America’s public colleges and universities have lost their way.  

For most of their history, these institutions—creatures of the state accounting for roughly three-fourths of undergraduate education—prioritized local economic and societal needs. This emphasis began to shift when the GI Bill and Cold War research funding brought a tidal wave of federal money to the higher education sector, public universities included.  

As might be expected, public colleges and universities shifted their priorities—money talks, as they say. Predictably, state government attention to public universities waned. However, state governance did not give way to federal governance but rather to institutional or self-governance. This is because, for better and worse, generous federal higher education funding came with few “strings attached.”  

Add to this an expanding conception of “academic freedom” that increasingly emphasizes institutional autonomy over its traditional focus on protecting individual academic freedom, and America’s universities were all but liberated from external accountability. In the case of private universities, a case could be made that this arrangement is appropriate. But it is more difficult to justify this arrangement in the case of public universities.

Institutional Rot

Whatever the theoretical benefits may have been for liberating universities from public accountability, the results of this experiment are in, and they are not encouraging.  

Today, divisive ideology-driven frameworks rooted in critical or neo-Marxist theory—the ultimate expression of contempt for the public interest—pervade large segments of the higher education sector.  

This is not simply a problem of competing ideas in an open marketplace.  

Rather, it is reflected in the institutionalization of illegal equity-based discrimination in admissions and training programs, ideological screening in hiring and promotion, viewpoint discrimination against dissenting faculty and applicants, and the suppression of disfavored speech, the corruption of the publication and accreditation processes, and even harassment and intimidation campaigns against religious minorities. (Yes, this too has neo-Marxist roots).   

In the absence of meaningful public accountability, America’s colleges and universities have concentrated power within faculty governance structures. In public university systems, authority is formally divided among state-appointed governing boards, university administrations, and faculty bodies (e.g., faculty senates). In practice, faculty senates often exercise substantial de facto control over far more than just academic concerns. 

This arrangement creates a self-reinforcing cycle of their worst attributes. For example, viewpoint hiring discrimination in hiring and promotion limits internal dissent, thereby reducing institutional capacity to challenge existing norms and making it nearly impossible to reverse this trend by hiring new perspectives to offset the bias 

Time for Reform  

The patience of the American people is running out. Public concern has grown over recent campus protests and other high-profile controversies, as well as broader perceptions that higher education is increasingly out of step with mainstream American norms. Surveys consistently show that large majorities of Americans believe higher education is on the wrong track. Perhaps most importantly, younger Americans are increasingly pursuing alternatives to traditional four-year institutions. 

Especially in red states, the oppressor/oppressed framework prevalent across wide swaths of academia is increasingly viewed as antithetical to core American principles of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and equal treatment under law.  

State lawmakers have taken notice. Indeed, several states, including Texas, Iowa, and Florida, have enacted meaningful reforms to their public university governance systems. These reforms both empower and, critically, hold governing boards and senior leaders accountable for implementing changes intended to restore public oversight of higher education.    

In response to interest in public university governance reform from both state lawmakers and the public, the America First Policy Institute has released a new report addressing key reform priorities. Separately, the Manhattan Institute has released a model governance reform bill. Both are likely to inform ongoing policy debates. 

A final note: concerns about viewpoint discrimination, institutional bias, and the suppression of open inquiry are not limited to any single type of institution. Every state should be committed to ensuring that universities remain places of open debate and equal treatment under law. However, political realities are just that: realities. Where state governments have clearer authority over public institutions than private ones, reform efforts should necessarily begin with public systems. Where state governments possess the necessary political support to achieve meaningful reform in the current political climate (i.e., the 23 “trifecta” states where the Republican Party holds both legislative houses and the governorship), reform efforts are more likely to succeed.    

In that sense, emerging state efforts to reform public university governance represent not a rupture with higher education’s mission but the best available opportunity to restore that mission.