Onward from the last third of the twentieth century, a social activist ethic has chipped away at the core curriculum of many liberal arts colleges (with only rare notable exceptions). And while the death of the liberal arts by identity politics may seem old news, there are still battles fought and lost every day: Why did administrators bend so easily to students’ demands for curricular review at a Jesuit university in the Pacific Northwest? For one thing, those students were crying for a type of reform with widespread precedent—at those vaunted temples to higher learning, the stately old schools back east.

In late May, Dartmouth College published an Action Plan for Diversity and Inclusion, largely indistinguishable from a more ambitious, lavishly funded one Brown University put out in February. Both plans respond to a torrent of protests, starting in the fall of 2015, on their respective New England campuses. Both pledge to double “underrepresented” faculty in service to “diversity and inclusion.” Both recommend new required courses on diversity.