RIGHT SIDE
Anonymous
The Most obvious “yes”
Anonymous
This is my perspective as a student who’s had his fill of university leaders who grovel at the feet of every radical trend:
Look, when the Trump administration dropped this 10-point “compact” on 9 universities, demanding everything from a 5-year tuition freeze, to a rigid definition of gender, to the cutoff of departments which “belittle” conservative thought — you’d think the ruling elites would recoil. But instead of shrieking and circling the wagons, leaders of institutions like the University of Texas are already saying they are “honored” to find themselves on the list of those who signed it.
Call me crazy, but I’m for making every university in America sign exactly this compact (with real teeth). Why? Because the things it relates to are nothing more than a return to some minimal fairness, intellectual balance, and accountability in institutions that have long been allowed to drift into ideological no-fly zones.
Let’s tackle the hard ones squarely:
Tuition freeze.
We are already graduated under mountains of debt. If the campuses are serious about purpose, locking in predictable costs is imperative.
2. Required standardized tests.
These do scan objectivity. At least kill the holier-than-thou “test optional for all” nonsense.
3. Capping off international undergraduates at fifteen per cent.
College for American youth must come first. If a school thinks it is too good to accept that principle, all right; take away its funds.
4. Crack down on blatant harassment of conservative thought.
This is overdue. There are too many professors who regard dissenters as enemies rather than interlocutors.
5. Grade inflation freeze.
Tons of nobles graduate kids with A’s to keep up a semblance of grade prestige. It is time to demand seriousness and honesty.
Now, critics will shout: “government interference,” “threats to academic freedom,” “ideological coercion.” But this is the bother; universities are already ideological mills now. They are already forcibly pursuing speech patrols. This compact at least puts the system on a transparent basis and gives dissenters some defense. If a college signed the compact and then backed out, drag them into the courts to pay back all funds, fed and private, which they received during that year. That gives leverage — and we need leverage.
So I am saying this letter should be virtually compulsory. Every campus ought to choose: sign it and abide by its terms, or keep away from effective funds. That gives power back into students’ hands and forces accountability where colleges too often sheath behind “autonomy” to cover their ideological fiefdoms.
This doesn’t mean whipping liberalism out. It means that conservative students aren’t always to be the ones who stand condemned, or shamed, or expelled from the marketplace for ideas. If colleges can’t play it fair, under this compact, why not go on to the wild, and perhaps they won’t deserve, anyway, the privileges accruing to institutions under government aid.