This paper examines the role of normative ideals in contemporary critiques of the university. It begins by suggesting that the normative ideal of the university advanced by Immanuel Kant in The Conflict of the Faculties is particularly relevant to current critiques, as exemplified by a manifesto produced at the University of Aberdeen entitled ‘Reclaiming our University’. The second portion of the paper notes that such critiques cannot however encompass all aspects of the modern university. The paper thus concludes that a (...) Kantian framework enables a narrower, but more powerful critique of New Public Management, which foregrounds issues of legitimate conflict within the university and its institutional reproduction over time instead of speaking to broader concerns about the university's civic/humanist origins. (shrink)