Alexander Speaks Out
Today's Chronicle has coverage of Lamar Alexander's Friday appearance before the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
The Tennessee senator contended that the academy's lack of intellectual diversity is hampering efforts for sustainable public funding."When I go to talk to people about funding for higher education," he noted,"the single biggest pushback I get is from elected representatives who think that higher education is too one-sided."
Even those not concerned with the current state of staffing patterns in the academy might wonder whether the self-interest of the professoriate might be better served by making a token effort at greater pedagogical and intellectual diversity among the faculty.


Re: token efforts?
token efforts?
Re: token efforts?
Lamar Alexander
But several commission members said that they were surprised (and somewhat dismayed) that the senator had included among his top six priorities for the commission that it seek to rein in the “growing political one-sidedness” and “absence of true diversity of opinion” on most campuses, which he called “the greatest threat to broader public support and funding for higher education.”
“There is more to this charge of one-sidedness than the academic community would like to admit,” Alexander said. “How many conservative speakers are invited to deliver commencement addresses? How many colleges require courses in U.S. history? How many even teach Western Civilization? How many bright, young faculty members are discouraged to earn dissertations in the failure of bilingual education or on the virtues of vouchers or charter schools?"
Somehow I was unaware that teaching U.S. history is a conservative thing to do.
It sounds like Alexander implied that we need a political litmus test in faculty hiring decisions in order to ensure broad public support for higher education. I find that problematic on all sorts of levels.