Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Commentary by Jonathan Barth originally published by RealClearEducation and RealClearWire
University presidents have been in the limelight in recent months, more than at any other time in living memory. The additional scrutiny is amply warranted. They occupy powerful positions at their respective institutions. They formulate and communicate a vision for the university. They handle budgetary priorities. They approve hiring requests and promotions. They oversee the creation of new colleges, schools, and centers. They issue statements on behalf of the entire institution. They are the public face of the university.
But while the debacle on Capitol Hill on December 5, 2023 heightened public awareness of the inscrutable hegemon we call the Ivy League President, it also revealed how extensively and thoroughly DEI has infected most of our elite institutions, top to bottom. Most now know that something is terribly, terribly rotten in the state of Denmark – and it goes far beyond university presidents. The problem is systemic.
Consider the political and ideological homogeneity of the American higher education complex. College and university administrators – positions that have mushroomed in recent years – are especially egregious on this point. One study by Samuel Abrams found an astonishing 12:1 ratio of liberals to conservatives among administrators (71 percent identified as “liberal” or “very liberal”; only 6 percent identified as conservative).
Faculty are hardly better, and sometimes worse depending on the school and department. The STEM fields have less of a problem with political variety, but the social sciences and humanities are a veritable echo chamber. A 2018 study by Mitchell Langbert, for example, looked at the public voter registrations of nearly 9,000 tenured and tenure-track professors. For faculty in the humanities, the ratio was 32 Democrats for every Republican. A well-publicized survey last year by The Harvard Crimson found that a measly two percent of Harvard faculty describe themselves as conservative.
Small wonder that Gallup in 2023 found that only 19 percent of Republicans and only 36 percent of Americans have confidence in higher education (as recently as 2015, the number was 56 and 57 percent respectively).
Meanwhile, many faculty have their noses in the air, oblivious or unruffled by the reasons for their diminishing credibility. A 2022 FIRE survey asked faculty how universities should rank political diversity among the professoriate versus racial or gender diversity. A solid majority – 55 percent – said that political diversity was either “less important” or “not important at all” (36 and 19 percent respectively).
So what can we do? The corruption of K-12 education led to the homeschooling revolution and the proliferation of charter schools and other school choice programs. But these options are not available in higher education.
Of the grander, long-term proposals for alternatives to the current system, some are more realistic than others.
For one, you could take an axe to the demand for higher education. Most employers could simply no longer require a college degree. And where further education is necessary, employers and companies could establish their own training programs or subcontract out to another training provider.
On the supply side, you could have a top-down takeover of a preexisting university, as Governor Ron DeSantis modeled with New College of Florida. Governor DeSantis’s assertion of control over New College led to the resignation of more than a third of the faculty, a not-unwelcome development considering that most of the resignees were likely the most ideological.
Another far more daunting approach is to create alternative universities.
But what are some practical policies that can be realistically achieved in the immediate term?
The Center for American Institutions at Arizona State University recently put forward some policy recommendations that should be closely considered by every state legislature in the country. The recommendations were part of a detailed report, “The Study of American History in Our Universities.” The findings of the report were damning: they revealed an overwhelming, disproportionate emphasis on teaching the negative aspects of American history.
But pertinent to the question of reforming the university, the report included several policy recommendations.
First, the report calls for educational transparency. All course syllabi should be publicly available and easily accessible. Most syllabi at most public universities are not available to anyone outside the university. Americans should know how their tax dollars are being used in the classroom.
Second, the report calls for administrators and regents to insist on broader faculty searches that are not aimed exclusively at attracting highly ideological, left-wing candidates. State legislatures could also write this requirement into law.
Lastly, the report recommends upending the hardened disciplines within the humanities and social sciences through the creation of multi-disciplinary departments, schools, and colleges within the university, complete with expansive curricula to encourage dialogue across the disciplines and to foster greater intellectual diversity among the faculty.
Most Americans agree that our universities are an utter mess. But the university has been a bedrock of Western civilization since the Middle Ages. It would be foolish to surrender such a necessary and foundational institution simply because radicals successfully hijacked it half a century ago. Recapturing these institutions will require courage, will, persistence, and thoughtful innovation.
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By Jonathan Barth – This article was originally published by RealClearEducation and made available via RealClearWire.
