America’s colleges used to be a feisty, independent lot — but then along came federal money with its inevitable strings. Most of our college leaders chose the Faustian bargain. They decided to accept the government money (which meant the ability to get many more students) and obey the diktats from Washington.
One of the few schools that said “no, thanks” to that deal was Hillsdale College. In this Wall Street Journal piece, the college’s president, Larry Arnn explains that the decision to preserve the school’s independence has meant that it was able to avoid mandates from the feds, such as counting students by race.
Arnn writes, “Our policy of nondiscrimination has led to a student population comprising an array of socio-economic groups and cultural, racial and religious traditions. Currently, Hillsdale College has students enrolled from 49 states. In the past five years, the college has accepted students from 26 foreign countries, including Barbados, Brazil, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, Mongolia, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Thailand and Vietnam. Not one of these young men and women was accepted on the grounds of race, heritage or background. They were invited to attend Hillsdale on the strength of their character, their intellect and, crucially, their intentions.”
Not only does Hillsdale not discriminate in favor of or against any group, it offers students a solid education, free from politicized courses and officious little “diversity” bureaucrats. Hillsdale professors teach their subjects, not their opinions.
If it hadn’t been for the disastrous blunder of federal meddling in higher education, I doubt that we would have the mess we have today, with universities discriminating in favor of some groups and against others, dumbing down their curricula and standards, bowing down to Education Department mandates on the handling of sexual assault cases, and much more.