CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES: UNIVERSITIES
· The purpose of a university is rigorous education—not political indoctrination. Obviously partisan classes should not be approved. Similarly, all students should be required to take a full battery of liberal arts courses, including courses in philosophy, economics, and the humanities.
· Efforts to increase optical diversity should be reduced or entirely eliminated. Merit, instead, should be the guiding principle in all university endeavors, including student admission, the award of scholarships, and faculty hiring.
· Tenure should be reformed, not eliminated. Instead of junior scholars having a few years to prove themselves able before applying for tenure, they should be given a 10-year contract. The contract would guarantee their academic freedom. At the end of their contract they can then be evaluated and, if approved, moved into the full professor ranks if deemed meritorious.
· Universities should take no position on controversial topics or on controversies caused by professors. Doing so necessarily translates into the university becoming an arbitrator of truth and supporting one view of reality over another.
· Universities should scrap all speech codes and rescind any policy or mechanism that places restrictions on speech. All groups should be welcome on campus, especially those with minority, different, and even unscientific views.
· University administrators should rebel against and refuse to allow the expansion of Title IX efforts that reduce fundamental fairness and due process of those accused of harassment or discrimination.
· University judicial affairs offices should be stripped of their powers to hear and to adjudicate matters that involve the violation of criminal law. The police are the proper authorities to investigate allegations of crime.
· Administrative bloat and Federal regulations should be reduced. Growth in college administration has been nothing short of staggering and has been economically expensive.
* Universities should understand and appreciate the problems that occur when they view students as “customers” instead of students in need of an education. Education is not a product to be sold.
· Efforts to increase optical diversity should be reduced or entirely eliminated. Merit, instead, should be the guiding principle in all university endeavors, including student admission, the award of scholarships, and faculty hiring.
· Tenure should be reformed, not eliminated. Instead of junior scholars having a few years to prove themselves able before applying for tenure, they should be given a 10-year contract. The contract would guarantee their academic freedom. At the end of their contract they can then be evaluated and, if approved, moved into the full professor ranks if deemed meritorious.
· Universities should take no position on controversial topics or on controversies caused by professors. Doing so necessarily translates into the university becoming an arbitrator of truth and supporting one view of reality over another.
· Universities should scrap all speech codes and rescind any policy or mechanism that places restrictions on speech. All groups should be welcome on campus, especially those with minority, different, and even unscientific views.
· University administrators should rebel against and refuse to allow the expansion of Title IX efforts that reduce fundamental fairness and due process of those accused of harassment or discrimination.
· University judicial affairs offices should be stripped of their powers to hear and to adjudicate matters that involve the violation of criminal law. The police are the proper authorities to investigate allegations of crime.
· Administrative bloat and Federal regulations should be reduced. Growth in college administration has been nothing short of staggering and has been economically expensive.
* Universities should understand and appreciate the problems that occur when they view students as “customers” instead of students in need of an education. Education is not a product to be sold.