In Chapter 4 of City on a Hill, Traub elegantly outlines the argument lines of the academic left, a cast of characters who defend the Open Admissions experiment, and the academic right, the source of the collective bemoaning of the expansion of the SEEK program and the institution of remediation. I ask, if higher education remains partisan, what became of the ideological lines that touted their own respective visions? Who picks up for Robert Marshak, who angrily defended City College against columnist Howard Adelson? And for Adelson, who advised whites to seek Queens college instead? And for Stanley Page, who claimed a liberal socked him in the stomach? And Theodore Gross, who wrote ambivalently about the new City College? Who replaces his voice at CUNY?

When I read remarks like those of Leonard Krigel (“Anyone who says that the students I was teaching in 1974 were as good as the students I was teaching in 1964 is either a liar or is perpetuating an out-and-out illusion), I wonder if the senior colleges had begun playing around with the idea of alternative assessment by 1976. To say students were arbitrarily better than others is a subjective assessment. Krigel, and those who follow, had better heed the warning of Open admissions and see the merit in applying a culturally responsive pedagogy to their efforts.

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