If you ask most taxpayers, they’d say that the state universities they pay for should be run to teach useful knowledge and skills. But if you ask a “progressive” educator, you’d hear that state universities should be run primarily to spread correct thinking to the students, especially the beliefs embedded in that miasma of ideas we now call DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion). What the backward rubes who pay the taxes might want is immaterial.
Thus, we find again and again that state universities, even in “red” states, fall under the control of determined progressives. They won’t take “no” for an answer. That is the case at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) and I write about it in today’s Martin Center article.
Back in 2016, there was a flap in the Volunteer State when the Diversity Office got too aggressive for the state legislature, which terminated its funding. Did the wokesters get the message? Of course not, they were soon back at work, pushing their people and agendas.
One of the people was the new chancellor, who insisted that every academic unit in the university prepare a “diversity” plan. Not one told her that they’d stick to their traditional academic mission. This is, as NAS scholar John Sailer puts it in a recent study on UTK, “a case study in the rolling revolution under way in academia.”
Schools in UTK will now have to meet “diversity” goals and favor the recruitment of candidates who demonstrate their commitment to its causes. Merit in teaching and research will be subordinated to DEI ideology. Any dissidents will be screened out.
The key question is whether the legislators in Tennessee will meekly sit by while the state’s flagship university is turned into an outpost for leftist agitation.