UW needs urgent fixes. Protect speech. Hire conservative faculty. Teach civics. | Opinion

Wisconsin cannot wait any longer. UW System President Jay Rothman needs to reform the state's university system.

In February, administrators released the results of an alarming student survey. Right-leaning students reported that they were silenced and pressured to agree with instructors. Left-leaning students reported a much friendlier environment that caters to their needs. These troubling findings suggest that the long term trajectory of the UW System is academically and politically unsustainable.

In response to these findings, Rothman held an open forum, ordered system campuses to stop requiring DEI statements from job applicants, and created a new center called the Wisconsin Institute for Citizenship and Civil Dialogue to enhance civil dialogue. He showed real leadership on this.

Rothman must continue to lead. Where possible, he should forge ahead as the leader, carrying naysayers on his back. He must continue to work with the Board of Regents and the Legislature. But make no mistake. We need real leadership now. We need serious reforms if the UW System is to meet Wisconsin’s needs.

UW needs civics: free speech, civil discourse, democracy

To begin, the system should take steps to create schools of civic literacy on each of its campuses whose classes study classic texts and examine American ideas, institutions, and civic culture, with programs that engage in experiential learning in leadership and civic affairs, and the practice of civil discourse. The student survey showed that every campus lacks awareness of and appreciation for free speech principles.

We have seen such schools recently created in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and elsewhere. They are devoted to greater civic awareness and dedicated to the proposition that our American ideals create a good life for people. Students take classes on leadership, read and engage classic and modern texts on political thought, learn the importance of the American founding, and participate in programming that models appropriate civil discourse. They come away with the tools to be more effective citizens. Wisconsin could lead here.  

Free speech in peril on campuses:From heavy hand of government to speaker shout downs

College leaders should also require students to pass a class on the First Amendment so they leave the university as people who understand the importance of dialogue and free speech. When they arrive as freshmen, students must take training courses on diversity, alcohol abuse, and sexual assault. Why not also something extensive on civil dialogue?

The class could examine why we should respect a marketplace of ideas. Students could learn why free speech is often the best protection against bad government, why minority positions always are better off with free speech rights, and why speech regulations lead to tyranny. The objectives of the class would be to teach students how to disagree agreeably and to combat the illiberal trend toward silencing others. 

More conservative faculty members should be recruited

College administrators must do more to recruit faculty from the conservative end of the political spectrum. The National Science Foundation awards grant money to the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute Program. It’s an annual, intensive five-week program held at Duke University, designed to introduce traditionally underrepresented racial and ethnic groups to what it means to be an academic and how to succeed in graduate school. The goal of the program is to give undergraduate students with academic promise the tools to succeed as faculty. Why not employ similar programs for right leaning students to bump up their numbers?

No one should be hired or fired because of their political views — but what’s clear is that universities are uniformly liberal and must begin reaching out to a broader pool of applicants. We would never tolerate the kind of underrepresentation of racial or ethnic minorities that we see among conservatives in faculty. It’s time to do something about it.

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Rothman should incentivize or require universities to search deeper for non-left faculty. He should spearhead efforts to reach out to Young America’s Foundation, Young Americans for Liberty, College Republicans, or others. Universities need more conservative-minded faculty - and staff. They must do something to recruit them.

The system should require universities to make their admissions policies and admissions data public. People are concerned that universities have relied too much in recent years on immutable characteristics like race in their hiring decisions. Whether those decisions are right or wrong are matters of public debate. But to have that debate, we must know how universities are making their admissions decisions. The public deserves to know how university officials admit applicants.

Universities should provide annual list of campus speakers

UW also must enhance transparency. Colleges should be required to provide an annual list of its invited speakers so that people interested in obtaining intellectual balance could examine whether it exists. Likewise, departments and schools should be required to place syllabi on publicly accessible websites so that the public can examine what is being taught. If COVID-19 taught parents anything, it is that a lot goes on in classrooms of which they were unaware.

Political indoctrination?Here is what goes on in my UW classroom

Finally, the UW System needs to commit to yearly student surveys to determine whether any of its reforms are working. We can only detect trends with data. But colleges have little incentives to obtain data which may make them look bad. The president can lead on this. He could require the collection of such data or provide incentives for the campuses to do so.

Rothman should be commended for opening up system schools for student evaluations. But he needs to do much more. We need Rothman to lead.

Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, serves as chairperson of the State Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities. He was first elected to the Assembly in 2012.