Tower of Power © María DeGuzmán
BY SHERRYL KLEINMAN
The right has recently adopted the language of “viewpoint diversity” in their critique of allegedly liberal professors. “Diversity” sounds nice (how could one be against it?) and, coupled with “viewpoint,” has a ring of freedom about it. But this rhetoric barely masks the intent: to justify hiring conservative faculty and creating conservative programming. Presumably this will create “balance” (another popular term), offsetting all those faculty who care nothing about their disciplines but want to create political disciples.
Universities have long had donors, and increasingly stingy legislatures have forced public universities to become more dependent on them. The problem arises when boards of governors, boards of trustees, legislatures, and wealthy donors work with university administrators—apart from faculty, with the exception of a hand-picked few—to make decisions about hiring faculty and creating curricula. These two matters should be controlled by the faculty, as the 1966 AAUP Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities makes clear.
Faculty, regardless of their political affiliations, are professional researchers and teachers with expertise in their discipline or field. We study and teach using the standards and latest knowledge in our areas of interest. We teach arguments, methods, theoretical perspectives, and research findings. Our goal is analysis, not representing “viewpoints.” The mission of the university is corrupted when external political pressures trump the faculty’s educational prerogatives.
The right’s concern about viewpoint diversity is also selective. I have yet to hear the right criticize business schools for assuming or teaching the rightness of capitalism or for not having enough faculty with “other views.” The ideological commitments behind arguments for “viewpoint diversity” are clear.
Recent developments at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill illustrate the problem. As 236 pages from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request demonstrate, members of the conservative board of governors and high-level administrators collaborated, at least since 2017, in working on creating what is now called the Program in Civic Virtue and Civil Discourse. Chris Clemens (Senior Associate Dean of the Natural Sciences in 2017 and now Senior Associate Dean for Research and Innovation) was put in charge of assembling the pieces. The student newspaper reported that “Clemens said [at a Faculty Executive Committee meeting on August 19, 2019] that the program doesn’t favor any political platform.” But as Clemens wrote in 2017 to Robert George, the self-described conservative who directs Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, “I have been among the most outspoken conservative members of the Art[s] & Sciences faculty at UNC for many years . . . I am . . . intrigued to learn of our administration’s interest in housing a conservative center on campus.”
Since then, Robert George has been appointed chair of the advisory board of the UNC program. In a letter, interim dean of arts and sciences Terry Rhodes asked George to participate in a nationwide search for the “founding” faculty director, who will, according to a June 2019 brochure from the development office, receive $350,000 a year. George will receive $20,000 for his services for nine months.
To summarize: this program, and a key faculty hire (there may well be others), originated from outside the faculty at UNC–Chapel Hill, and continues to be dominated by non-UNC faculty; the advisory board also includes members of the board of trustees and board of governors—for a program that will be tied to the general education curriculum. Even if the program weren’t ideologically based, lack of transparency and interference by administrators at UNC, steered by faculty members outside the university, and members of the board of trustees and board of governors on an advisory board for a curriculum, violate AAUP principles.
Thus far, the program has received almost one million dollars in seed money. Yet administrators will not disclose the name of the donor(s). The Carolina Foundation, connected to UNC–Chapel Hill, claims it is “private” and can maintain anonymity of major donors for a curriculum at a public university. Perhaps legal challenges will be made to this oft-used strategy by the university. And one wonders: why would the donor(s) want to hide?
It is hardly a coincidence that the UNC Board of Governors, the politicized group that oversees the UNC system, closed the Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity and then stopped the Center for Civil Rights at the law school from litigating cases. Many argued that the board’s decision about the CCR was yet another interference in a curriculum because it cost students the opportunity to get hands-on experience litigating civil rights cases. Neither the poverty center nor the CCR received state funding.
As Jane Mayer wrote in her 2016 book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, Robert George’s program at Princeton “serves as the beau ideal of the ‘beachhead’ theory’”—having a cell of conservatives at high-status universities (p. 104)—whereby “conservative donors look for like-minded faculty members whose influence could be enlarged by outside funding’” (103).
Conservative donors and legislatures are now seeking beachheads, and more, at public universities. The New York Times reported that Arizona’s conservative legislature “bankrolled” the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, while underfunding the university’s existing programs. Professor Paul Carrese, its director, also serves on the advisory board of the UNC program. So, the flagship of UNC appears to be next. Unless the faculty and everyone else who cares will stop them.
Guest blogger Sherryl Kleinman is emerita professor of sociology of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is active in the AAUP.
The fact is the VIEWPOINT diversity is probably more important to the basic intellectual mission of most universities than diversity of epidermal pigmentation. I say that as a Marxist, not a right-wing troglodyte. I have yet to read a compelling rationale for diversity of skin color; the closest argument I’ve heard is the “role model” explanation, but that is filled with flaws, given that it only exaggerates the over-emphasis on race in academia.
The writer appears to ratify why such “diversity” initiatives are activated: the modern university campus, generally (on many, especially) has or is functioning under a dysfunctional interpretation of identity (race and gender especially) such that even the necessary legal balance of various rights and due process have been severely compromised. Such initiatives and influences as she describes are therefore largely restorative to interpretative and procedural equanimity. Moreover, while she makes an important point generally about special interest and corporate influence, those are not monopolized by single-party political affiliation (her judgmental bias and error thus revealed). Indeed, such influences also emanate from federal executive undue influence such as the prior administration’s DCL, and the over-interpretation of Title VI of the CRA concerning cause of action in discrimination. Such potential torts and other liabilities have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and even assembly such that preemptive behavior by university administration occurs ex ante (for example, advisory communication prior to program, event or other activity that can be asserted as hostile, therefore exclusionary and thereby discriminatory) or ex post through (what amounts to) violation of constitutional restrictions in ex post facto law (the so-called “Chicago Principles” are so configured by reservation of undisclosed enforcement standards, consequences and effects). The writer, who does not appear to be a lawyer or advised by one, is unfortunately operating cognitively (perhaps otherwise) in a bias construct that must be disassembled and remediated before she can undertake and advance a logical exposition, at least in this subject domain. I write as an alumnus of the University of Chicago, and a college parent. Readers may note my opinion in the Wall Street Journal in this matter, “The Government and Free Speech on Campus:” https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-government-and-free-speech-on-campus-1510000926. Regards.
Good lord. These first two commenters actually sound like Russian bots. Both grammatically and conceptually incoherent. I especially love this one: “The writer, who does not appear to be a lawyer or advised by one, is unfortunately operating cognitively (perhaps otherwise) in a bias construct…” Dang. Operating in a bias construct. Sucks.
I can only speak for myself but in reviewing my comment above I find No instances if grammatical or conceptual “incoherence.” Of course, “Are You Serious?” (if that is his real name) proffers NO specific criticism of the idea expressed. Instead, he just states an UNSUBSTANTIATED opinion.
Let me use this opportunity to clarify and expand on what I said above: I am generally opposed to state legislatures interfering with academic decision-making, unless some law is being broken by a university’s policies or procedures. However, it is a much-reported fact that intellectual diversity is not popular these days — in part because most profs believe that conservative thought is the equivalent of flat-earth ideas and, worse, not just wrongheaded and inaccurate but Evil.
Even if it were true that a lack of “viewpoint diversity” existed in academia and that professors are to blame (though I don’t believe that is true), are you saying state legislatures and university boards of governors should intervene and exercise control over public university curricula and faculty hiring even though they lack the expertise to make such decisions? Because that is what the author is speaking out against. And if you do think so, do you think state legislatures should force public business schools to hire a certain number of marxist faculty and faculty who can teach about worker-owned cooperatives to balance out the pro-capitalist and pro-management viewpoints at the business school? Should the General Assembly force UNC-CH to hire a prof who will teach the merits of intelligent design for every biology prof who will teach evolutionary theory, to ensure students are exposed to multiple viewpoints? Should the Board of Governors force the university to hire someone who teach climate change denialism for every prof who will teach about the evidence of climate change in the name of “viewpoint diversity”? Where do we draw the line? How about we leave curricular and faculty hiring matters to those who are best situated to make informed decisions–that is, the faculty with expertise in their respective fields and disciplines?
…”most profs believe that conservative thought is the equivalent of flat-earth ideas and, worse, not just wrongheaded and inaccurate but Evil.” If so why not let it (conservative thought) play out in the marketplace of ideas. All we hear now is liberal/marxist canon.
So those who pay the bills, i.e. your salary, get no say in anything to do with the product you offer? Kinda elitist, no?
The author of this post rightly calls out the increasing encroachment by legislatures and Boards of Governors over curricula and faulty hiring. That should be left to faculty and faculty alone. Conservative legislatures and donors want to turn public universities into their own private think tanks. All faculty and students should be up in arms!