Re-Visiting the Rural Rage Controversy

April, 2024

Lincoln and Washington —  Last month, when I wrote a mixed review of White Rural Rage, an important but flawed book about rural America, I had no idea that so many other readers would likewise find serious shortcomings in it.  

First, there were complaints from scholars who claimed their own works had been distorted by the authors.  Then high-profile publications weighed in with their own critiques, exemplified by The Atlantic's "An Utterly Misleading Book About Rural America." 

Some of the critiques are guilty of piling-on.  The book may be flawed in multiple ways but its subject and message must not be overlooked.  Its subtitle, "The Threat to American Democracy," is only too true.  Critics themselves are often missing the main flaw of the book: the authors are short on solutions.  

Pointing this out, and offering more insights per paragraph than the authors and critics combined, is Farah Stockman, from an unlikely source on rural realities, the New York Times.  She provides new survey data that confirm what many of us know to be true, that there are many rural voters who would be receptive to Democratic candidates, and a return to two-party competition, if only Democrats would show up and engage on rural issues.  

What issues?  She names several.  Those of us with a long presence deep in the heartland know many others, festering unattended from decades of rural abandonment by both political parties.  Going after rural voters would seem to be an obvious Democratic political strategy, given these new survey data.  

Let blinkered disputes about the book subside and more exhilarating work begin, toward real help for rural America.

White Rural Rage, Reviewed

March, 2024

Lincoln and Washington —  White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, a new book by political scientist Thomas Schaller and journalist Paul Waldman, is such worthy documentation of the current state of rural collapse in America that a dozen copies of it should be placed in every rural library across the country. 

That is, if any such libraries are left.  The same goes for other places where people might read it: schools, nursing homes, doctor's offices.  Rural America has been hollowed out.  Some rural denizens, who will see the book as a slur on their character, will instead offer the book as kindling for an American Bebelplatz.  

The book deserves our most solemn attention.  The authors' impressive collection of statistical evidence and anecdotal information is frightening, even if sometimes presented as over-generalization.  Societal dysfunction is leading to authoritarianism and violence across a culture.  Most helpful is a technical note to understand the statistics, "What We Mean When We Talk About 'Rural'."

Also helpful is an up-front acknowledgement that many will dismiss the book as the biased product of two "coastal cosmopolitans."  Indeed, more should have been done to allay such concerns.  The book, for all its strengths, is regrettably weak in citing authoritative and readily available rural sources like the policy-oriented Center for Rural Affairs and the rural journalist nonpareil Art Cullen.

A book like this should likewise not have omitted mention of key moments in the demise of rural America.  Richard Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz told farmers "get big or get out," accelerating depopulation. His blunt directive was representative of decades of federal Farm Bills that wiped out generations of family farms in favor of corporate agriculture.  Later, other countries' reactions to Donald Trump's misguided imposition of tariffs hit rural America hardest.  Trump's plundering of Commodity Credit Corporation funds to send welfare checks to producers to make up for it has turned farm country into a federal vassalage.  Columnist Alan Guebert tells these sad tales from the deep heartland as few others can, and references to his work would have dispelled the book's coastal cosmopolitan bias. 

Another omission is an explanation of how the rural communication networks established by land grant universities have become conduits for the spread of rural rage.  The Cooperative Extension Service, established by the Smith Lever Act to convey university research, never completely cut its former ties to the Farm Bureau, a powerful interest group aligned with corporate agriculture and monopolies.  To many, they are still synonymous, or at least compatible in outlook.  Trump relies heavily on the Farm Bureau to do his business in the heartland.  

The most striking omission in the book becomes apparent as readers surely scream at virtually every page, "So what is anybody doing about this!"  There are few if any anecdotes about Democrats' efforts to counter the authoritarian Republican takeover.  Instead, in chapter after chapter, the disproportionate influence of rural areas in our constitutional system, especially in the Electoral College and the Senate, is highlighted and blamed.  The question of why Democrats don't compete in rural areas, if this is where the most consequential votes exist, is not seriously addressed.  

A reason for this may be that one of the authors once advocated that Democrats could safely give up on winning votes in the South, which in many places heavily overlaps with rural.  It is a strategy that national Democrats have pursued nationwide — essentially giving up on rural voters and trying to rely on identitarianism to win.  Many rural Democrats have fought this abandonment intensely, and lost.  Their anecdotes are sorely missing from this book.  It's long past time to name the names responsible. 

In the final chapter, remedies for white rural rage are offered but they are not convincing.  Nobel laureate Paul Krugman reviewed the book and concluded that the demise of rural America was inevitable and the situation is fundamentally hopeless.  Neither is true, but that is not an erroneous reading of the book, sadly. 

The authors end with hope that a movement with a better vision of the future will be created.  But just who would lead this movement is a big blank.  The authors do not develop a case along the way that a change in Democrats' strategy, or courageous leadership from the nation's land grant universities, or less counterproductive Farm and Food Bills could show the way.  Actually, those three in combination could make a huge difference.  

Maybe a quick second edition could overcome these shortcomings?  That's a scream and a plea.     

Reject the Proposed Price-Fixing Settlement

January, 2024

Washington — Because it is one of the largest, most-consequential higher education lawsuits in recent memory, federal Judge Matthew F. Kennelly should not approve an unbalanced, unfair, and secretive settlement proposed by the plaintiffs and several defendants in Henry et al. v. Brown.  The much-disputed class-action case deals with price-fixing to raise the net price of attendance for the financially-needy at seventeen prominent institutions.*  

The settlement as proposed shortchanges student victims, represents a victory for the "enrollment management" industry at the expense of transparency in higher education finance, and thoughtlessly ignores the interests of taxpayers.   

Consider, for starters, this proposed provision: 

By [DATE], Settlement Class Counsel will move for an award of attorneys’ fees not to exceed 1/3 of the Settlement Fund, plus any accrued interest, reimbursement of litigation costs and expenses not to exceed $12,000,000 and service awards of up to $20,000 for each of the eight Settlement Class Representatives to be paid out of the Settlement Fund. If the Court grants Settlement Class Counsel’s requests, these amounts would be deducted from the Settlement Fund.

Because the proposed settlement fund is now $118 million and growing, attorneys fees will amount to over $39 million, in addition to up to $12 million in costs and expenses, or $51 million.  The victims of price-fixing in the affected class are expected to be awarded only $750 each.  And the eight named settlement class representatives will each get up to $20,000, or about .0004 (less than one-half of one percent) of the amount awarded to counsel.  Although counsel's work is commendable in routing out collusive institutional behavior, the case was notably assisted by a statement of the U.S. Department of Justice and an investigation by the New York Attorney General.   

Those who have followed this case will notice that the named representatives have changed somewhat since its original filing.  This may be the result of standing issues or because the representatives and their families were targeted for investigations themselves by the defendants.  If the latter, the awards do not adequately compensate the representatives.  One can only imagine what plaintiffs' families may have been subjected to, although Judge Kennelly seems to have mitigated the worst of it.   

Consider next the matter of transparency, which is being intentionally abandoned in this proposed settlement.  The defendants will not have to disclose any of their price-fixing methods (behind which there is a large consulting industry) and will be able to claim that they have committed no wrongdoing.  But was there wrongdoing?  What exactly defines price-fixing?  Is the public (let alone the regulators) supposed to guess?  Judge Kennelly, in denying an early motion for summary judgement against the plaintiffs, wrote this about the "enrollment management" methods at the heart of the case: 

The plaintiffs allege that ... the defendants ... purposefully "maintain a shroud of secrecy over" their enrollment management practices to avoid legal scrutiny.  Id. ¶¶ 157–58.  The evidence the plaintiffs cite is more than sufficient....   [Emphasis added]

Discovery in this case was extensive, the result of two years of "hard-fought litigation," according to the settlement proposal.   So what was discovered that is worth $118 million to cover up?  The schools must find something hugely threatening to be willing to pay such amounts to prevent the public from seeing what they (and their consultants) have been doing to drive up net price for those who can least afford it.  The amounts speak for themselves.  "Varsity Blues" pales in comparison.   

But also consider that several of the defendants have not yet agreed to settle and may be willing to go to trial to exonerate themselves.** This is also plausible.  I have spoken with many financial aid administrators at other colleges who have told me of internal struggles over the methods at issue.  (These methods are not limited to seventeen elite institutions but are in play at hundreds if not thousands of other schools.)  Not always have the price-fixers won out.  Among other reasons, the use of these methods often has a disproportionately adverse effect on minority populations, which when employed would give lie to institutional pronouncements supporting racial diversity and equity.  All of which may explain why some schools will go to extremes not to let the public see what is behind their decision-making.  

Consider next the interests of taxpayers in this case and its proposed settlement.  All of the schools involved are non-profit 501(c)3 institutions that encourage and receive tax-deductible contributions.  Such amounts are often referred to as "tax expenditures" in public finance.  If and when these funds are used in a settlement to deprive the public from understanding what goes on in financial aid offices behind closed doors, it is a misuse of the funds.  As a donor, I do not want my contributions paying for cover-ups.  

Additional concern:  does the proposed settlement also involve a supplemental agreement beyond the "merits" settlement, by which the class representatives are prohibited from disclosing any of the discovered materials?  Such non-disclosure agreements should be fully disclosed and the representatives made fully aware of the burdens being put on them.

I hope Judge Kennelly raises all of the above issues and considers what good might come of the case if the public interest is placed front and center.  Among those who need to know what is legal and what is not are financially-needy families and well-meaning counselors and advisors who try to inform them.  Imagine future "college nights" at high schools where families are told honestly what to watch out for in college financial aid packages, and how not to become victims of enrollment management price-fixing at any school they choose to attend, public or private.  

This case will have a good outcome only if it ultimately results in less reliance by the financially-needy on student and parent loans.  It will have a bad outcome if it merely shuffles hundreds of millions of dollars among the educational and professional gilt-edged.  Judge Kennelly can make a good outcome happen by requiring a better settlement.  

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* Plaintiffs alleged that seventeen universities "violated the antitrust laws by agreeing on a common formula and common principles regarding financial aid, and by exchanging competitively sensitive information concerning financial aid principles, formulas, and pricing."

** Settling defendants: Univ. of Chicago, Vanderbilt, Yale, Columbia, Emory, Duke, Brown, Rice.  Other defendants: Cal Tech, Cornell, M.I.T., Penn, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern.