A bill that would require public universities to annually survey the political beliefs of students and faculty is making its way through the Florida Legislature. The proposed legislation mandates that the state university system’s Board of Governors require public institutions to survey intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity on campus, with results published every year.
Naturally, liberal professors are having a meltdown over it. Cue the theatrics.
“Are faculty and students going to be coerced into filling out such a survey?” asked Matthew Lata, a faculty union president. “If I refuse to do that, am I going to be punished? Coerced speech is a violation of the First Amendment. I shouldn’t be forced to tell the state of Florida what I believe about certain political matters.”
You would think someone was asking him to disclose his deepest, darkest secrets.
While conservative faculty are often grilled about their beliefs during the application process and many students are interrogated in the classroom for defending a conservative position on an issue, leftist professors would finally receive equal treatment, and they don’t like it one bit.
[Also read: Trump to sign college transparency and free speech order]
I admit that it’s fun to watch progressives get a taste of their own medicine.
However, I would have to question whether this is truly going to help combat the bias in the classroom. It’s become increasingly common knowledge that academia is a bastion of liberalism and that only the bravest conservatives feel comfortable expressing their opinions on most campuses. A survey won’t change that. Progressives run the higher education system, and they aren’t going to give up their power that easily.
Instead of proving the obvious to make a point, conservatives should focus on how to effectively counter the liberal speech on campus. This could mean funding the speaking fees for a few conservative speakers in order to encourage debate and balance. It could also mean identifying ways to keep conservative candidates from getting rooted out of the interview process. Progressive college leaders who buy into the “inclusive excellence” movement are already changing the way interviews are conducted to give ethnically diverse candidates an advantage during the hiring process. Why not go a step further and give candidates with diverse viewpoints a fighting chance?
Progressives need to be put on notice, and a survey is not the most productive way to do that. It has the potential to backfire and cause endless, expensive lawsuits, wasting taxpayer money. And it has the ugly appearance of petty partisan politics.
Conservatives need to be given equal respect at our colleges and universities. Rather than making our progressive, snowflake friends feel threatened or “triggered,” conservatives need to fight back with the same rhetoric and use the same systems that progressives put in place to stake their claim on academia in the first place.
Brendan Pringle (@BrendanPringle) is writer from California. He is a National Journalism Center graduate and formerly served as a development officer for Young America’s Foundation at the Reagan Ranch.
