A Conversation with the Manhattan Institute’s John D. Sailer (Part 1 of 2)

The think-tank fellow and higher-education researcher talks to Michael E. Hartmann about the Mellon Foundation’s and other grantmakers’ substantial support of the “scholar-activist pipeline” and how it tilts colleges and universities to the left.

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John D. Sailer is a senior fellow and directs higher-education policy at the Manhattan Institute. His research has led to significant policy changes at colleges and universities across the country. He is a former senior fellow at the National Association of Scholars.

Earlier this month, in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, Sailer wrote about “The Foundation That’s Bankrolling Radical Activists in Higher Ed”—the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. “The organization’s namesake made his mark on American politics a century ago as Treasury secretary,” according to Sailer. “Today, his foundation injects identity politics into our universities and bankrolls the career development of activist scholars.

“Mellon money, and the network of scholar-activists that it funds, has contributed to higher education’s radical left-wing bent,” he concludes. “University students, faculty, and administrators act like tenured activists in part because they’re recruited and funded to do just that. Arising from a decades-long personnel building project, the problem defies simple solutions” and “calls for a decades-long program of institutional renewal.”

Sailer was kind enough to join me for a recorded conversation last week. The just less than 14-and-a-half-minute video below is the first part of our discussion; the second is here. During the first part, we talk about the Mellon Foundation’s and other grantmakers’ substantial support of the “scholar-activist pipeline” and how it tilts colleges and universities to the left.

Ten years ago, survey data shows that “just about 10% of Americans said they have little or no trust in higher education,” Sailer tells me. “Now, it’s more than 30%. A big reason for that is a perceived political agenda in higher education.”

College and university professors “increasingly view their work as a tool to advance a certain political agenda,” he says, giving specific examples from his City Journal article. The scholar-activist pipeline is the process by which “faculty, and to some extent students and administrators, have become increasingly ideological and increasingly sort of averse to opposing” views.

It “isn’t something that just happened organically,” Sailer says. “My reporting has really found that universities have worked hard to create a career path for faculty who share an activist vision for higher education, who view their research as a tool to advance a political agenda.”

Many of these professors are “not just hired through the ordinary mechanism by which university faculty are hired, where you go through a normal departmental search,” he says. They’re “hired through a special kind of program that’s referred to as a pipeline program, that manages to select for individuals who share a certain ideological affinity.”

These programs are funded by universities themselves and the federal government—and by philanthropy, examples of which he again provides, prominently including Mellon.

Aren’t there similar pipelines funded by conservative foundations? Yes, Sailer acknowledges, but cautions that “the actual content of what’s being promoted” is relevant. Hypothetically, for example, if the “diversity statements” that coerce a certain viewpoint are required as part of the hiring process in higher ed were instead something like “patriotism statements,” he says, “the same free-speech and academic-freedom arguments” against them “would apply.”

“If you just said, ‘Okay, instead of a diversity statement, we’re going to have a patriotism statement,’ that would be a problem. If that’s the tool that conservatives are using to create a pipeline,” he says, “that’s counterproductive and would be an issue, but I don’t see that.”

As for liberal pipeline funders, “it’s perfectly legitimate” for them “to say we want to empower people who share the traditional vision for higher education to have careers and to flourish within academia,” according to Sailer. “To the extent that places like the Mellon Foundation are doing that, they’re allowed to do that.”

But the non-academic viewpoint- and identity-based aims of these pipeline programs should raise questions and concerns, he believes. “This this is a bad thing to prioritize. You can prioritize it, but university leaders should be more skeptical of taking that kind of money. They should be more skeptical of policies that kind of distort their vision for the university, even if they’re allowed to enact those policies. …

Sailer also thinks there’s a place for a philanthropic response, too.

There’s actually a much-needed philanthropic response, because over the last 20 years, if you were a young progressive in academia, you can look at the academic-career landscape and say, “Yes, there’s a place for me. If I go and get a Ph.D., I will be able to get a job. You know, it’s a hard job market …, but there are absolutely opportunities.” Whereas a lot of conservatives, they look at the academic job market and they say, “I better go into law.” …

I think there’s a place for universities to help fix that. There’s also a place for philanthropy to do to do the same.

In the conversation’s second part, Sailer discusses the necessary scrutiny of and unfortunate lack of transparency in much philanthropically supported programs and projects in higher education, along with what he thinks conservative grantmakers can and should consider doing in the area.

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This article first appeared in the Giving Review on April 15, 2025.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/a-conversation-with-the-manhattan-institutes-john-d-sailer-part-1-of-2/