Overview
The University of Chicago figures in The Bob Zadek Show principally through guests affiliated with it, who are introduced by their teaching or research appointments and then speak on markets, law and public policy. Bob Zadek describes Luigi Zingales as a professor who teaches at the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, and as co-author of a bestselling book whose title he gives as Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists Obama Nationalizes General Electric (2011). Richard Epstein is introduced as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a professor of law at New York University Law School, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago An Intellectual Discussion of Sexual Harassment with Richard Epstein (2018). Casey Mulligan is identified as a University of Chicago professor who served as Chief Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers for a full year between 2018 and 2019, and who returned to teach at the University of Chicago You’re Hired! Chief Economic Adviser to Trump on What It’s Really Like to Work in the White House (2020). Steven B. Smith is introduced as holding a PhD from the University of Chicago and as having taught in Yale’s philosophy department since 1984 — a description Smith corrects, saying he is in the Yale Political Science department rather than philosophy Steven B. Smith on Reclaiming Patriotism (2021).
Crony capitalism and the market
In the episode on crony capitalism, Zingales, described as teaching at the Booth School of Business, tells Bob Zadek that crony capitalism is a pervasive occupation of power by companies. Where socialism has the government controlling companies, he says, crony capitalists are companies controlling the government, and the result is the same: no freedom, no entrepreneurship, and solutions imposed from above rather than searched for by the market Obama Nationalizes General Electric (2011). Bob Zadek frames the same subject as governments allocating economic favors — tax credits, tax benefits, cheap loans, and regulations that keep out competition — and as a few people, most of whom have never worked anywhere except in government, making profound economic decisions rather than the marketplace voting with dollars. Zingales calls that a very accurate description. Bob’s own framing, in his opening monologue, is that crony capitalism is socialism on steroids and that it allows government to run the wealth-creating machinery of the country through a command-and-control mechanism without actually owning it; he attributes this mode of operation to President Obama and his Democratic colleagues.
Sexual harassment law and the administrative state
Epstein, introduced in part by his University of Chicago lectureship, traces sexual harassment law to the employment discrimination provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the addition of sex to those provisions, which he says was proposed by a Southerner, Howard Smith. He notes that the Senate floor discussions of the 1964 Act contain not a word about sexual harassment, and that the transformation of the material owes more to Catharine MacKinnon’s 1978 book Sexual Harassment of Working Women, which claimed harassment in the workplace should be treated as a form of sex discrimination An Intellectual Discussion of Sexual Harassment with Richard Epstein (2018). Epstein says he criticized that position as a technical matter, arguing the real issue is the close association between harassment and assault, traditionally covered by common law doctrines such as intentional infliction of emotional distress. He describes the Supreme Court later accepting MacKinnon’s position and developing quid pro quo and hostile environment relationships, and says the Court was chary and cautious, wanting relatively high thresholds. He then describes the bar being lowered as enforcement became an administrative matter, most notably through the “Dear Colleague” letters written by the Office of Civil Rights in 2011, and says Betsy DeVos and the Office of Civil Rights removed the 2011 letter and said they would rethink the matter from the ground up. Bob Zadek characterizes the addition of sex to the Civil Rights Act as a poison pill designed to kill the bill that failed to do so, and describes the move from discrimination to harassment as a jump rather than an automatic flow; Epstein adds that Title IX, which he dates to 1971, deals with institutions that receive government aid, and that even if the decisions were overruled there would be an enormous push to put these things right back into the bill.
From the university to the White House
Mulligan, a University of Chicago professor, tells Bob Zadek that the Council of Economic Advisers position is a great opportunity to serve and to learn, and that the Bush administration twice approached him about essentially this position but it did not pan out, with an important issue being whether his talents fit with what President Bush was trying to do You’re Hired! Chief Economic Adviser to Trump on What It’s Really Like to Work in the White House (2020). He says the match with the Trump administration was a lot better, and that he had written books on President Obama’s major policies that President Trump was trying to reverse. Asked what specifically made the invitation appealing, Mulligan says it was initially Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, since the President promised his voters he would repeal it and, when that failed, try to clean it up and make it better; that was his most recent book at the time and turned out to be perhaps 10 to 20% of his time. He says he ended up working on a lot of other things that were even more interesting but that he did not know were coming. On writing his book, Mulligan says that after he arrived he realized there was a niche, that he knew from studying Obamacare that what you read in the press is often quite untrue, and that he was fearful going in because all he knew about the Trump White House day-to-day workings was what he read in the press, which he knew was wrong. He says he started having better notes as time went on and thinking about a book, and that when he got out and reflected back he reorganized everything, realizing the populist part — not part of his education or thinking going in — was essential to understanding how the President operates and how his staff works for him.
Patriotism and the academy
Smith, who holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, tells Bob Zadek that his book Reclaiming Patriotism in the Age of Extremes grew out of his teaching, and that he has noticed among students a great hunger to do something for their country, to help it in some way, although their feelings are often inchoate Steven B. Smith on Reclaiming Patriotism (2021). He says students want to give back, realize they have been the recipient of a good education and of benefits just from being in America, but often do not know how to do it, and that colleges and universities do not necessarily make it easy. He agrees with Bob’s suggestion that writing such a book at a university like Yale is not a question that tends to be raised by academics or in the intellectual culture, and says that from the left — and a lot of people in academia are on the left — being regarded as patriotic is symptomatic of chauvinism and of a kind of America-first-ism, and that the dominant attitude is that we should be citizens of the world. Smith argues that patriotism is a virtue and is required by democratic societies, and says one of the secret pleasures of writing the book was the look of barely repressed horror on colleagues’ faces when he said he was writing a book defending patriotism. He says he was not ostracized, not yet at least.
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in how the University of Chicago is treated across episodes: it appears in the 2011 crony capitalism episode through Zingales, in the 2018 sexual harassment episode through Epstein, in the 2020 episode through Mulligan, and in the 2021 patriotism episode through Smith, each time as an affiliation or credential rather than as a subject argued over.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not describe the University of Chicago’s founding, its history, its governance, its curriculum, or its campus. They do not state what city or state it is in, nor do they give any enrollment, budget or ranking figures. No excerpt states a position held by the university as an institution on any of the questions its faculty discuss. The excerpts also do not say whether any of the guests were speaking on the university’s behalf.
Guests and episodes
2 appearances by 2 guests, 2011–2020.
- Casey Mulligan (University of Chicago professor) — You’re Hired! Chief Economic Adviser to Trump on What It’s Really Like to Work in the White House (2020) — Economic policy and life inside the Trump White House.
- Luigi Zingales (University of Chicago Booth School of Business) — Obama Nationalizes General Electric (2011) — Crony capitalism and government interference in markets.