The institutional lurch toward leftism in recent years is perhaps most evident on college campuses. A college education was once considered a vital step toward adulthood, but higher education is now often little more than four years or more of cultural and political leftist reeducation. Highly dubious woke ideologies such as critical race theory and gender ideology are taught as fact.
Most public universities have even created separate administrative divisions to manage this agenda. Diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, workers make up a big chunk of universities’ staff, often outnumbering professors. At Georgia Tech, for example, there are 3.2 times as many DEI staff as there are history professors. At the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, there are 13.3 times as many DEI staff as there are people providing disability services, according to the Heritage Foundation.
BIDEN BACKS HIS ADMINISTRATION INTO A PUDDLE
This administrative bloat isn’t just wasteful and unnecessary; it’s a cultural threat. Universities are deliberately directing time and money toward the promotion of an ideological system that seeks to undermine and destroy America’s founding values. This has already worked on impressionable students exposed to it. One poll found that 78% of students believe colleges should provide a space where they can be safe from “harmful” speech, and 1 in 4 say schools should restrict political views that are “upsetting or offensive” to certain groups.
The need for reform is urgent. But first, conservatives must be clear about how to deconstruct and repair the damage public universities have done. They can learn from Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis is proving that wokeism is not welcome and probably won’t win in the Sunshine State and its schools.
DeSantis’s office announced this week that Florida’s universities must report their spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion, which includes DEI staff pay and all projects and initiatives related to promoting critical race theory. DeSantis is especially concerned about whether these schools are using state resources to fund their DEI agenda.
“Governor Ron DeSantis has prioritized a cost-effective higher education system that delivers high-quality service to Floridians to best prepare them for employment,” the memo reads. “Additionally, state law requires dutiful attention to curriculum content at our higher education systems.”
Though DeSantis’s team has not offered details on what it plans to do with the schools’ financial reports, the governor appears to be readying his power of the purse to hold Florida’s universities accountable. This would be an excellent and much-needed step toward restoring our heavily politicized higher education system, and Florida’s students will be much better off for it.
