Love Your College? Don’t Send Money
Save your school by sending a message instead
With June 30 fast approaching, so approaches the end of the fiscal year for most colleges and universities. That means alumni email inboxes are filling up with last minute reminders to stroke a check to their alma mater’s Annual Fund.
At the same time, news headlines tell horrid stories of school-sanctioned anti-Semitism, speech codes, bloated administrations, and sky-high tuition leading to billions in taxpayer-funded student loan bailouts. Any one of these issues is sufficient reason to question the state of American higher education, but the current cocktail of craziness makes it a good time to ask whether your college’s values align with your own, and—if not—why in the world do you keep sending them money?
There’s no better example of counter-productive and anti-democratic practices on campus than mandatory statements of DEI loyalty for potential faculty hires. This means that anyone applying for a teaching position must submit a letter testifying to their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion prior to the school evaluating their academic credentials. We’ve seen this kind of thing before.
In 1950, California enacted a law called the Levering Act, which required state employees to sign an oath pledging they were not members of the Communist Party. The California Board of Regents subsequently fired 31 professors who refused to do so.
To the believers in McCarthy era anti-Communism, Levering’s value was self-evident and incontrovertible. The California State Federation of Teachers disagreed, arguing that the requirement “imposes on public workers a political test for employment, deprives them of equal protection under the law as guaranteed in the 14th Amendment, and exposes them through its ambiguity to self-incrimination and perjury.”
Similarly, sincere advocates for DEI believe it should take precedence over freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and a free and fair labor market, if they’ve thought about the potential consequences at all. Yet like the Federation of Teachers, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) warns that compulsory DEI statements “can too easily function as ideological litmus tests that threaten employment or advancement for faculty holding dissenting views.” In other words, professors who may be the most qualified to teach their discipline and inspire future generations of learners must conform or be cast out.
I first heard about this issue last year in news reports about lawsuits filed against the University of California system, which required such oaths. I assumed this was an isolated case of California and, probably, Ivy League nuttiness. But when I kept hearing about it, I wondered, “Might my alma mater do the same thing?”
So I Googled faculty openings at Rhodes College in Memphis (go Lynx!), then clicked on this one for a Visiting Professor of Mathematics and Statistics. Much to my surprise, there it was. All candidates were required to submit a “statement that addresses how the candidate’s experiences with teaching, scholarship, and/or service will contribute to a college community that includes a commitment to diversity and inclusion as one of its core values.” Why does a Math professor need to embrace DEI? Obviously, to protect fragile students against racist numbers!
Well then, how about graduate school? Indeed, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business where I earned my MBA, keeps the “E” and insists that job seekers provide a cover letter stating how they will “advance Dartmouth’s commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
I love both schools. In each case, I made lifelong friends, learned a ton, and take great pride in my association with them. So I’ve given back. In fact, I worked for three years raising money as an employee in the Rhodes Development Office right after graduation. I’ve also contributed tens of thousands of dollars to each of my alma maters and even co-endowed a modest scholarship in honor of one of my former Rhodes faculty mentors.
But I’m putting my financial support on hold until these schools eliminate compelled speech in their hiring, and you should too. It’s a long-shot, but it’s worth trying because these practices are prevalent, punitive, and do harm to those they purport to help.
Progress happens when the economically disadvantaged achieve financial autonomy. This is why my wife and I have contributed even more significantly to literacy and job training programs that primarily benefit Black students. Unfortunately, the Progressivism we’re seeing on campus ingrains attitudes that perpetuate inequality. Lowering requirements for math, teaching Ibram Kendi’s doctrine that “to be anti-racist you must be anti-capitalist,” or the Smithsonian’s belief that delayed gratification is a symptom of whiteness will prolong and expand the economic divide.
Surely there are a lot of college administrators out there who believe in a more rational approach to lifting up the underprivileged, but resisting an oppressive political movement requires courage. Just like those who refused to sign the Levering Act were labeled anti-American, anyone who questions DEI risks being labeled a racist (remember this gem of a public shaming from Yale?). But if you believe universities should be engaged in a quest for truth, it is necessary to swim against this very strong tide. As former Harvard President and Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers tweeted a few days ago, “Requiring statements of fealty from faculty job candidates is an affront to almost every academic freedom value.”
In 1967, the California Supreme Court declared the Levering Act to be unconstitutional. Likewise, it’s time to eliminate all required political endorsements for faculty jobs. Perhaps the dam is breaking. Last month, the Chronicle of Higher Education called mandatory DEI statements what they are: “Ideological Pledges of Allegiance.” And just last week, MIT reversed its mandatory DEI statement policy. Perhaps other schools will follow, if we give them permission to do so.
So, stop giving until your school does the right thing. Will it help? Probably not, since non-billionaire alumni are the least important of a university’s constituencies. But if a couple hundred student protestors can bring a campus to its knees, maybe a few thousand alumni withholding annual fund gifts will give the administrators the fuel they need to eliminate this transparently prejudicial hiring practice.
It won’t fix all the problems on campus, but it’s a start. And if they do it by June 30, I’ll get out my checkbook.
An email request for comments to the Rhodes College Marketing and Communications department was not returned.
THE END
(but keep reading…)
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Nice work, Paul.
Thanks for this well-constructed piece. It's easy to trade free speech when one's world view is winning. Not so much when you're on the other end. That's why freedom of speech and thought matters at all times.