by Vaun Monroe
Clarke Peters plays detective Lester Freamon in David Simon’s series The Wire.
For the past three years, I have served on the Faculty Senate at Southern Oregon University during one of the most difficult periods in its history. Much of that time has been spent fighting simply to keep the doors of this institution open. We have wrestled with budget deficits, declining enrollment, and painful decisions about programs and personnel. Yet increasingly, the greatest threat has not come from within our university. It has come from a political narrative that portrays public higher education as financially irresponsible, culturally irrelevant, and even socially harmful. As someone who has witnessed firsthand the commitment of faculty, staff, and students to serving our region, I find these attacks both deeply troubling and profoundly misguided.
Detective Lester Freamon, in “The Wire”, offered a deceptively simple piece of advice that makes an interesting hypothesis here: “Follow the money.” Beneath the culture-war rhetoric lies a more important question: Who benefits when public confidence in higher education collapses? Follow the money, and the attacks on universities begin to look less like isolated political grievances and more like part of a broader effort to weaken one of democracy’s most important public institutions.
This is not the first time in American history that education has been viewed as a threat. During slavery, many Southern states made it illegal to teach enslaved people to read and write because slaveholders understood that education empowers people to question authority, claim their humanity, and imagine a different future. While today’s attacks on higher education are fundamentally different in context and consequence, they reflect a familiar truth: knowledge has always been a source of power. An educated population is harder to manipulate, more capable of distinguishing evidence from propaganda, and better equipped to hold institutions accountable. When universities are attacked for teaching history, literature, philosophy, or diverse perspectives, the issue extends far beyond the classroom. It becomes a question of what kind of democracy we hope to sustain.
The timing could not be worse. Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming nearly every profession, automating routine tasks once thought secure. At precisely this moment, we should be investing more deeply in the forms of education that AI cannot replace. Machines can generate text, analyze data, and write code, but they cannot exercise human judgment, ethical reasoning, empathy, creativity, or civic responsibility. These are precisely the capacities cultivated through the humanities, the arts, and the liberal arts more broadly.
Ironically, employers consistently identify these very qualities as among the most valuable in today’s workforce. They seek graduates who can communicate clearly, solve complex problems, collaborate across differences, adapt to change, and think critically. These are not secondary skills; they are becoming the defining competencies of the AI era. Yet instead of strengthening the educational programs that develop them, we increasingly dismiss them as luxuries because they cannot be measured by an immediate salary calculation.
That reveals a deeper misunderstanding about the purpose of higher education. We have allowed the language of return on investment to dominate the conversation. We ask what salary a graduate will earn rather than what kind of society that education will help build. A university degree is not simply a private purchase; it is one of our most important public investments.
Every generation inherits a democracy that must be renewed. That renewal depends upon citizens who can evaluate evidence, engage respectfully with opposing viewpoints, recognize misinformation, understand history, and participate thoughtfully in civic life. These capacities do not emerge by accident. They are cultivated through education.
Organizations like EDIT Media recognize that inclusive, rigorous education is not a political agenda but a democratic necessity. Students learn more deeply when they encounter multiple perspectives, question assumptions, and engage honestly with the complexity of our shared history. Education that broadens understanding strengthens both individuals and communities.
The campaign against higher education is therefore not merely a debate over budgets, enrollment, or curriculum. It is an information war over the value of knowledge itself. If universities can be portrayed as wasteful, elitist, or dangerous, public trust erodes and democratic institutions weaken. If the humanities disappear, we lose disciplines that teach us how to interpret culture, confront ethical dilemmas, understand one another, and imagine better futures.
Those of us who believe in public higher education cannot afford to remain silent. We must reject the false choice between workforce preparation and liberal education because the future requires both. We must remind our communities that universities are not expenses to be minimized but investments whose returns are measured not only in economic growth but in stronger communities, healthier civic institutions, and a more resilient democracy.
Southern Oregon University-and public universities across the nation-deserve more than survival. They deserve our confidence, our advocacy, and our investment. In an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and political polarization, there has never been a greater need for educated citizens capable of independent thought. That is why this fight matters, and why it is one we cannot afford to lose.
Vaun Monroe is currently an Assistant Professor in the Digital Cinema Program at Southern Oregon University. He is also one of the founding members of EDIT Media: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Teaching Media, a faculty-driven initiative dedicated to researching, developing, and educating about best practices in inclusive teaching in college-level media production. Monroe was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. He earned his BA in Liberal Arts at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and his MFA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University in Philadelphia.
Editor’s note: The ZoomIN Blog was created as a place to showcase methods, ideas and practices for inclusive teaching in the field of media. Entries are usually short and concrete, discussing assignments, projects, and resources for celebrating diversity and creating inclusive practices. Given the current political environment, I am thrilled to publish a new piece by Vaun Monroe about why doing this work is so important. Please send more posts about both your successes and your struggles to zoominblogapATgmail.com.
