IN THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL, COLUMNIST GREG JOHNSON HAS ADVICE FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE’S NEW CHANCELLOR, BEVERLY DAVENPORT:
Yes, let’s do diversity. Given that Berkeley burned when a conservative provocateur was invited to campus, this after numerous conservatives have been stifled in academe in recent years, some humble suggestions from your humble columnist:
-Affirm the Chicago Principles. In 2014, the University of Chicago established a committee on freedom of expression in light of the uproars. The committee noted UC President Hanna Holborn Gray said that “education should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think.”
“The University’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed,” the committee wrote.
-Embrace the Tennessee Student Free Expression Act. State Rep. Martin Daniel, R-Knoxville, has introduced HB739, which quotes the Tennessee constitution: “The free communication of thoughts and opinions, is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write, and print on any subject.”
Daniel’s bill states the obvious: “In recent years, state institutions of higher education have abdicated their responsibility to uphold free speech principles.”
-Commit to hiring conservatives. The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA found the number of professors identifying as “liberal” rose from 42 percent in 1990 to 60 percent in 2014 while “moderates” declined by 13 percent and “conservatives” dropped by 6 percent.
Liberals outnumber conservatives by more than 4 to 1 in the academy while conservatives outnumber liberals 38 percent to 24 percent in the real world, according to Gallup. Like with other disparities of diversity, UT and other universities need to intentionally recruit from the underrepresented group.
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