Who’s Holding Up the Ivory Tower? - Commentary

Harvey C. Mansfield, professor of government at Harvard University (MA), writes:  

Claudine Gay herself best stated the issue of her brief presidency of Harvard. When her appointment was announced, she declared that “the idea of the Ivory Tower, that is the past, not the future, of academia.” We must be a “part” of society, not outside it. What is the difference she invokes? The Ivory Tower is often used to dismiss academia, and the metaphor is rarely examined for its virtue.