Jenna Robinson of the Martin Center asks in a new column whether a new law can help promote intellectual diversity on college campuses.
American colleges and universities lean left. Among faculty at leading U.S. universities, Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 11-to-one. The administration is even more skewed: there, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 12-to-one. Further evidence can be found by examining summer reading choices, non-academic campus programming, commencement speakers, and funding given to student groups.
George R. LaNoue observed in a Martin Center article that this imbalance extends to the conversation on campus. …
… Now Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of a successful bill to protect free speech on university campuses, has proposed a solution that goes one step further. His new model legislation is entitled The Campus Intellectual Diversity Act. It does a few things, which Kurtz explained recently in National Review. The Act would:
- Direct universities to establish an Office of Public Policy Events;
- Direct the new office to host debates, panel discussions, and individual lectures from a wide diversity of viewpoints on current public policy issues;
- Direct the new office to keep a yearly calendar of events that is open to inspection by the public and policymakers; and
- Direct the new office to record each event and make it available for the public to view.