The real battle is over who runs the university anyway. One side claims that universities are independent, and so are free to determine for themselves whether to stay on the DEI trail, and so on. The other claims that universities are responsible to the societies that support them, especially financially. Accordingly, society’s elected representatives can and should actively determine what universities do or teach (e.g., by prohibiting campus DEI programs or mandating certain curriculum).
To understand these arguments better, it’s best to step back, far back, to the Middle Ages. The earliest iterations of what we today call “universities” first appeared in Europe in the Middle Ages, perhaps as early as the eleventh century, certainly by the decades around 1200; it was from them that most other universities sprang. That medieval beginning fundamentally shapes modern conflicts.
What was a university when it first emerged in medieval Europe? To begin with words, when medieval sources refer to a university, they most commonly use the Latin word universitas (plural, universitates). What was a medieval universitas? It could be a lot of different things. It could be a guild: an association of tradespeople in a town that regulated that business. It could also be people who collected money for drinking beer together once a month.
