BY JOHN K. WILSON
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has issued a tentative set of recommendation for amendments to the Higher Education Act. While claiming to offer “freedom from overregulation,” in reality the NAS proposals would impose the most restrictive, intrusive, and repressive regulations on higher education in American history.
The vast number of bad ideas in this plan are too numerous to discuss in detail here, but here are a few of the problematic proposals:
The NAS calls for a Congressional commission or the Secretary of Education to “see how colleges and universities have been fulfilling these responsibilities to protect student speech and association rights. This commission or the Secretary will report to Congress at least once a year, and list non-feasant and mal-feasant colleges and universities. Any non-feasant or mal-feasant college or university may then be denied eligibility for Title IV funds.”
This is an extraordinarily dangerous plan. To ban all Title IV funds because some bureaucrat thinks a college isn’t doing enough to protect free speech is a breathtaking amount of power. It’s ridiculous to imagine that this body can investigate the actual state of free speech on thousands of college campuses.
And how the NAS defines “Protected speech” and “protected association” is particularly bad. The NAS includes “The right to study in an environment free of disruption and intimidation.” Disruption and intimidation are very vague terms. Is a student protest on campus disruptive? What about a controversial speaker? Will views deemed offensive be regarded as a form of intimidation?
The NAS announces “The right of student associations (especially religious ones) to determine eligibility for membership and qualification for positions of leadership. These rights not to be abridged by institutional mandates for race, class, sex, gender, or gender-preference inclusivity.” The NAS is declaring that white supremacist groups have the right to form student organizations and ban anyone who isn’t white, and colleges must accept these discriminatory rules or lose federal financial aid. This goes far beyond the normal debate on these issues. Of course, I have long criticized the effort to create discriminatory anti-gay religious student groups, especially because it gives administrators at public universities the power to judge the religious views of students. It would be far better to say that students get to define the principles and choose the leaders of their student organizations.
The NAS also proposes a radical step to destroy accreditation: “Remove the requirement for accreditation and require only that a college receive accreditation from a body that assesses financial stability.” In other words, as long as a “college” has money, it can call itself a college and scam public money even if it doesn’t bother to provide an education. This is an invitation to every scam artist who wants to put the word “University” after his name to receive automatic approval, and the NAS also demands an end to any restrictions on for-profit colleges.
The NAS wants to require all colleges that receive federal funds to reveal payments of speaker fees above $20,000. It’s a very odd rule considering that no one requires corporations with federal contracts to disclose how much they pay their consultants. This kind of overregulation and bureaucratic control is exactly what the NAS claims to be opposing.
The NAS also calls for eliminating “peer review” and
replacing “peer review” with “expert review.” “Peer review” has increasingly been compromised by higher education drift into ideological conformity and groupthink. The Secretary should be advised to seek reviewers who are of genuinely independent minds.
This appears to be a demand that academics should be shut out of the peer review process and replaced with “experts” from conservative think tanks such as the NAS.
The NAS also wants to ban Title IV loans for any remedial education courses, and calls for “a thorough review of the radical decline in the quality of teachers’ colleges.”
The NAS calls for transfering half of the Title IV allotment to states, effectively starving students of funding as states use the money to replace their own higher education allocations.
The NAS also proposes to make colleges pay for a portion of a student’s loans if a student defaults on a loan. This will cause colleges to discriminate against poor students even more than they already do. It will create a system where worthless for-profit colleges exploit poor students for federal student aid money and then shut down once the students default on their loans.
In order for students to receive federal aid, colleges must give up an enormous amount of authority according to the NAS proposals:
“Sign a charter of academic rights, said charter to be drafted by a Presidential Commission appointed for that purpose.” Based on Donald Trump’s record on free speech, any commission he appoints would almost certainly undermine academic rights, not increase them (and the NAS should keep in mind that the Commission, and the charter imposed on every college, will change with each new president). But no matter who is president, it is wrong for the federal government to impose the same “charter” on every college.
“Reduce the proportion of college administrators to faculty members to a proportion to be determined.” The problem with such rules is that should not be imposed by the federal government, and they are easy to manipulate. A college can easily add to the number of faculty members by hiring more adjuncts. They can reduce administrators by calling them staff, or by outsourcing jobs.
“Spend a minimum percentage of income from the endowment to subsidize students’ costs, thereby lowering tuition. Percentage to be determined.” This is a terrible idea. First of all, it is a government intrusion on university decisions. Second, it is a demand that colleges reduce tuition for the rich rather than providing additional aid to the poor. Third, it will never work: colleges can simply increase tuition by any amount, and then lower tuition to meet the government’s demands.
And attacking immigrants will be imposed on colleges by the NAS plan: “Verify that they are not a ‘sanctuary campus.’ Colleges must provide full information about the legal status (citizen, legal immigrant, or other) of all students, faculty, and other employees.”
For Title IX, the NAS demands, “Define ‘sex’ as biological, not mental or emotional, or dependent on an individual’s self-perception. The biological definition of sex, if one is needed, should be grounded in the chromosomal definition of sex, not secondary sexual characteristics.” This is essentially nationalizing the North Carolina “bathroom bill” that requires a person’s sex to be determined solely by their chromosomes at birth, essentially banning transgender people.
The extent of federal control and bureaucracy urged by the NAS is so extreme that they propose a federal license for anyone to work as a Title IX administrator on campus.
The NAS proposals, if enacted by a compliant Trump Administration and Republican Congress, would do enormous damage to higher education. They would impose massive regulation and bureaucracy on colleges, destroy educational opportunities for many poorer students, and undermine free speech on campus.
title IV funds are the student loan monies. Any restriction of those funds impacts, ultimately, on the students. With shrinking student numbers and the need to expand the criteria for admissions and increase recruitment from outside the US, the HEI’s have become dependent on these funds.
As has been discussed in several recent threads, there are many paths for an individual to obtain the skills, both cognitive and soft skills that provide the balance between participating in the economy and contributing to a vibrant and full civic life. It may be time for universities and colleges to reassess their own future for mission creep and potential and how they participate in the larger role in society.
That might mean considering rejecting the “king’s shilling”, the Title IV money, should these or similar toxic elements be enacted. Such a position countering not just NAS, would, perhaps, draw support from surprising directions outside of the academy
Alternatively, universities and colleges, whether non profit or for profit are creating demand by dangling the possibility of “jobs”, which, increasingly, in the US and globally, are either not there, particularly in a student’s major, or non-existent. The universities are competing for “markets”, believing in their own “product” It may be time that universities in their current embodiment undergo singular reviews of their missions and “markets” which might mean serious realignment.
It might even mean reduction in the administrative overhead and start to restore more faculty participation in their own governance and regain their voice.
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At one time, NAS was primarily concerned with the imbalance between voices of conservatives and the increasing number of left leaning academics. In many ways, the faculty movement under the Heterodox Academy has assumed that mantle. Conservatives have always been concerned about the encroachment of government into society, particularly education. Yet, NAS, here, has increasingly turned to government rather than working within their own professional community. They are like Calvin and Hobbes careening down the slippery slope with the wheels coming off the wagon and out of control.
In Kenya when one party wins an election, one is cognizant of the phrase, It’s Our Turn to Eat”. But what happens at the next turning?
One additional point, from the blog of the Times Higher Education blog which just posted the impact on British universities affected by visa issues, http://tinyurl.com/hhvfz8d, which notes the dependency of these institutions on foreign students who pay full tuition. This is a similar issue with US universities, institutions that are also dependent on foreign students which says that these institutions will continue to need to expand and serve non US students for income. This is not an issue of who matriculates but more an issue that the universities, particularly the lower tier, less well endowed, are essentially an enterprise that will serve the market that pays for service. The question is what is driving the survival of that enterprise the same as any business: attracting “customers”, lowering cost of production and, perhaps offering other features to provide a price/value to maintain the enterprise. Cost of production includes wages and benefits of the production workers.
Reblogged this on Lili's Dark Tales.
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It is interesting that federal regulation of higher education is seen as a dangerous overreach, but federal deregulation of elementary education is seen as a dangerous dereliction of duty. One is tempted to conclude that regulations are good when they impact my enemy, and bad when the impact me.
Free speech is an incredibly important issue that colleges and universities still can’t figure out. Why shouldn’t government, i.e. we the people, who have huge vested interest and invested money in the educational system, get involved in straightening things out? The NAS proposal might be flawed, but where are the other proposals, and why hasn’t the currently unregulated system adopted them yet?
Actually, I get worried about federal regulation of K-12 schools, too. It was the right-wing that went crazy about Common Core and demanded local control of schools, and who must explain their hypocrisy on higher ed. Trump’s proposal to defund public schools and give the money to private schools and homeschooling isn’t federal deregulation.
Colleges and universities have done a much better job of figuring free speech than Republican politicians ever have. Probably that’s because colleges are more knowledgeable about the subject, and are more likely to listen to faculty and students, while the politicians want to punish their political enemies. I’ve been advocating and working on plans to build a better a campus conduct code, and I encourage anyone to join me on that project.
Thank you for your response, and your points are cogent. I do hope that something gets done without significant federal regulation, but I wouldn’t expect any politicians to explain their hypocrisy if it gets them votes.
Colleges and universities should look at this proposal carefully and recognize that something like this could happen, and they should plan accordingly. FIRE has suggestions, HxA has suggestions, and I’d be interested in your suggestions, but if administrators don’t listen, they may just have to deal with something like this (and/or another “Dear Colleague” letter).
Dear John,
I take your scorched earth rejection of everything we put in the preliminary proposal as a good indication that we are on the right track. Thank you for the unintended endorsement! You might want to keep a close watch on NAS.org as we add to and modify the proposals in light of the numerous constructive suggestions we have been receiving.
Yours,
Peter Wood
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Why does regulation and government involvement go hand in hand?