When tourism was becoming recognized as a global force in the latter half of the 20th century, its cumulative impacts began to come under scrutiny in many established destinations. Researchers began examining both its positive and negative impacts on an economic, socio-cultural, and environmental basis. Significant negative impacts in each of these three areas were found to be prevalent in many destinations, and flaws were found in many accepted concepts and practices within the tourism industry. In response, alternative forms of tourism were developed along with new philosophies of implementation. Eventually these principles were extended to mainstream tourism, and other principles were developed and applied across all forms of tourism in an effort to promote positive tourism products that would be marketable to the vast majority of tourists. Tourism’s growth through these stages was the basis upon which Jafari developed his theory of Tourism’s Four Platforms. Unfortunately, even with those advancements and the concurrent emphasis on sustainability, tourism still generates significant negative impacts. How is higher education addressing this double-edged sword? Tourism students should be made aware of the entire spectrum of tourism’s impacts, not just its positive ones, but are tourism programs, including hospitality programs, embracing or shying away from these topics? Are tourism and hospitality courses properly addressing the industry’s darker side? Are professors and the textbooks they write advocates of enlightenment and responsible actions, or are they shills for business as usual, passively ignoring anything that detracts from a positive view of the industry and the dominant practices of the day? The long-standing controversy over the preferred orientation of the tourism curriculum as vocational or liberal is also examined as a precursor to course content and direction. This paper will review the literature as it has developed over the past quarter century and then explore the current situation based on personal observations and suggest further research.