Higher education’s close ties with the Democratic Party are paying off, as the Biden administration showers money on colleges and universities. That’s bad enough. Colleges and universities have become extremely bloated, wasteful entities. They ought to shrink, freeing resources for more beneficial uses.
Sadly, much of the money is going into hiring faculty for ideological reasons — to create an even bigger cadre of enthusiasts for “progressive” causes such as Critical Race Theory. That’s certain to further undermine whatever educational good is still available at these institutions.
That’s the point that Neetu Arnold of the National Association of Scholars makes in today’s Martin Center article.
Perhaps the worst of the bunch is Ohio State, which is going on a hiring binge. Arnold writes, “Ohio State plans to add 350 tenure-track faculty, with over 40 percent of the hires part of campus race, inclusion, and social equity (RAISE) initiatives. Yet, even a 40 percent mandate wasn’t enough for Ohio State president Kristina Johnson who wants more efforts to hire faculty from ‘underrepresented and BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, & People of Color]’ communities.”
The Diversity Mania rages on.
Another school that plans to load up on faculty from “underrepresented” groups is Syracuse.
Arnold writes, “Syracuse will use a ‘cluster hiring’ approach to improve the diversity of its faculty. Cluster hiring allows universities to hire a batch of professors at once instead of individually filling jobs. Proponents claim that this increases the probability for underrepresented minority groups to be chosen. Faculty in these clusters will address matters like social justice, ‘critical issues’ related to citizenship and democratic institutions, and ‘global environmental change.’ The selection process, along with some of the subject matters of these clusters, seems to focus less on actual scholarship and more on setting political standards.”
It’s all part of the leftist project of using the education system to cement its power to dominate society.
Arnold also calls out universities for non-faculty growth that amounts to mission creep.
Government meddling in education was bound to lead to politicization and waste. We are now paying a very heavy price for that blunder.