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The Ohio State Board of Trustees has taken decisive steps to reaffirm its commitment to free speech, beginning with an interim free speech policy in 2022, finalized in May. While the university has been operating on the policy’s free speech guidance for the past year, this week’s action by the board of trustees is a formal and luminous way to integrate the fundamentals of the storied University of Chicago’s Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Kalven Report on institutional neutrality further into campus life.

The resolution states, “Ohio State takes seriously its role in promoting and supporting public discourse and is steadfastly committed to protecting the First Amendment right to free speech and expression. . . . While universities have an independent right, and in some cases a responsibility, to speak on their own behalf, the Board of Trustees recognizes that institutional speech carries a corresponding responsibility to be judicious and transparently principled in deciding if, when, and how to engage in such speech so as not to harm the core values of free expression and intellectual diversity.”

“By so clearly endorsing free expression and institutional neutrality, and doing so unanimously, the Ohio State Board of Trustees has claimed a position in the vanguard of leadership in higher education,” says ACTA President Michael Poliakoff. “Decades ago, the Kalven Committee identified the university’s ‘respect for free inquiry and the obligation to cherish a diversity of opinions.’ Today, such principles are too often imperiled on campus and in American civic life. The Ohio State Board of Trustees has done Ohio and the nation a service by defending the core values of American higher education and our free society.”

ACTA recognizes that Ohio State University’s Board of Trustees is in the very top rank of academic leaders who understand that the freedom to question, speak, debate, and discuss is the very lifeblood of American society and must be protected.

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org
PHONE: (202) 798-5425

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The American Council of Trustees and Alumni hosted a webinar on August 9, 2023, exploring free expression and intellectual diversity in American higher education. Dr. Steven McGuire, ACTA’s Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom, moderated the event. Panelists included Marty Kotis, trustee of the University of North Carolina (UNC)–Chapel Hill and former member of the UNC Board of Governors; Dr. Erec Smith, associate professor of rhetoric and composition at York College of Pennsylvania and co-founder of Free Black Thought; Karrin Taylor Robson, founder and president of Arizona Strategies and former member of the Arizona Board of Regents; and Dr. Abigail Thompson, distinguished professor of mathematics at the University of California–Davis and co-founder and secretary of the Association for Mathematical Research. They examined the necessity of free expression and intellectual diversity, threats to these ideals in today’s activist climate, and ways to protect and promote them on campus.

This webinar is part of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s Institute for Effective Governance®.

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In statements to The Arizona Republic, spokespeople from the Board of Regents, which oversees the university system, and Arizona State University said that “DEI statements” were “never” required.

However, examples of job postings shows this is not true.

For instance, a current posting for a postdoctoral research scholar in ASU’s Institute of Human Origins states that “required” materials to be submitted by applicants includes “a statement addressing how your past and/or present potential contributions to diversity and inclusion will advance ASU’s commitment to inclusive excellence.”

That’s just the type of required statement that the Goldwater Institute criticized in a January report titled “The New Loyalty Oaths: How Arizona’s public universities compel job applicants to endorse progressive politics.”

The report details a review of job listings at ASU, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University conducted in October, concluding that the schools use the statements to “circumvent the state’s constitutional prohibition against political litmus tests in public educational institutions.” More than a quarter of UA’s job postings required a DEI statement, while NAU and ASU required them in 73% and 81% of postings, respectively.

Examples included a fall 2022 NAU posting for a geographer that said applications must include “a statement of teaching philosophy including evidence of teaching effectiveness or interest and commitment to diversity and inclusion (recommended two pages),” and an undated UA posting for a molecular biology instructor that asked prospects for a cover letter “describing the candidate’s personal philosophy on classroom inclusiveness and how the candidate will exhibit the philosophy in the classroom.”

Former Republican governor candidate Karrin Taylor Robson and Steven McGuire of the right-of-center American Council of Trustees and Alumni wrote an op-ed column critical of the practice last month, calling DEI statements for job applicants “coerced speech” that “undermines the crucial diversity of sociopolitical ideas.”

McGuire, who works in Philadelphia for the Washington, D.C.-based group, praised the universities’ decision on Tuesday and said he hoped they “live up to it.”

“Of course you want teachers and employees who are going to be open to working with people of all different backgrounds, perspectives and experiences,” he said. “But what often happens with these statements — it becomes a kind of ideological litmus test. … They communicate to people there’s a right way to think if you want to work here.”

The Goldwater Institute issued a news release on Tuesday saying that it had struck a “death blow” to the practice that universities were now eliminating.

ASU spokeswoman Veronica Sanchez said she could not immediately say when ASU stopped requiring the diversity statements. She added that their use “is not essential to ASU’s commitment to inclusive excellence found in the ASU charter” and that the university has one of the most diverse student populations in the country.

Asked about existing job postings that contain the requirement, Sanchez said, “It’s important to note that sometimes removing certain job postings online takes time.”

Sarah Harper, Board of Regents spokesperson, said that some posted job applications still may include a “request” for a DEI statement, but that “universities are updating those job postings to remove the request for DEI statements.”

“This is a huge victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment,” Victor Riches, Goldwater’s president and CEO, said in the news release. “The Goldwater Institute is continuing to show the nation how to defeat the destructive ideologies that are crippling colleges and universities.”

Officials with the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University didn’t immediately respond to inquiries about the practice.

DEI training at universities also has been attacked by conservatives across the country, including in Arizona, where a bill introduced by Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, leader of the state’s right-wing Freedom Caucus, aimed to prohibit it.

The bill failed to generate enough support among lawmakers, but a similar ban went into effect in Florida earlier this year.

This article appeared on azcentral on August 8, 2023.

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The members of the subcommittee of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) who wrote the report said the rules are a “mess,” allow accreditors to set flexible standards or none at all, and lead to inconsistent expectations in terms of student achievement.

“Not only does this latitude risk accountability, it creates an unhealthy and dangerous variety and inconsistency of expectations regarding student achievement across institutions,” the report says.

Accreditors are charged with monitoring the quality of higher education institutions and holding them accountable, and NACIQI plays a key role in the oversight of federally recognized accreditors.

The report recommends that Congress dig deeper into the rules to fix the issue, though it doesn’t offer a specific solution. The subcommittee also wants the department to “clarify what it means for an agency to have a standard (or standards) that ‘assess’ an institution’s success with regard to student achievement.” Some experts said that NACIQI’s recommendations could lead accreditors to focus more on student outcomes.

The subcommittee wrote that in its view accreditors should have standards that they set to assess student achievement. Additionally, agencies should show NACIQI and the Education Department their own assessment of their institutions by providing “some form of summary information regarding its results,” per the report.

NACIQI and department staff have created dashboards for individual accreditors looking at the graduation rates for the agency’s portfolio of institutions and other data points. The subcommittee recommended that agencies should at least comment on these data as part of the review process.

“We are not suggesting Congress establish or impose the student achievement standards and measures for accreditation purposes,” the report says. “We are suggesting that the accreditors be required more firmly to establish standards and that the department and NACIQI have a stronger role in determining whether accrediting agencies are indeed robustly establishing these standards and also reviewing, evaluating and judging their institutions’ performance in a way that ensures institutional quality.”

Institution representatives on the committee and some experts worry that even discussing changing the law could lead to “bright-line” standards, which would be akin to “unleashing Pandora’s box,” said Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College and a member of NACIQI, at the committee’s recent meeting.

‘Status Quo Isn’t Good Enough’

he subcommittee’s 19-page report, which the full group unanimously approved, highlights concerns and offers recommendations to address a range of topics under the accreditation umbrella, from how the agencies handle complaints about institutions to the requirement that agencies should have public members on their boards. (A public member is considered someone who is not an employee or connected to an institution the agency oversees or a member of any related trade association.)

The Education Department is planning to update its accreditation regulations, and the committee’s policy recommendations could inform that effort. NACIQI rarely issues reports like this, so experts say it’s an important document that could also add to the broader conversation about how to improve accreditation—one of the gatekeepers to federal student aid.

Consumer protection advocates and others have wanted NACIQI to get tougher on accreditation agencies, which they say have failed at times in their oversight of institutions.

“I think what they’ve put together here would go a long way toward pushing accrediting agencies to take seriously the question of student outcomes, even if it’s not quite far enough to fully mandate that accreditors take it seriously,” said Clare McCann, a higher education fellow at Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy, who previously worked in the Education Department during the current administration.

The subcommittee didn’t reach consensus on all the recommendations but did on which topics to include.

If it were easy to create lines, accreditors would not be needed. Accreditors exist because there are judgments that need to be made.—Jamienne Studley, President of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission

The bulk of the discussion at the committee’s summer meeting last week focused on the report’s student achievement section. Federal law currently prohibits the U.S. education secretary from setting any criteria or prescribing standards that accrediting agencies would have to use to assess any institution’s success with respect to student achievement.

Roslyn Clark Artis, president of Benedict College and another member of the accrediting panel, said she had “serious trepidation” about modifying the current restriction.

“To remove the handcuffs and allow, potentially, havoc to be wrecked on diverse institutions and/or agencies who are trying to assess very different kinds of institutions contextually is incredibly dangerous,” she said.

Jennifer Blum, a higher education lawyer and one of the report’s authors, said the report is focused on a more basic problem than benchmarks or metrics for student accountability.

“I think agencies are all over the map on what standards for student achievement they have,” she said. “I fear and worry that we have agencies that aren’t clear to their own institutions about their expectations or letting institutions set expectations for themselves.”

Blum said the report shows that there’s a consensus the current laws and regulations are a problem and need attention.

“The status quo isn’t good enough,” she said. “We can get to a middle ground. It’s not as impossible as we all want to think it is.”

Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said accreditation currently doesn’t protect the public or ensure quality. He’d like to see an emphasis on nationally normed findings that show how students are learning.

“I’m all for nuance, but I would like to see guardrails that tell us what actually is happening, at least in the aggregate,” he said.

Reactions to the Report

Jamienne Studley, president of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission, said the committee’s conversation mirrored the ongoing debate over whether and how to set standards and benchmarks for student achievement.

“President Artis did a wonderful job of conveying the dangers of overreliance on just numbers and the importance of having subtlety in the analysis,” she said. “If it were easy to create lines, accreditors would not be needed. Accreditors exist because there are judgments that need to be made.”

Studley added that the conversation about using data to identify institutions’ strengths and weaknesses is far from over.

“I appreciated what appeared to be broad but not universal agreement that there should not be bright lines and that there are serious dangers to being too by-the-numbers for such a complicated analysis,” she said.

Studley chaired NACIQI in 2012 when the panel released a similar report. She said this latest report provides a shared starting point for individuals to dig deeper into the issues.

“I welcome the evolution of some of these important conversations and the constructive tone that everybody seems to bring to it,” she said.

Similarly, McCann said the report will add to the broader public conversation about how to improve accreditation.

“What’s nice about this is NACIQI put together some really actionable ideas here, with language in some cases,” she said. “These are things that the department can really work with and that Congress can really work with in terms of making some improvements, even if they’re somewhat modest.”

McCann said the committee’s recommendations do seem responsive to issues raised recently about accreditors such as that the agencies don’t focus enough on student outcomes.

“They’ve done a pretty good job of pulling together some of the key things that we’ve let slide over the last decade or so,” she said. “We’ve really let accreditors run the show on a lot of things.”

If enacted, the recommendations could lead to “real, serious improvement” from the accreditors, she said.

“The big picture of what they’re getting at is they’re not trying to get the department to set a number and to hold the accrediting agencies to it,” she said. “They’re trying to get accrediting agencies to step up.”

She said that NACIQI seems to want accreditors to bring data to the table and show more information about how they work with institutions identified as falling short on student achievement.

Over all, she said she thought the subcommittee struck a good balance on student achievement and other issues with which the committee has been grappling.

“They see these issues popping up with institutions,” she said. “They see problems concentrated within certain accreditors. They want to address them, and the accreditors are just simply not responsive enough to those concerns.”

Michael Brickman, an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said he wants to see a focus on accountability but doesn’t want to see a No Child Left Behind for higher education. The 2001 law for K-12 schools held schools accountable for student outcomes.

“There have been discussions at NACIQI and elsewhere around imposing a certain view of what student achievement accountability should look like,” he said. “But I think it’s pretty clear the Department of Education does not have the authority to do that, and that NACIQI, which is an advisory committee, has no authority there.”

Brickman, who helped to update the accreditation regulations in 2019 during the Trump administration, said he supports publishing more data to increase transparency but gets more concerned when attaching stakes to the data.

“I understand we can look at graduation rates and very basic metrics like that, but I think it’s very hard to tell the story based on some very simple metrics like that,” he said.

This post appeared on Inside Higher Ed on August 7, 2023.

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Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

sdgjodfjgdfjgodfjgd

So… how do you think you did?

The correct answers, in order of the questions, are:

Question 1: What is Purdue?

Question 2: What is Rice

Question 3: What is Duke?

Question 4:  What is Notre Dame?

Question 5: What is the University of California–Berkeley?

Thank you, Jeopardy, for using the episode to highlight an issue that is no minor matter to the many Americans who increasingly find themselves priced out of a college education and paying more and more for a degree that often means less and less in the job market.

You should not have to be a Jeopardy champion to afford the cost of higher education, nor should seeking a degree put anyone in financial jeopardy. While one game show episode is not enough to motivate overpriced schools to tackle the tuition crisis, we hope it serves as another check on the conscience of school administrators who refuse to slash overhead, cut costs, and deliver more bang for the tuition buck.

Check out ACTA’s website, HowCollegesSpendMoney.com, for a deeper dive into the college spending crisis.  

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Setting a higher or lower barrier for students of one race or another is as ethically bankrupt a concept as establishing a different criminal code for one race or another. SCOTUS has upheld the principle of equality under the law; it has rejected the dictum of the acolytes of Ibram X. Kendi, who argue that “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.”

The power structure of DEI offices and race-based admissions (and sometimes faculty hires) has metastasized throughout higher education, trampling upon merit and fairness and spawning a massive and expensive bureaucracy at a time when the cost of higher education has already become unsustainably high.

Harvard, remarkably, admitted early in this case that Asian high school students do not receive a letter from its recruiters unless they score at least 1350 on the combined verbal and quantitative SAT exams; black and Hispanic students hear from recruiters with a score at or above 1100. White students in rural states such as Nevada and Montana need at least a 1310. Harvard’s “personality index,” used to determine the admissions decision, has been a sly, subtle, and arguably discriminatory barrier in the path of Asian students whose academic records and extracurricular activities should have earned them a place at Harvard.
 
The promotion of a narrowly focused vision of diversity has nearly displaced the pursuit of excellence, corrupting the very soul of the academy. Implementing the good work of pursuing merit, excellence, and fairness will now be the task of the citizens of the academy and the citizens of the nation. We must be ready to do it with fidelity.

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Mr. Ridenour has remained deeply involved with his alma mater, serving until recently as the chairman of the Miami University Board of Trustees. Previously, he held office as vice chair, treasurer, and committee chair. He also volunteers with Miami University’s Community Outreach and Recruiting Programs.

With a passion for service, Mr. Ridenour has served on the boards of many nonprofit organizations, including several independent high schools, Lourdes University, the Toledo Zoological Society, and Mercy Health Partners. He is the president of the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s Northwest Ohio Affiliate.

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“As a lifelong Virginian and a Fairfax County resident for over three decades, I am honored and humbled to be asked by Governor Youngkin to serve on the governing board of my alma mater,” said Mr. Alacbay. “I am grateful for the governor’s vision for public higher education in the Commonwealth, and I look forward to helping George Mason University continue to fulfill its mission in service to the people of Virginia.”

Mr. Alacbay oversees ACTA’s dynamic portfolio of initiatives related to trustee and government relations and helps determine and guide all of ACTA’s programming priorities. His research and commentary on higher education policy issues have been featured in outlets including the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, FOX News, and Forbes,among others. Prior to joining ACTA, he worked in private practice as a trial attorney and later managed an educational services startup company.

“For 12 years, our colleague Armand Alacbay has directed ACTA’s work to help trustees understand their roles and duties and guide higher education policy at the state and federal level,” stated ACTA President & CEO Dr. Michael Poliakoff. “He is a visionary chief of staff. His expertise in college finance, governance, and accreditation is legendary. In appointing Armand Alacbay to the George Mason University Board of Visitors, Governor Youngkin has placed a public servant of integrity and brilliance on the board of an outstanding public university whose importance to Virginia and the nation will grow greater every year.”

Mr. Alacbay received his B.A. in economics and English from the University of Virginia and his J.D. from George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Civil Rights Law Journal.

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org
PHONE: (202) 798-6787

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Last fall, when Hamline University’s administration punished Erika López Prater for showing paintings of the prophet Muhammad to her art history class, PEN America called it “one of the most egregious violations of academic freedom in recent memory.” Where is Hamline’s accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, on this issue? The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has filed a complaint with HLC, but months later, the accreditor has taken no public action to ensure that Hamline respects the norms of academic freedom.

Did the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges act when Sam Joeckel claimed he was fired from Palm Beach Atlantic University for discussing racial justice during his English class? Joeckel has not been reinstated, and the university has not been placed on probation.

How about the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities? How could it find Linfield University “substantially” in compliance with its standards of accreditation after Linfield terminated tenured English professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, arguably for publicly sharing allegations of sexual misconduct and antisemitism involving trustees and administrators? The American Association of University Professors’ investigation found that Linfield had violated both Pollack-Pelzner’s academic freedom and the institution’s own internal regulations, yet no lasting action was taken by its accreditor.

I could continue to list examples, but my point ought to be clear: if protecting academic freedom is central to the accreditors’ missions, then at best their oversight is toothless, and at worst their inaction encourages bad actors.

Just as interesting is how the two authors approach the issue of institutional governance. Lawrence Schall, president of the New England Commission of Higher Education, notes that “the responsibility for the development of—and the academic freedom to deliver—academic programs rests squarely with the faculty, not the president, not the governing board and absolutely not the government.” Jamienne Studley, president of the WASC Senior College and University Commission, takes a similar tack with her view that accreditors must protect institutions from “external forces,” including “governing boards when they act beyond their charge, or state or federal executives or legislatures, or parents or donors.” When these forces threaten the core principles of higher education, according to Studley, accreditors are there to act as impartial and expert “referees.” Notably absent from either of their op-eds is a proper understanding of, or indeed any reference to, shared governance.

The 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities—written and endorsed by the AAUP, the American Council on Education and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges—captures the complex nature of higher education governance perfectly. It recognizes that the “inescapable interdependence among governing board, administration, faculty, students, and others” necessitates collaboration. Far from adversarial threats to a college’s autonomy, these groups are important stakeholders who ought to be heard rather than shunned. For example, contrary to Schall’s attempt to silo academic matters with the faculty alone, the report notes that the “relative emphasis to be given to the various elements of the educational and research program should involve participation of governing board, administration, and faculty prior to final decision.”

It is particularly disturbing to see Studley include governing boards—at least those she deems to be operating “beyond their charge”—among her list of “external forces,” which frames trustees as a contingent rather than a constituent part of higher education. This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of a board’s nature and purpose. The 1966 statement recognizes the board’s role as the “final institutional authority” with a “special obligation to ensure that the history of the college or university shall serve as a prelude and inspiration to the future.” The voluntary, lay nature of trustee governance allows boards to represent the institution as a whole rather than any individual constituency. It is this unique position that enables boards to act as guardians of their institution’s mission and mediators between stakeholders on and off campus. When operating under the leadership of informed, engaged trustees, boards serve to enrich the greatest strength of American higher education: its diversity. Attempts by accreditors to apply a singular vision of what higher education ought to be, rather than respect its plurality of values and structures, should be greeted with ultimate skepticism.

Unsurprisingly, there is an external actor Studley omits from her list: the accreditors themselves. These entities should react to obvious abuses on campus, as the massive public investment in higher education demands stronger oversight—particularly related to student outcomes, where accreditors have a sad record of failure. Accreditors need to redouble their efforts in ensuring an education of quality. This is more likely to happen if they approach institutional governance with a degree of humility stemming from the recognition that they are outsiders on campus, too often wielding power instead of insight. In this they violate the very principles of shared governance and institutional autonomy they claim to be upholding.

This article appeared in Inside Higher Ed on June 21, 2023.

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