Should Professors Be Forced to Demonstrate “Intellectual Diversity”?

​Daron Djerdjian is a popular economics professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles, highly rated by students on online review sites. He is also reportedly the last full-throated proponent of free-market economics at Occidental. And yet Djerdjian was, after years of exemplary reviews, released from his contract.
 
This is just one more sign of how, at many leading universities, an ideological monoculture has taken root. This is not to say that academics with conservative or “classically liberal” views are being routinely expelled from the academy, as Djerdjian was. In the economics, law, and humanities departments of many leading universities, conservatives have simply not been hired in the first place.
 
More than one-third of Americans identify as “conservative.” Yet the best jobs in academia are off limits to them. Liberals, no less than conservatives, should find this replacement of intellectual diversity by an ideological monoculture a sign of moral and intellectual rot in higher education. But what to do about it?
 
Indiana lawmakers believe they have the solution. Indiana has passed a new law that requires professors to demonstrate “intellectual diversity” in order to retain tenure at public universities and colleges. This law relies on university trustees, often politically appointed, to enforce this vague mandate. This approach is rooted in the state's argument that professors lack First Amendment rights in their classrooms because their speech is “government speech.” This law not only won’t have the intended effect. It is as misguided as it is dangerous.
 
Defenses of this law echoes similar arguments made in Florida, where that state seeks to control university curricula through legislative measures like the Stop WOKE Act, which restricts discussions about gender and race. Despite their stated aims of promoting diversity of thought, such laws ultimately threaten to erode the very foundation of academic freedom. By framing professors’ classroom speech as merely “government speech,” the state reduces educators to mouthpieces for the state, stripping them of their role as independent thinkers.
 
The Indiana law, much like Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, risks creating a chilling effect on academic discourse, where professors may self-censor to avoid jeopardizing their careers. This would not only harm educators but also deprive students of the robust education that comes from engaging with challenging and diverse ideas.
 
There are better ways to counter ideological uniformity in academia than through constitutionally questionable laws that undermine academic freedom. First, efforts should focus on protecting faculty and students, designating campuses as open for expressive activity of all kinds, as New Hampshire just did.
 
Occidental College is a private, liberal arts institution. If it were located in Indiana, it would be unaffected by this new law. But it is perfectly valid for donors, both wealthy individuals and institutions, to press private universities and colleges, as well as the fundraising arms of public universities, to accept more intellectual diversity in the hiring of professors.
 
The university ideological monoculture cannot – and should not – be strongarmed out of existence. The answer to the policing of speech on campus in not more policing.
 
Protect The 1st will keep an eye on this Indiana law and how it unfolds.