Empathy, and Critical Thinking in the Age of AI“.

Left-Brain Professors

Manny professors in various educational institutions lack emotional and spiritual intelligence, which leads to negative impacts on society. The left hemisphere of their brains is often overused, while the right hemisphere is underutilized. This results in missed opportunities to handle intricate issues holistically and genuinely. For more information, please refer to the article “Personal Disruptive Innovation”.

Left-brain professors need to start acting intuitively and make more effective use of their right brain.

Eco-Innovation

In today’s complex world, sustainable innovation is crucial. I introduced the Eco-Innovation concept to address this need. Traditional approaches to innovation are inadequate as they lack a holistic perspective. They are superficial, performative, and comfortable, failing to meet the standard of genuine sustainability. I define sustainability as a comprehensive and ethical system that enables humans and nature to coexist harmoniously for an extended period of time.

Example 3; Corporate governance programs fuel corruption rather than remedy it

Corporate governance programs implemented and offered at American colleges and universities fuel corruption instead of remedying it, which is a concerning reality. “Sustainable corporate governance cannot be solely dependent on formal regulations, rules, and procedures. It is essential to incorporate decency, empathy, and personal integrity into our daily lives without requiring rules to enforce them. These values should be instilled within us.”–Hubert Rampersad

“It’s worth noting that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) do not include SDG #18: GOOD PEOPLE. To address the root causes of climate change, we must go beyond treating its symptoms and focus on nurturing personal integrity. This includes being mindful of how our actions and behaviors impact all living beings, including humans, animals, and plants. Empathy is the foundation of personal integrity and is crucial for effective action against climate change. Unfortunately, the world is full of bad people who don’t prioritize these values, which is why so few are engaged in efforts to combat climate change”. – Hubert Rampersad. Why haven’t prestigious universities and the bureaucratic United Nations addressed this significant shortcoming?

I am therefore proposing a new authentic, holistic, and sustainable good governance approach, please read my article “Fostering a Culture of Ethics on Campus, Academic Integrity, and Sustainable Good Governance at American Universities: An Authentic Holistic Approach”.

Example 4; HR systems taught are outdated and causing harm to businesses

Many articles suggest that the traditional annual performance evaluation system taught in business schools and universities is outdated and causing harm to businesses, check: “Annual performance appraisals are outdated” and “Annual performance review is an outdated concept”. In my article, I have presented a sustainable and effective performance evaluation system that is necessary to adapt to the new normal, read “Reimagining HR“.

Example 5; The Same applies to leadership and other programs

The issues that plague leadership, lean six-sigma, balanced scorecard, and family businesses taught at business schools and universities are similar. It is alarming that our leaders have lost their genuineness, modesty, and honesty, which has led to a considerable decline in trust. Their lack of compassion and internal harmony is worrisome. You might find my article “Reimagining Leadership” interesting, which touches on this issue.

Example 6; AI is Disrupting Higher Education — Will Traditional Universities and Colleges Survive?

The advent of AI has brought about a significant transformation in various industries, including higher education. As AI continues disrupting traditional learning models, many question whether conventional colleges and universities can keep up with this fourth industrial revolution. However, higher learning institutions can leverage AI’s power to revolutionize the educational experience in several ways. For instance, AI can be used to facilitate personalized learning, enhance student support through AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants, foster collaboration between AI and human educators, and adapt the curriculum to meet market demands, read also “Cultivating Critical Thinking in the Age of AI”.

Example 7; Science scam in academic publishing

Study reveals scale of ‘science scam’ in academic publishing, read this article. According to a study by German researchers, one in five articles published in scientific journals may contain faked data produced by unauthorized “paper mills” that are paid to fabricate submissions. The study used new techniques to “red flag” problematic papers in biomedicine. The rise of generative AI such as ChatGPT makes the scam more of a threat. The study adds to the growing evidence that academic publishing faces a damaging surge in fabricated research sold by paper mills to researchers desperate for published work to boost their careers. It also backs up recent evidence that the majority of fake research comes from China. The researchers argue that fake science publishing is possibly the biggest science scam of all time, wasting financial resources, slowing down medical progress, and possibly endangering lives.

Read recent Harvard Business School publishing scams: “A Harvard professor raking in over $1 million a year who specialized in ‘dishonesty’ was accused of fabricating research. 3 retractions have already occurred”.

Francesca Gino, a well-known speaker and author of many publications, was put on leave by Harvard Business School after an internal investigation found that she had falsified her research. The investigation revealed that Gino was paid over $1 million annually by Harvard, and tens of thousands more by companies to speak at their private events. This suggests that at Harvard Business School, the number of publications and being a famous speaker are the only things that matter (not innovative research, see next example 8).

Read also: “Academics publishing pointless papers is another sign of a dire crisis in universities”. It turns out that a rapidly rising number of papers that get through the process of peer review contain findings that are completely bogus. Last year, according to a study in Nature, one of the world’s two leading scientific journals, more than 10,000 papers that had been published in academic journals had to be withdrawn. This compares to just 1,000 in 2013. They were withdrawn because their findings were fraudulent. A vast number of academic papers are published each year but most of these are of no scientific value. There is a strong and rising demand from academics to publish papers, their career prospects depend on it. The key way in which academics judge the value of any particular article is the number of times it is cited in the subsequent work of others. Many articles that are published in highly respected journals such as MIT Press have zero citations, so their implicit value is therefore zero. This means that academics in many cases carry out worthless research.

Example 8; How the University of Pennsylvania is Slowing Progress, Killing Innovation, and Endangering Lives

Katalin Kariko, a Nobel Prize winner, was not on the tenure track and was told by a University of Pennsylvania official that she was not of faculty quality and that her research was worthless. Universities tend to prioritize grants or research dollars professors bring in to do their work, as well as the quantity and quality of peer-reviewed publications in top journals in their field. Any system that repeatedly snubs someone with the talent to win a Nobel Prize probably deserves scrutiny. The tenure system, especially in the sciences at large research universities, isn’t set up to reward maverick thinkers whose ideas might seem extreme, yet those are the people who may go on to win a Nobel Prize. Universities tend to focus only on how much a researcher publishes, or how widely covered by the media their work is, rather than how innovative the research is, read “Nobel Prize winner Katalin Karikó was ‘demoted 4 times’ at her old university job“. Albert Einstein didn’t publish that many papers, but in this day and age publication volume and being a famous speaker are king. Karikó says her interest in mRNA was often dismissed. She experienced a lot of politics, bias, distraction, rejection, and discrimination at the University of Pennsylvania, read also “Penn’s Nobel Prize winner wasn’t on the tenure track. How can the system better support talent?”. Without her, the BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccine would not have been invented. The University of Pennsylvania was sabotaging this. Read “More issues need to be addressed at UPenn“.

Example 9; American colleges and universities have become a hotbed for terrorist-sympathizing antisemitism

Antisemitism at American colleges and universities is growing, especially at Harvard University, Ivy League universities, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Columbia University, University of Michigan Law School, Northwestern University, Yale University, Cornell University, New York University, Indiana University, California State University Long Beach, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of California-Davis, and Arizona State University. Hamas War Shows Us What American Colleges and Universities Stand For. It seems that higher education in America has become a hotbed for terrorist-sympathizing antisemitism. It has become a center of indoctrination and anti-Israel hate. The war against Israel has shown the ugly unethical side of American higher education. It shows the mismanagement of American colleges and universities, and that something is really wrong with American higher education. Higher education is going in the wrong direction. Read Hamas War Shows Us What American Colleges and Universities Stand For, Pro-Hamas protests expose the massive failure at the heart of American higher education , and There is an Existential Threat to American Higher Education. Read also my article “How Collective Stupidity at Prominent American Universities Fuels Terrorist-Sympathizing Antisemitism”.

To help students become aware of their own ignorance, develop their ethical skills and emotional intelligence, and become ethical critical thinkers, Personal Disruptive Innovation should be a mandatory part of the curriculum in all colleges and universities in America. With students now bringing historic levels of anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues to college, the personal disruptive innovation system can help solve these issues sustainably.

Important advice to the leadership of American colleges and universities

Restore the Higher Purpose of of your school. Read “How to Restore the Higher Purpose of American Higher Education: Creating a Purpose-Driven University with Good Character of School Leaders, Faculty, and Students”

Change the institution sustainably, by “Fostering a Culture of Ethics on Campus, Academic Integrity, and Sustainable Good Governance”. Replace current corrupt diversity, equity, and inclusion policies with ECO-DEI. This will prevent hiring left-brain antisemitic racial faculty and faculty bias; Emphasize authentic sustainability initiatives; Re-evaluate your curriculum to ensure that it is sustainable in the long run; Get rid of faculty members who exhibit left-brain and antisemitic racial tendencies with those who possess ethical expertise in personal disruptive innovation, ethics, constitutionalism, civic virtue, family life, religious freedom, and American principles; Prioritize creativity over knowledge; Empower the educational experience with the help of AI; Introduce students to the Personal Disruptive Innovation system, which will help them (re)design their lives, unlock their creative potential, foster a growth mindset, and achieve success in their personal and professional endeavors. This will help them prevent emotional distress, unleash their creative potential, meet social needs, and foster sustainability; Embedding Personal Disruptive Innovation in the curriculum is essential to enable left-brain students to develop their ethical skills, and emotional intelligence, and become ethical critical thinkers; Redesigning academic departments will also be beneficial; Instead of focusing on the number of publications and famous speakers, it’s better to concentrate on innovative research.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.

If you’re interested in gaining more knowledge about Rampersad’s DEI program, you may want to consider becoming a Certified ECO-DEI Practitioner.

You may also consider attending his Orlando–Tampa Events:

Building a Purpose-Driven and Design-Driven Culture in Tech Companies

The Future of Innovation

You may also consider attending his Orlando-Tampa Live Event: “How Sustainability and Generative AI Fuel Design Innovation”.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., founded the Center of Excellence in Human-Centered and Purpose-Driven AI Innovation in Orlando. He is a Dutch-American visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm“.