Red states have launched a hostile takeover of public universities

The Hill

8 hours ago

Earlier this month, for the first time in its history, the Florida Board of Governors rejected a university's choice of a college president.
Despite unanimous approval by the University of Florida's board of trustees, MAGA activists attacked Santa Ono, a former president of the University of Michigan, for his past support of diversity, equity and inclusion programs; his views on admissions, gender-affirming care and climate change; and his handling of pro-Palestinian protesters and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ono's claim that 'I am here to ensure that DEI never returns to the University of Florida' was too little, too late.
Florida is at the extreme edge of an unprecedented red-state campaign to reinforce and sometimes outdo the Trump administration's efforts to remake higher education.
But Florida is by no means alone. Since 2023, 135 bills have been introduced in 29 states to eliminate DEI offices, ban mandatory diversity training, forbid the use of diversity statements in hiring and promotion and bar colleges and universities from requiring classes that 'promote concepts such as systemic racism, reparations, and racial or gender diversity.' Twenty-seven of those bills have become law.
Educational 'gag orders' restricting instruction about race, gender and sexual orientation have also grown increasingly extreme.
Ohio limits discussion of 'controversial beliefs or policies,' including 'climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion,' requires universities to 'ensure the fullest degree of 'intellectual diversity,' and bans or restricts most DEI-related policies and programs.
Florida's Stop Woke Act, which sought to regulate how colleges and universities teach 'divisive concepts,' has been blocked by federal courts as a violation of the First Amendment. Nonetheless, Florida's Board of Governors and State Board of Education have eliminated hundreds of general education courses from the state's 40 public institutions to comply with legislation banning instruction based on 'identity politics' or 'theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.'
Last week, following criticism of existing accreditation agencies for supporting DEI, the public university systems in Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee decided to establish their own accreditor.
Ohio, Utah and Florida mandate civics instruction focused on a conservative vision of Western civilization. Ohio requires students to read at least five essays from 'The Federalist Papers,' Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' and the writings of Adam Smith. Multiple states — including Florida, Arizona, Tennessee, Ohio, Texas and Iowa — have established civics institutes intended to be bastions of conservative thought.
At least 11 states have passed laws imposing new levels of post-tenure review or making it easier to dismiss tenured faculty. Indiana, for example, prohibited the award of tenure to faculty 'unlikely to foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity,' and authorized the demotion or termination of faculty who do not, in the board's judgment, help create that culture. In several states, proposals to eliminate tenure have only narrowly failed.
The academic tradition of shared governance is also under attack. A bill in Arizona, vetoed by its governor, would have stripped faculty of the ability to approve academic degrees or programs.
In a law enacted earlier this week that may serve as a model for other states, Texas reserved to the governing board of each public university — whose members are appointed by the governor — the right 'to overturn any decision made by the institution regarding any changes to the general education curriculum'; 'approve or deny the hiring of an individual for the position of provost or deputy, associate, or assistant provost'; 'collaborate with institutions … to set campus admission standards'; and 'overturn any hiring decision for the position of vice president or dean.'
Texas also gave university boards exclusive authority to establish faculty senates or councils; prohibited them from issuing statements not directly related to their educational mandate; and limited them to advisory roles, with the presiding officer appointed by the institution's president. Faculty and staff 'may provide recommendations on academic matters,' so long as 'governing boards and institutional leadership retain clear and ultimate decision-making authority.'
In another sign of the hyper-politicization of higher education, red states are increasingly using ideological litmus tests for prospective trustees and presidents. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, transformed New College from, in his words, a center of 'woke indoctrination' into a conservative haven by stacking the board with right-wing partisans and naming a conservative president.
These campaigns at the federal and state level to undermine academic freedom, weaken faculty authority and impose conservative values are often compared to McCarthy-era initiatives, but what's happening today is far broader and more damaging.
McCarthyites focused almost exclusively on a single issue — the perceived spread of communist influence. Mandates were directed principally at faculty and staff who refused to take loyalty oaths. Professors of economics and political science were pressured to teach the virtues of democracy and the 'free enterprise system.' Even when institutions dragged their feet in complying, neither states nor the federal government imposed anything remotely like the punitive and crippling measures employed against educational institutions today.
Nonetheless, the McCarthy era fostered a climate of fear and intellectual conformity in higher education that took years to dissipate. When, if ever, will public and private institutions recover from the ongoing all-out assault on the freedom of teaching and learning that made American higher education the envy of the world? It's anyone's guess.
Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. David Wippman is emeritus president of Hamilton College.