The president of Wesleyan University, Michael Roth, criticized Republican leaders like Vice President JD Vance and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for using their elite educational credentials to attack the same universities that gave them success.
“The story of American higher education has been hijacked by people who’ve benefited from it. They’ve succeeded in life in part because of the education they’ve had. But they get out and then they kind of pull up the ladder,” Roth told The Washington Post in an interview published Tuesday.
Vance and DeSantis, graduates of Yale Law School and Harvard Law School respectively, have railed against elite universities in multiple speeches and press interviews. Following former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation from her post following several controversies like her response to student protests, Vance said on X that elites get prestigious jobs for “checked boxes, not because they achieved something amazing or accomplished something meaningful.”
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“That is now the purpose of our elite universities, to give credentials that signal fake merit rather than rely on real excellence,” Vance continued.
Roth argued that universities should resist Republicans like President Donald Trump and Vance from interfering with their task of educating students.
“Leaders in higher educational institutions should stand up for their values,” Roth said. “Not to pick a fight with Donald Trump or JD Vance. We should stand up for our values because we’ve said we believed in them for the last many decades now.”
Roth also defended the role of the American university system in the country’s success, saying that “[t]here’s so many ways in which American higher education has contributed to the culture of innovation and discovery in this country.” He told The Post that countries like China are trying to copy the United States by “building university after university.”
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As Trump signals the possible dismantling of the Department of Education, Roth said that he will continue to oppose Republicans who intend to interfere in higher education while still following the law.
“I laugh because of course I’m nervous,” Roth told The Post. “This is an administration that is prioritizing loyalty and attacking people who stand, not against them necessarily, but for their own ideals and missions. That is the authoritarian playbook. If I were hiding — Wesleyan is a small school — maybe they would never notice us.”
“But that’s how tyranny gets instituted in a country. … I’m a professor, a teacher. I don’t look for trouble,” Roth said. “But I would feel ashamed if I didn’t speak up for the values that have guided my institution and many others.”
A letter sent earlier this month from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights was sent to the departments of education in all 50 states, notifying them that they have no more than 14 days to comply with removal of diversity, equity and inclusion policies or risk losing federal funding.
