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The EHLI already included a plan to provide “financial rewards for finding/reporting” the use of such language. At a recent faculty senate meeting, Juan Santiago drew attention to another bureaucratic invention at Stanford, the Protected Identity Harm (PIH) Reporting system. It allows anyone to report anonymously any incident that “adversely and unfairly targets an individual or group on the basis of one or more . . . actual or perceived characteristics,” including “race,” “sex,” “disability,” “gender identity or expression,” and other categories. The website says the process exists to address “situations involving real or perceived incidents” and even encourages students to report incidents that “may involve constitutionally protected speech.”

Stanford claims that the PIH is “not a judicial or investigative process,” but don’t count on it. Maybe the alleged offender is merely pressured into “a path to resolution,” which can include, among other options, “mediated conversation,” “indigenous circle practices,” or an “outdoor/nature based healing experience.” A complaint could also lead to an investigation, since “a matter involving conduct that rises to the level of a hate crime or unlawful discrimination or harassment may be referred to law enforcement or another appropriate process on campus.” It is difficult to believe that any student (or faculty member) notified of a complaint through this system would not feel that he or she is being investigated.

In private communications, several Stanford faculty members expressed concerns about the impact of the PIH on teaching and learning at the university. Stephen Haber, who has won multiple teaching awards, said the fundamental problem is that it “erodes trust” when “universities function on the basis of trust.” Faculty and students must be free to experiment with new ideas, he explained, but the rational response to a system such as the PIH is to avoid saying anything that someone might report.

Iván Marinovic agreed that the PIH “creates a chilling effect in the classroom where people feel permanently observed and morally judged.” He added that the reporting system “promotes the lowest tendencies of human beings” because it “provides a low-cost tool for cowardly and resentful people to attack their (ideological) opponents’ reputation behind their backs.”

Adding to the looming threat of the PIH, Santiago also noted in his presentation that it relies on an external vendor, “who collects the information.” A quick look at the PIH form reveals that the reporting system uses student-conduct software produced by Maxient, which, according to the company’s website, is used by over 1,300 colleges and universities, including the University of Florida, MIT, and Ohio State University, to give just a few examples.

Blending beneficence and discipline like the World State in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Maxient’s website tells prospective users that its “Conduct Manager has you covered for all things related to a student’s conduct and well-being.” It can be used to store and track all sorts of student information, including some that is useful and benign, but also some — such as anonymous bias complaints filed through reporting systems like Stanford’s PIH — that can create a sense of fear and mutual suspicion on campus that undermines the free exchange of ideas.

There are clearly privacy and security issues that arise from using third-party software to collect and store sensitive data (Maxient was hacked by a competitor several years ago). Worse than that, however, is that the software is designed to help bureaucrats monitor and discipline students for conduct violations in a system that favors complainants over respondents.

As Marybeth Sydor, a Title IX and Higher Education consultant with Nesenoff and Miltenberg, observed, several elements of the reporting form are prejudiced against respondents. The very fact that “Stanford specifically named their Maxient reporting ‘Protected Identity’ and not ‘Anonymous,’ as other schools do” is an indication of this. She also noted that “the Stanford form repeatedly uses the word ‘targeted’ to describe the alleged behavior, indicating a prejudicial presumption of intent by the accused.”

Most students are probably not even aware that their schools are using Maxient or other software to keep detailed files on them that can include notes on their behavior. When they do become aware, it is unclear how much of the information in their files they can access. Sydor said that “schools rarely provide Maxient reports to accused students,” and added that “most schools allow students to ‘view’ their educational files but not necessarily receive a hard copy of the entire file.”

An anonymous source familiar with the use of Maxient at Stanford and elsewhere reports witnessing at another institution “a situation when the Title IX disciplinary person started to refer to past reports,” and when the student asked to see them, he “was told that information is confidential and he is not allowed to see it.” Asked about this, attorney Raul Jauregui, who works on Title IX cases, said, “Definitely this has happened to me during conversations with Title IX investigators and directors.”

Student-conduct officers can use the files, including complaints students do not even know about, as well as ones for which they are found not responsible, to establish patterns of behavior that can be used against them. Sydor noted that, “Stanford also states on the form that ‘This process was set-up to collect data’ which we know can be misinterpreted to create a pattern.” The anonymous source reported that, “If a student is accused of anything, the records are typically pulled up and then used in initial meetings with the student, in assembling a case for discipline and prosecution including Title IX but other disciplinary matters as well, and may often then even be brought to the hearing officers or hearing panels for the prosecutors to show this is a pattern and practice by the accused student.” Jauregui explained that student-conduct officers will do this to discourage respondents from defending themselves: “They try to discreetly mention that there is a pattern so you better just give up now before a hearing.”

The information collected might also be reviewed when students apply for housing, resident-assistant positions, or other perks or jobs at their university, the anonymous source also suggested. Asked if he had ever seen something like this, Jauregui responded, “Yes. All the time. I’ve seen it go as far as the TIX office forcing students to resign from jobs that are at employers not owned by but certainly doing business with the school.”

Student-conduct investigations often fail to meet reasonable standards of due process. The anonymous source gave another example of how the way the software is used can prejudice this issue. This person had experiences in which “correspondence from the Title IX office and the relevant deputy dean was always being copied to Maxient, but when the student and his lawyer asked that their material also go to Maxient, they were told that only university people can make entries.” As a result, “accusatory information, whether correct or false, makes it into a student’s files but the exculpatory information often does not.”

Jauregui backed this up as well. Asked if it has happened to him, he again responded, “Yes. All the time. Either denied or they sort of forget for some reason to add it.” He went on to recount a case in which he found a “massive flaw in the complaint” and told the Title IX office about it. “Yet all the record of that, which we provided, has for some reason been left out of the report. We can respond to the report and add it, but still. . . .”

Maxient’s software, which is made by bureaucrats for bureaucrats, is designed to serve the interests of the administrators who use it. “Under investigation?” the website asks. “Let us help you compile data. Our team works tirelessly to make you look good and your processes run smoothly.” It is not speaking to the students who will find themselves subjected to unfair investigations for issues ranging from Title IX violations to saying the wrong thing on the quad.

Maxient can also be used to produce reports on the incidents it tracks. Stanford notes that “a record of PIH reports will be maintained and analyzed by the Office of Inclusion, Community and Integrative Learning” and that “data will be carefully evaluated to provide a deeper understanding of the campus climate regarding diversity, intolerance and free expression, so that appropriate educational tools for students, faculty and staff can be created.”

But there is another possible use for these data. As the anonymous source observed, “There’s a direct or indirect incentive to increase the number of concerns and/or complaints on file: It helps justify current budgets and proposed increases in budgets, and it helps the schools tell the media, advocates and others that the school is being very diligent with alleged sexual assaults, etc.” Jauregui observed that, “The biggest exacerbator of unfairness in student conduct management is the very clear career advantage that a strong student conduct record provides the employee who otherwise has no reason to be promoted. Maxient just makes it easier for them to maintain and memorialize their goals.” In short, bureaucrats can use this software to justify and expand their roles while encouraging behavior that damages the main activities of the university.

Russell Berman, who also expressed concern about the “solicitation of anonymous denunciation” via the PIH, raised the issue of bureaucratic rule at Stanford in the same recent faculty senate meeting at which Juan Santiago presented. Berman said that the creators of the EHLI (none of whom were faculty members) have “no appreciation for academic values” and argued that restoring academic freedom at Stanford depends on “asserting faculty oversight in a university run solely by administrators.”

Students are also concerned about bureaucratic rule at Stanford. Julia Steinberg, a Stanford sophomore, does not believe that most Stanford attendees know about the PIH, and even fewer are invested in using it. But, in a recent article about two students who were reported for posting a photograph of one of them reading Mein Kampf, she said that the incident “reveals how fast the Stanford community will jump on the censorship train in the name of fighting oppression.” She explained that among students there is a “general mood of lack of faith in the administration.” Mentioning the “war on social life” as another example, she agreed that there is a problem of “over-bureaucratization of the university.”

If the faculty and students at Stanford want to restore campus freedom, they will have to fight against an army of bureaucrats who not only do not understand or care about the principles of the academic enterprise but also have entrenched interests that work against it. Perhaps a few others will come forward to help expose the corruption. They could start by asking to see their files.

This was posted on National Review on February, 24 2023.

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There are certain truths of American political life that antedate even the Founding and are as important for our age as they were for ages past. Among these are that demagogues hold most sway over the ignorant, that a free people must be an informed people, and that representative democracy requires widespread education to flourish. A self-governing people cannot be a foolish, deluded, or benighted people, else it will soon lose its liberty. For these reasons, Americans must become passionate learners, fearless truth-seekers, and searching critics in order to take up the responsibilities of citizenship and render themselves immune to the manipulations of opportunists and timeservers.

Universities are indispensable for a free and prosperous society. They are the engine that drives both scientific and social progress. They educate students for career and responsible citizenship and habituate them to self-discovery and the pursuit of truth. Their mission depends on a campus culture of free expression and intellectual diversity. Unless teachers, students, and researchers can inquire and speak freely and fearlessly, innovation will stall, questions will be left unasked and unanswered, and students will be ill-prepared for life, career, community, and citizenship. 

But we learn in story after story, year upon year, that colleges and universities have lost their way. Instead of encouraging students to explore different lines of intellectual inquiry and equipping them for the rough-and-tumble of a vibrant democracy, too many institutions seem to be training them for lives as informers, inquisitors, and isolated, distrustful individuals. Rather than teaching students how to engage productively with challenging new ideas, far too many colleges and universities build cozy bubbles in which only comfortable orthodoxies are permitted. They foster large, expensive bureaucracies to police infractions of vague (and often extralegal, if not outright illegal) rules against expressing ideas that someone might find offensive.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) seeks to hold American colleges and universities accountable to their missions. Progress depends on the freedom to pursue new ideas. Self-discovery requires uninhibited exploration of life’s timeless questions. Education for citizenship in a liberal democratic republic necessarily involves opening ourselves to all the perspectives we might encounter in the community at large, even silly and dangerous ones, so that we are prepared to live and negotiate with all our fellow citizens. All of this requires free expression, which is why the United States Supreme Court has so roundly affirmed, protected, and over time, extended our rights to that core freedom. American universities, of all institutions, should not be the ones to curtail it.  

ACTA now provides a blueprint to help higher education regain and live by this core principle. The ACTA Gold Standard for Freedom of Expression provides clear guidance for institutions to create a culture of free thought on their campuses. Steps ranging from adopting new institutional guidelines, to creating new on-campus initiatives, to eliminating abusive and unconstitutional rules can help colleges and universities reclaim their place as leaders within our liberal democracy. 

For more information, visit our Campus Freedom Initiative page here.

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An early draft of the statement, which would commit the university to becoming “an anti-racist and health-promoting institution that honors and uplifts the cultural wealth of our students,” has drawn sharp criticism both on and off campus, even as some applaud the effort.

As of March 11, some 75 faculty members at the university had signed an open letter of opposition written by some colleagues from the College of Science and Mathematics, which called the draft statement “deeply flawed in content, direction, and representation.” The letter argues that “the fundamental role of the public university can neither be political nor ideological activism.” A growing number of supporters from other colleges have also signed the letter of opposition online. A Boston Globe column characterizing the draft as reeking of “woke indoctrination,” has added fuel to the conflict.

The controversy comes at a time when many colleges are grappling with critical questions about race, taking steps such as adding diversity and anti-bias training, reviewing classes and curricula with an eye toward identifying and reducing racial bias, and declaring that their institutions will strive to become anti-racist. Those steps have highlighted the inherent tensions that some see between committing to anti-racism and preserving academic freedom or intellectual diversity.

Adán Colón-Carmona , a biology professor who co-chaired the committee working on the mission and vision statement, said the university takes pride in being the most ethnically diverse public university in New England. According to the university, 59 percent of undergraduates are first-generation college students, and 62 percent identify as members of a minority group. Colón-Carmona said that to be able to say that the university strives to become anti-racist “makes a statement to students that … you’re welcome here and we’re going to work to get better at this and we value you.”

But critics say that the draft — which has not yet been presented to university leaders — goes too far.

“We want to further all the important goals and directions of our society but through what we are,” said a faculty member who signed the opposition letter. “We are a teaching and research institution, and through that, we try to advance all those causes.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying that he feared potential repercussions. Several other faculty members who signed the letter declined to comment.

Aaron Terr, a senior program officer with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, took particular issue with this sentence: “We hold ourselves and each other accountable to ensure these values drive all decision-making in research, pedagogical innovations, resource allocation, and the development of policies and practices.” He said that the statement “raises serious concerns that the university is subordinating the First Amendment rights and academic freedoms of its faculty and students to the pursuit of an ideological agenda.”

Michael Poliakoff, president of American Council of Trustees and Alumni, applauded the faculty members who have registered their protest. He said the controversy brought to mind the 1967 Kalven Report, in which a committee from the University of Chicago articulated what the university’s role should be in political and social issues, concluding that “a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom and inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures … and must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.”

Shifting Tides

That statement was very influential. But college campuses are generally more racially diverse today than they were in 1967, and the idea that they should hold politics at arms length is under increasing pressure. “In academia, there is this notion that we are objective researchers, that we aren’t activists, we’re trying to be objective and produce new knowledge,” said Jonathan Vega Martinez, a Ph.D. student in sociology. “But that is a reasoning that is very steeped in whiteness.”

“People of color always need to justify their point of view as being objective, but white people never need to do that,” Martinez continued. “This notion … that we need to maintain this idea of objectivity so that we don’t contaminate our research — that’s how racism hides itself, that’s how racism becomes invisible.”

Similarly, Sami Sanghvi, a junior majoring in math and economics, said that she was shocked by the letter of opposition and that it made her look at her professors differently. “The fact that they think politics and research can be kept separate is disturbing and even hurtful,” Sanghvi said.

The university’s Graduate Employee Organization said the letter of opposition was “at best tone-deaf and, at worst, racist.”

“We do not agree with the presumption that situating anti-racism and wellness at the heart of the university’s mission will undermine the university’s role as an engine for free inquiry and knowledge creation,” the union said in a written statement. The statement concludes that it is crucial that the university “explicitly commits to anti-racism.”

Last fall university leaders asked a group of about 20 faculty, staff, administrators, and students to draft a new mission statement and vision for the university as part of a broader strategic plan. The group released a draft on February 9 after several open forums to gather comments from the university community, months of weekly meetings, and at least three iterations of written statements within the group.

Critics of the proposed new mission and vision statement have voiced their objections early in the process. According to a university spokesperson, the committee will continue to gather and consider people’s views and then submit a draft to the strategic planning committee for review and potentially more revisions. After that it would be open to additional feedback before being sent to the university cabinet, including the provost, for review, which would offer a final recommendation to the chancellor. Finally, the statement would be sent to the Board of Trustees for approval.

This article originally appeared here.

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The Boulder Faculty Assembly cited a “failure of leadership with respect to diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the censure resolution. Serious allegations should be substantiated by compelling evidence. Instead, Assembly documents point to problems predating Kennedy’s presidency and reflect partisan outrage manufactured by a nitpicking deconstruction of Kennedy’s rhetoric.

For example, the resolution charges that “President Kennedy did not initially include Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as a stand-alone pillar in his administration’s Strategic Plan.” What goes unmentioned is that the planning process ultimately settled on “diversity, inclusion, equity & access” as one of the plan’s four pillars. A deliberative process that yielded the faculty’s preferred outcome is something to celebrate, no?

And then there is the allegation that “President Kennedy has a well-documented history of making problematic and hurtful statements.” The “evidence” here is flimsy and suffused with hypocrisy. One central exhibit: previous opposition to same sex marriage. President Obama also campaigned on the traditional definition of marriage—twice. Positions evolved for both men. But we only hear calls to cancel Republicans for old instances of wrong think. Other grievances include things not said (or not said fast enough) about hot-button issues relating to immigration and gun violence—as if a university president’s primary responsibility is to issue a Progressive political statement every time controversy erupts.

The resolution’s first point is the most serious: that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” issues “present grave challenges to the University of Colorado.” The original version of the censure resolution cited a 50-page report to substantiate the point. The footnote was removed at the last minute but the study provides a damning analysis of Boulder’s own record on diversity. That’s right: to censure a system leader installed 21 months ago, Boulder faculty discussed (then elided) longstanding trends on its own campus!

The problems detailed in the report truly are alarming: Boulder’s recruitment efforts prioritize wealthy high schools. Acceptance rates are going up overall but down for Black applicants—a trend stretching back decades. And in 2017, Boulder ranked last among PAC-12 schools for ethnic diversity, with Black and Latinx students badly underrepresented compared to Colorado’s demographics.

Citing recent federal data analyzed on HowCollegesSpendMoney.com, the report also spotlighted skyrocketing administrative spending and quite reasonably concluded that Boulder’s priorities are misaligned. What goes unmentioned is that the problems all predate President Kennedy. Chancellor Philip DiStefano has been responsible for Boulder’s Enrollment Office and resource allocation decisions for over 12 years.

So why omit reference to concrete diversity challenges to focus on President Kennedy’s rhetoric? Simple: politics.

The original resolution tacitly acknowledges as much in its allegation that President Kennedy, a three-term congressman, “minimize[ed] the gravity of” the January 6 Capitol riots “with a partisan message” to the campus. In fact, his statement called the insurrection “appalling” and expressed horror and heartbreak at the “desecration” of “the Capitol, the temple of our nation’s democracy.” His apparent sin was pointing to “identity politics” (along with “fake news”) as among the “combustible trends [that] are dividing our nation.” His statement goes on to call upon CU educators to work against societal divisions by instilling in students “the ability to think critically, broadly, creatively and inclusively” on campuses where “Diversity is the keystone for a rich exchange of ideas in pursuit of truth.” How is that a partisan message?

The censure resolution, so strangely linked to the Regents’ decision to terminate the president, is a partisan act—an attempt to cancel a university leader for his political leanings and a shameful reminder that politicizing the academy weakens higher education. Academics once prized reasoned debate and the pursuit of truth, fighting to shield public institutions from meddling by political and religious authorities. Today the reverse is true. And at Boulder, it is the faculty working feverishly to infuse politics into every aspect of university governance and campus life.

Jonathan Pidluzny is Vice President at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and served on the Morehead State University Board of Regents from 2017–2019. Tom Lucero served on the University of Colorado Board of Regents from 1999–2011.

This article originally appeared in Daily Camera.

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Students at many institutions are told that they can continue to access instruction online. But exams and grades have been canceled in many cases, and one suspects that online viewership will be sporadic and concentration intermittent.

But students shouldn’t hover around their home mailboxes waiting for an envelope with a tuition rebate check. And students (and parents) who expect that their campuses will reopen next fall, next spring, or the fall after that may be in for surprise and disappointment.

American higher education has been in serious trouble for the past two decades. Yes, it’s true that American universities science and technology departments lead the world, and the (increasingly unscientific) social sciences and (often inhumane) humanities departments can still boast some brilliant scholars. But at some point, too much of a good thing stops being a good thing. People have observed for years that college graduates make more money over their lifetimes than non-college graduates. But it doesn’t follow that people not headed to college will make more money if they go there.

A dismaying number of American freshman college students never end up graduating — not after four or six or 20 years. And an even more dismaying number of non-graduates and graduates end up with daunting amounts of college loan debt, nondischargeable in bankruptcy, which reduces or prevents significant wealth accumulation. Americans today have more college debt than credit card debt.

And for what? In his new book, The Breakdown of Higher Education, John M. Ellis, an emeritus professor at the notoriously left-wing University of California at Santa Cruz, cites multiple studies showing that half of graduates make no intellectual gains — “no statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning or writing skills,” as one study puts it. As the American Council of Trustees and Alumni surveys have shown, many schools don’t teach the basics of American history or government. College degrees are not so much evidence of learning as of plodding persistence.

And a willingness to put up with left-wing agitprop, force-fed by “tenured radicals,” in Roger Kimball’s phrase, in traditional academic disciplines as well as grievance studies departments. American universities keep grinding out more Ph.D.s (and more theses no one may ever read) than they have tenure-track teaching jobs, so that an increasing number accept hourly wages as adjuncts and look forward increases in the minimum wage.

Meanwhile, administrators now outnumber teachers at American colleges and universities. Many spend their time in meetings and conferences promoting “equity, inclusivity, and diversity.” Some spend time enforcing speech codes prohibiting free expression that colleges and universities at one time fostered. Others are occupied in regulating adult students’ social behavior, conducting kangaroo courts in which those accused of sexual harassment or assault are denied any presumption of innocence, the ability to call witnesses, or knowledge of any charges.

The notion that adults, who are eligible to vote and serve in the military, need such guidance is rooted in the Latin phrase in loco parentis, the notion that students at residential colleges need something like parental supervision — even if that supervision is irksome and increasingly expensive.

The fact is that the residential college, the model of American higher education since its 17th century foundations, is the exception rather than the rule in most of the world. University students live typically in parental homes or with roommates in cheap nearby apartments. That’s true of most undergraduates in Britain, where Cambridge and Oxford and their beautiful quads were the models for Harvard and William & Mary.

For the 100 or so selective colleges, the residential college model will continue to be profitable. But even Harvard, with its $37 billion endowment, saw fit to lay off hundreds of subcontractor workers in campus dining halls.

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of lesser-known schools, whose graduates never get interviews with Goldman Sachs, may be thrust into bankruptcy if the perceived need for social distancing closes classrooms or reduces enrollments. As Heather Mac Donald writes in City Journal, “Students and their parents may start to ask why they should pay astronomical fees for a campus experience if they can get the same instruction over the web.”

And perhaps some college and university administrators will ask whether they can somehow cut back on administrative bloat. Especially if the alternative is figuring out some other use for their beautiful but suddenly obsolete campuses.

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The universities’ officials were responding to a new state law that says they may not “shield individuals from constitutionally protected speech, including ideas and opinions they find offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent, disagreeable, conservative, liberal, traditional, radical, or wrong-headed.”

The presidents face a December 1 deadline to report to Republican Governor Kristi Noem and the 105 lawmakers on “all actions taken by each institution to promote and ensure intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas.”

The report also must describe “any events or occurrences that impeded intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas.”

The final version of the legislation passed through the Senate 26-7 and the House of Representatives 51-12. The governor signed it into law March 20, less than three months into her first term.

Only Republicans have been governors since 1979 and they appoint the nine regents who oversee the state universities. The legislation seemed to target regents Dennis Daugaard appointed.

Then-Governor Mike Rounds chose Randy Schaefer of Madison in 2009. Daugaard named seven –Kevin Schieffer of Sioux Falls, John Bastian of Belle Fourche, Jim Thares of Aberdeen, Pam Roberts of Pierre, Joan Wink of Howes and student Lucas Lund of Sioux Falls, according to SDBOR website — while he held office from 2011 through 2018. Noem picked Barb Stork of Dakota Dunes.

The regents also chose their current executive director, Paul Beran, during Daugaard’s second term. Beran said Wednesday he agreed to help pass the legislation, after fighting against an earlier version of it, but he also sent a six-page letter October 22 that refuted some of the committee’s perceptions. The letter said the universities needed more state funding to fulfill some legislators’ expectations.

The bill’s prime sponsor was Representative Sue Peterson, a Sioux Falls Republican. One of her co-sponsors was the House speaker, Representative Steven Haugaard, a Sioux Falls Republican. A lawyer, Haugaard said Wednesday his perspective reflected the principle in section one of Article VIII of the South Dakota Constitution.

The 65-word sentence deals with public schools.

“What we’ve seen, is there’s an increasing acceptance of socialism across the country, and that isn’t what our country is about,” Haugaard told the other GOAC members.

He went on. “The concern though is to try to stem that tide. Socialism doesn’t work. and republican form of government does, and a shared morality does,” he said.

“And I understand the idea of free speech, and it shouldn’t be reined in very much, but there are limits to it as well,” he continued.

“But I would just like to see the universities committed to the idea that you’re going to hire staff that affirm the idea of a republican form of government, and have a certain degree of shared morality.

“As I’m sure it’s very difficult to go through that hiring process and try to screen people and try to balance those factors, but that is the constitutional mandate, to ensure a stable form of government — a stable form of republican government — supporting morals and acquiring knowledge that leads to wisdom.”

Armand Alacbay, vice president of trustee and government affairs for American Council of Trustees and Alumni, came to Pierre from the organization’s Washington, D.C., headquarters to speak Wednesday.

He praised the legislation.

“I first want to thank the people of South Dakota for becoming the first state to recognize by law the value of intellectual diversity in higher education,” Alacbay told the committee.

Peterson asked university officials whether they had met with people representing organizations such as FIRE, which stands for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

AJ Franken, who was a lawyer in the Daugaard administration before becoming general counsel at the University of South Dakota in 2018, said he had worked with them on various policies.

“We’ve incorporated much if not all of their suggested language,” Franken said.

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And when it came to diversity, there was no shortage of diversity of opinion about how the board should move forward with the new law, which requires yearly reporting on what schools are doing to promote intellectual diversity among speakers, faculty and staff.

The bill originated with conservative lawmakers who were concerned that left-wing political ideology in higher education has drowned out conservative voices. They pointed to several high-profile incidents outside of South Dakota in which conservative speakers were attacked or shouted down.

But Board of Regents President Kevin Schieffer said he didn’t think South Dakota’s university system had a problem. Schieffer, who called himself a “conservative Republican” during the hearing, served as chief of staff to Republican Sen. Larry Pressler.

“I do think there is an issue out there,” Schieffer said. “But I do worry about blowing this out of proportion.”

“I just haven’t seen it in South Dakota,” he added.

But David Randall, the director of research for the National Association of Scholars, a group that includes 3,000 professors who promote academic freedom and intellectual diversity in higher education, warned Schieffer that South Dakota was “not as far down the road” as other states, but it was only a matter of time before an “ever thinking” orthodoxy of liberal ideology would reduce intellectual diversity.

While some students testified that conservatives self-censor their beliefs because of fears of retaliation, other students testified that there was already intellectual diversity. Allyson Monson, the South Dakota State University Student Association president, said the student union contained signs from groups promoting meetings and events from across the political spectrum.

Some conservative lawmakers behind the new law suggested that university diversity offices should be scaled back because they say those offices are the nexus for left-wing animosity to conservatives. But Taneeza Islam, the executive director of South Dakota Voices for Peace, argued that diversity offices should be given even more funding than they get now.

Board member Jim Thares questioned whether lawmakers had data to back up their belief that left-wing ideology was harming the university system. “South Dakota,” he suggested, “is maybe a little bit different than the rest of the country.”

Rep. Sue Peterson, one of the law’s sponsors, said there was national data to support a left-wing bias, but she had not seen data on the state’s university system.

That’s one area where the board could venture: Armand Alacbay, a vice president with The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said the board could get a baseline by collecting metrics through an outside polling firm, including an idea of whether students are self-censoring their opinions because of fears of reprisal.

“This conversation,” he said, “is long overdue in higher education.”

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The measure also bars the South Dakota Board of Regents and the state’s six public universities from interfering with constitutionally protected speech, including speech that some might find “offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent, disagreeable, conservative, liberal, traditional, radical or wrong-headed.”

“Our university campuses should be places where students leave their comfort zones and learn about competing ideas and perspectives,” Noem said in a release. “I hope this bill lets the nation know that in South Dakota, we are teaching our next generation to debate important issues, work together to solve problems, and think independently.”

The bill had the support of two national groups, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which promotes intellectual diversity, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a group that promotes free speech, association and religious liberty on college campuses.

“An act of this scale concerning academic freedom and intellectual diversity is unprecedented, and sets a strong example for leadership in other states,” said Michael Poliakoff, president of ACTA.

The bill was introduced after Republican lawmakers probed the Board of Regents for more than a year about incidents related to whether students’ free speech rights were being squelched by political correctness. Conservative groups have criticized colleges across the country following incidents in which conservative speakers were denied opportunities to speak, either by college administrators or angry protesters.

In response to lawmaker questions about free speech and so-called “free speech zones,” which limited where students had free speech rights, the board last fall passed new policies that guaranteed free speech on campuses.

But some lawmakers wanted those free speech rights, as well as the promotion of intellectual diversity, added to state law.

The bill passed the House but died in a Senate committee. However, lawmakers revived it after students at the University of South Dakota School of Law were asked to change the theme of a winter social from “Hawaiian Day” to “Beach Day” amid concerns that calling it Hawaiian was culturally incentive. The students were also told by the administration not to hand out lei, traditional Hawaiian flower garlands, at the party.

“Free speech zones send the false and illiberal message that a student’s First Amendment rights are dangerous, and should be constrained within tiny, pre-approved areas of campus,” said FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley. “We commend legislators in South Dakota for recognizing the critical importance of free speech to higher education, and encourage other states to follow their lead.”

The Board of Regents, which had opposed the bill, agreed to a compromise version signed by Noem.

Besides promoting free speech, it requires each university to report each year what they did to promote intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas, and to describe instances in which intellectual diversity or the free exchange of ideas were impeded.

The intellectual diversity provision also had the backing of conservatives, who point to surveys showing that Democrats far outnumber Republicans among college faculty and administrators.

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The Williams cancellation is not an isolated incident in the world of college theatre. Last year, Knox College cancelled a production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan on grounds of its perceived portrayal of Asians and insufficient representation of minorities in the cast. (It is unclear whether the censors at Knox recalled that Brecht’s works once fed the flames of Nazi book burnings.) Brandeis University, which bears the name of one of America’s greatest defenders of the First Amendment, censored a play about Lenny Bruce, a comedian prosecuted for obscenity, on the same charges of racial insensitivity that “deplatformed” Brecht.

In the case of Beast Thing, the professor who organized the show, Misha Chowdhury, is a self-described “queer Bengali,” and in the lament to the Williams College community that he posted online, he noted that “formidable queer women of color” were his mentors. It is hard not to feel sorry for Chowdhury, but he and Beast Thing were doomed from the start by the culture of Williams College and the same identity politics that he embraces.

Credentials like “queer Bengali” and “formidable queer women of color” are no protection in the fierce jungle of identity power struggles. The extensive trigger warnings that accompanied the promotion for the play likewise failed to reassure the campus community. The dominant culture at Williams felt that the play “would disturb and harm audience members — students of color, in particular.” In turn, the actors “express[ed] fear of being called out or canceled by their peers if they were to participate in this production.” Thus, a “Black playwright and a Black video designer and Black actor [were asked] to revise their project … because it would cause harm to Black audience members.” The Williams community, in the words of the director, “policed what people of color are allowed to do and make and say.” The real beast in this saga was identity politics, and its lust to find and devour offenders is insatiable.

At Williams, the culture of finding offense prevails even over the minority voices that it purports to protect. Last year, Zachary Wood, then a senior at Williams and president of Uncomfortable Learning, a student organization that brings controversial speakers to campus, was criticized intensely for inviting John Derbyshire to speak. Derbyshire is surely a dislikable racist, but the reaction to the invitation was also shocking. Wood is an African American, and he assuredly did not identify with the speaker’s views. His was an attempt to promote a critical dialogue with a speaker that he vehemently opposed. But this did not stop students from calling him “a sellout” and “anti-black,” and it did not stop Williams College from canceling the event.

Poor Prof. Chowdhury wanted through the production of Beast Thing to push “back against that internal and external censorship, which artists of color are constantly navigating” since they “are asked to speak for their entire community.” He wanted to give minority students an opportunity to step out of their day-to-day roles so that they could lose themselves in their character and create a work of art. But when the levers of power are built around group identity and competing claims of victimhood, an individual voice is a disposable distraction.

Michael B. Poliakoff is president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

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