We have debated whether to send this newsletter out in the midst of the war in the Middle East, or even to change the metaphor of war that we use below. Despite the ongoing calamity in the Middle East, we have decided to send this out as scheduled. We do not in any way want to diminish the scope of the challenges we all face as we move forward in this radically changed world. But, as I watch debates erupt on campuses across the country, I am reminded that the ripple effects of this war—who should say what and when they should say it—are widely reverberating. We hope that the content of this newsletter might serve as a resource to help us think about how we, on a meta-level, think about these issues in furtherance of our mission.

Welcome to the Democracy & Higher Education newsletter. Though this is the first newsletter for our project on Democracy and American Higher Education, this project has been ongoing for a few years at Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. My deep concern for the future of higher education and its democratic mission in our country dates back to the election of Donald Trump as President, though this was certainly not the first time that the rhetoric and policies of right-wing populism identified higher education as the enemy. At the same time, those on the right have lamented what they see as an intolerant left on campus that squelches free speech and leaves our institutions ideological echo chambers. 

I should be as transparent as I can be here in my first letter. My primary concern is of the threats coming from the right, involving the use of state power to influence what universities do and how they do it. But over the course of this work, I have also become more sensitive to the perception that threats to higher education’s democratic mission come from many different places; this project will highlight these threats wherever they originate.

The goal of this project is to make clear the vitally symbiotic relationship that exists between the strength of liberal democracy and higher education in the United States. When liberal democracy is imperiled, so too the vibrancy and health of our colleges and universities. Few would disagree that the academic freedom undergirding our higher education system can only thrive within a vibrant and healthy liberal democracy. AND, that liberal democracy is strengthened when our colleges and universities commit to the pursuit of their democratic mission. 

Over the years that we have been working on this project, controversies in our higher education system have boiled over from our trade publications like Inside Higher Education and The Chronicle of Higher Education to more general news sources such as The New York Times and Fox News. The issue has gained ever more political salience as Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, has made all of education—K-12 and higher—a direct target in his political agenda. Along with Florida, state legislatures across the country are increasingly intervening on university affairs that have traditionally been in the purview of faculty. 

Our universities are both a reflection of the extreme political polarization that pervades our political universe and a contributor to it. Clark Kerr, former head of the California State System, said that the “University is so many things to so many people that it must, of necessity, be partially at war with itself.” And indeed we are.

Our goal in this project is to work together, across ideological divides, to defend the democratic mission of our sector so that we may remain a global leader in the business of knowledge production and dissemination. The stakes are high, and so our work is vital as we ask you to join us in this important project. If you have ideas for this project or comments on this newsletter, please be in touch with me directly at eric.mlyn@duke.edu.

Eric Mlyn

Lecturer, Sanford School of Public Policy

Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Kenan Institute for Ethics

Director, Project on Democracy and Higher Education

Monday, October 23, 2023
12:00–1:00 p.m. EST
via Zoom

Come hear experts and leaders including Dr. Steve Brint, Dr. Ashley White, and Dr. Jeremy C. Young speak on coordinated efforts led by conservative think-tanks. We will examine the political machinery behind these common attacks and discuss its implications. Among them, this webinar asks what the roles the legislature and the courts play in both these attacks and in their potential rebuttal, and how we might better leverage them for a more active defense of higher education. 

This part of the newsletter captures efforts made to defend Academic Freedom—both in response to threats originating inside universities that seek to limit and sometimes silence conservative speech, and against threats that originate outside universities as state governments interfere in what and how we teach. There is some evidence to the former, as college and university leaders are pushing back when conservative voices are interfered with or silenced by students who disagree with their views. For the latter, university faculties are rising up against unprecedented state interference.

The below looks at case studies for each type of threat:

This section highlights two recent examples of University leaders who have explicitly spoken out to support Academic Freedom, in these two cases pushing back on moves by more liberal stakeholders to limit speech because of its potential offensive nature. 

The first incident took place at the Stanford Law School on March 9, 2023 in response to an invitation to Judge Kyle Duncan of the U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Circuit. The law school’s Federalist Society extended the invitation and students in LGBTQ+ groups including Identity and Rights affirmers for Trans Equality (IRATE) objected and asked that the event be cancelled. The event went on with interruptions and heckling when Judge Duncan asked for an administrator to intervene.

Stanford’s Dean of the Law School and then President issued this apology. Coverage of the controversy in The Stanford Daily newspaper can be found here which has links to many different perspectives on this controversy.

In April this year, the President and Provost of Cornell University rejected a student supported resolution to provide “traumatic content” warnings for possibly disturbing syllabus content. Soon after the resolution initially passed, President Pollack and Provost Kotlikoff wrote “We cannot accept this resolution as the actions it recommends would infringe on our core commitment to academic freedom and freedom of inquiry…” Read more in the Cornell Review and in the NYT.

This section highlights two recent examples of organizations that have been formed to counter state incursions into university governance.

Probably no higher education institution in the United States has been subject to more of an assault from rightwing political forces than the New College, a small public college in Sarasota, Florida. Political allies of Governor Ron DeSantis have added rightwing provocateur Chris Rufo to the College’s board as well as others who have vowed to transform the college into something like Hillsdale College. Students, faculty, and staff are leaving the New College in droves as conservatives take over the institution. In response, allies of the New College have created the ALT NEW COLLEGE, where they are “building an online institute to support the academic freedom of faculty and students following the hostile takeover of New College of Florida." To learn more view this report on MSNBC.

The Coalition for Carolina is an independent 501(c)(3) organization founded to protect the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from political incursions from an increasingly hostile state legislature, Board of Governors, and Board of Trustees. The group describes themselves as “[A] nonpartisan group of concerned alumni, faculty, staff, students, and allies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We are a non-profit 501c3 organization and have also established a 501c4 organization. We’ve come together to support and defend the University of the People and its independence from partisan interference. We are dedicating ourselves to the University’s promise of Lux Libertas—light and liberty—and the principles of open inquiry, free speech, equity and inclusion.”

It is important for us to add a mention of the other side here in North Carolina. The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, which amongst other things aims to “increase the diversity of ideas taught, debated, and discussed on campus . . . Find ways to acquaint students with ideas that are dismissed or marginalized on campuses today . . . and be a watchdog for legislative and administrative governance,” has become a prominent conservative critic of higher education.

This section highlights important statements by University leaders on the issues related to this project and will each month highlight University leaders who take stands on these and other issues that are of interest to this project. 

“The Gravest Threats to Campus Speech comes from States, not Students,” President of Brown University Christine Paxson recently argued in a New York Times op-ed. In this piece, she acknowledges the need to allow speakers with controversial views to speak on our campuses but argues that occasional cancellations do not rise to the level of concern as warranted by legislation that states are passing now. As we try to grapple with where the most dangerous threats to campus speech lie, Paxson’s insights are a good place to begin.

President Neeli Bendapudi of Penn State University: “Penn State fully supports the fundamental right of free speech—even speech that tests the limits of tolerance. Free speech and expression of ideas are essential to higher education’s academic and civic missions. Watch as University President Neeli Bendapudi discusses the unique role that public institutions like Penn State play in supporting and protecting the First Amendment—a law that guarantees the basic freedom to think and express ourselves as we wish.”

Of course, this is not the first time that higher education has been in the crosshairs of American politics, though our current dilemmas somehow seem more acute and salient. This section of the newsletter will look back historically on this issue each month. 

The historian Ellen Schrecker, who has compared Trumpism to McCarthyism, wrote the important book No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (1986) as well as other important books that provide an indispensable history for the politics of higher education. In a recent lookback Schrecker argues:

“To understand what’s happening, you need to see how the backlash against higher education began. You need to trace its roots in the 1960s, its evolution through the culture wars of the 1980s and ‘90s, and into the current populist fray. Then you need to do something about it. Professors, administrators, students, and concerned citizens can no longer stand on the sidelines, shaking our heads and deploring the potentially devastating consequences. The simple truth is this: For decades, outside forces have — both consciously and unintentionally — undermined the integrity and quality of public higher education in America. And time and time again, a divided academic community has failed to combat them effectively. We can and must do better. Seeds of resistance are sprouting. Together, we must nurture their growth. There is no time to lose.” Read more here.

A wave of conservative activism has led to many state-level changes in the education landscape. In addition, many conservative think-tanks have spent time pondering how the federal government can also intervene to influence the trajectory and mission of higher education institutions in the United States, including but not limited to The Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Goldwater Institute, and the National Association of Scholars. Some levers that these sources have discussed employing include: amending accreditation procedures, making changes to the Higher Education Act (HEA); amending institutional access to Title IV funds; employing the Holman Rule, which allows any member of Congress single out a program in an appropriations bill which could be used to defund DEI programs; mobilizing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to initiate investigations that will cut off federal funding for institutions that refuse to comply; and, employing the Department of Education (DOE) and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to investigate any institution that admits to engaging in “systemic” or “structural” racism or discrimination.

Employing the Office of Civil Rights has already demonstrated success in dismantling many notable programs within higher education that promote diversity in a variety of senses. For instance, federal anti-discrimination complaints from higher education activist Mark Perry have resulted in more than 375 opened investigations at schools across the country. Duke University is no exception—Perry filed complaints against three programs at the Duke University Medical School that promote women and Black men in medicine, resulting in Duke revising the language around these programs. More recently, Perry filed a complaint against Duke’s Baldwin Scholars Program, another initiative to support undergraduate women in higher education. It is clear that federal action may dismantle the values currently enshrined in higher education institutions across the country. We in this project will be watching closely.

 

Amiya Mehrotra

Duke Class of 2024

Major in Public Policy | Minors in Economics and History

Ron Daniels, President of Johns Hopkins University, has written an important book that places the civic engagement movement in higher education in the broader context of our national and global democratic crisis. It quite clearly raises the limits of how American universities have pursued their civic engagement democracy work, pointing out, for example, that service learning programs are not enough. Elite university presidents are reluctant to wade into these fraught political waters, so this book represents a refreshing attempt to both identify the flaws of higher education’s democratic pursuits and to propose new ways to underscore higher education’s democratic mission. Daniels concludes, “There is no better place to start this conversation, this self-reflection, than the University. Not only must this indispensable institution seize this opportunity to understand what ails our liberal democracy, but it must also go further in discerning its own role in fostering liberal democracy…nothing less than the protection of our basic liberties is at stake.”

Jonathan Marks' Let’s Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case for Liberal Democracy (2021) is a wonderful, sometimes funny and self-deprecating read by a reasonable conservative who wishes for more conservative voices on campus but does not buy into the rightwing critique of cancel culture, or at least does not think it is as big of a problem as others. Marks is a good and witty writer and offers a unique and well-informed assessment of the political battles that engulf our University. Most of all, Marks makes a passionate plea for reason. For example, he writes of faculty, "[B]ut we can ask them, as members of a scholarly community, to agree with this proposition: in conflict between one’s convictions and the best argument, the best argument should prevail.” Who could disagree with that?

Democracy and Higher Education gathers faculty, administrators, and members of the public to reflect on how the university should respond to ongoing threats towards democratic values and principles. We critically examine the current political debates surrounding higher education to identify areas for intervention. We also embrace a view of the university as a place where different ideas come together, and we seek to promote democracy on our campuses while remaining non-partisan and engaging a diverse range of viewpoints.

Democracy and Higher Education is a program of the Kenan Institute for Ethics.

Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University
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