The exchange on NRO last week between Brink Lindsey and Ramesh Ponnuru bears on efforts to reform the university. If Lindsey is right that the Culture War is over and the “values” questions settled, the desire to reform the university would seem pointless. Higher education in Lindsey’s America of “exuberantly pluralistic pursuit of personal fulfillment through an ever-expanding division of labor” need be little more than a credentialing service for niche specialists and a place to get started with the exuberant fun. But if Ponnuru is right, and the Culture War continues as a struggle over ideals, the university remains at the center of that struggle.

Because higher education in the U.S. is such a sprawling expanse—17 million students, 631,000 full-time faculty members, distributed among 4,216 colleges and universities—it’s not too hard to build a case favoring either view. Lindsey’s the-culture-war-is-over declaration fits well with the large percentage of students who view college as a combination of pursuing “things that interest me” (77 percent of freshman say this according to HERI data) and “to get a better job” (72 percent). Lindsey provides a way to think about higher education as primarily a consumer good.

But Ponnuru’s the-Culture-War-continues declaration fits well with a lot of other data, including the results of the just-released Zogby poll that shows 58.2 percent of Americans believe that “bias” in college classrooms is either a “very serious problem” or “somewhat serious problem.” People care about higher education in this way because colleges and universities have a large say over what knowledge and which values will be transmitted generation to generation.

Calling the disputes over that legacy a Culture War is, admittedly, an imperfect metaphor. Taking the broad picture—Google Earth from 100 miles up—the Left is wholly dominant on campus, and conservative critics don’t come close to presenting an opposing army. I’ve further thoughts on the Lindsey/Ponnuru debate at the National Association of Scholars website, here .