A firsthand account from the University of Michigan argues that campus politics matter less than people think, because students arrive with their views already set — an unsettling read for anyone hoping college reform fixes the problem.

• Required courses on race and ethnic relations deliver exactly the politics you would expect, but most students tune them out.
• The average student showed almost no interest in campus activism, not the wall-to-wall radicalism outsiders imagine.
• Michigan has still produced real extremism, including arrests over planned attacks on professors seen as too pro-Israel.
• The takeaway: a small activist core drives the headlines while the median student is politically checked out.
• If beliefs are locked in by the end of public high school, targeting universities is aiming at the wrong stage.

Outlook: Expect the fight over political influence in education to shift down toward K-12 curricula rather than staying focused on college campuses.