To assume an English major took a class in Shakespeare is a pretty safe assumption, or at least it used to be. Now, not even the Bard of Avon is safe from censorship, as university administrators and faculty use the education system to drive their own agendas.
At the University of California, Los Angeles, English majors are no longer required to study one of the greatest writers of all time. Instead, they have to take classes in “Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexuality Studies” and “Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies,” in addition to critical theory and creative writing.
Dost thou ask why? “To expose students to alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class,” according to the UCLA catalog.
Shocking, isn’t it? This English department took out Shakespeare to drive its own ideological agenda. While I didn’t particularly like Shakespeare as an undergraduate student obsessed with the modern American novel, this is still a tragedy.
The desire to expose students to a certain viewpoint and to censor others isn’t limited to the hallowed (Shakespeare-free) halls of UCLA’s English department. It is a problem plaguing students of all majors at universities and college campuses nationwide. Addressing this issue is especially important as we celebrate Free Speech Week.
Universities are supposed to be a marketplace of ideas, where students are exposed to different viewpoints and given the opportunity to debate them. That marketplace of ideas doesn’t just simply appear overnight like a farmer’s market on the quad selling overpriced maple syrup (even if it is totally worth $14). Students are exposed to these ideas through the different classes they take, the student groups they engage with on campus, and the subsequent conversations they have.
Exposure to various ideas and the premise behind the marketplace of ideas is utterly undermined when college administrations cherry-pick which ideas students are allowed to study according to their own leftist worldview.
I say this with the full understanding that academic departments do need to determine course curricula. But thoughtfully determining course categories and offerings is different than intentionally driving an agenda, and many universities have tried to do exactly that.
For example, at California State University San Marcos, the university was engaging in viewpoint discrimination by granting the Gender Equity and LGBTQA Pride Centers over $300,000 in funding from mandatory fees, while denying the Students for Life chapter $500 in funding to host a speaker on “Abortion and Human Equality” to provide a contrasting view. Alliance Defending Freedom, where I now work, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the pro-life organization and won.
A similar situation happened at the University of Florida, where the Young Americans for Freedom chapter was denied funding to bring conservative speakers to campus even though the university granted funding to other organizations for liberal speakers. ADF filed a lawsuit on behalf of the YAF chapter and, in response, the university agreed to change its policy.
These are not just two examples of viewpoint discrimination but rather two instances in which those in positions of power try to push an agenda rooted in one ideology. This is where the First Amendment enters center stage in the third act.
The First Amendment forbids public universities from engaging in viewpoint discrimination against disfavored speech. It protects the freedom of students to speak and hear different ideas, and it inhibits administrators from wielding their pens to sign policies that directly undermine the marketplace of ideas.
While the First Amendment’s viewpoint neutrality requirement may not apply to curriculum choices, the principles of the marketplace of ideas certainly do. Shakespeare’s exile from his metaphorical home in the UCLA English department is indeed a tragedy.
The goal of universities is to provide a wide variety of ideas for students to engage in, within and without the classroom. From a purely principled perspective, English departments should not forgo providing courses on a master playwright in favor of a political ideology.
But, as the Bard himself put it in The Tempest: “The hour’s now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.”
It is time we stop allowing administrators to push their agendas at the expense of the marketplace of ideas. Public universities cannot and should not undermine the First Amendment. Universities must return to their purpose of exposing students to different ideas and opening their ears to robust debate.
Pooja Bachani is social media manager for Alliance Defending Freedom. Follow ADF on Twitter @AllianceDefends, Facebook @AllianceDefendingFreedom, and Instagram @AllianceDefendingFreedom.
