The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.

Chomsky is arguing that formal schooling and credentialed career pathways often function less as neutral engines of learning than as mechanisms of social selection. In his view, institutions—universities, professions, and the organizations that hire their graduates—tend to reward conformity, deference to authority, and comfort with prevailing norms. Those who are strongly independent-minded or inclined to challenge institutional priorities may be screened out through grading, gatekeeping, and professional socialization. The quote reflects a broader Chomskyan critique of how power reproduces itself: not only through overt coercion, but through subtle incentives and filters that shape who advances and what kinds of thinking are treated as “professional” or “serious.”