The “End Woke Act” Needs Fine-Tuning to Promote Intellectual Diversity

​The U.S. House recently passed the End Woke Higher Education Act. This bill, part of the GOP’s broader push against ideological bias, aims to limit increasingly Orwellian Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) control over speech and hiring in higher education. It passed by a 213-201 vote and now faces a tough battle in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
 
This bill would regulate the role accrediting bodies play in determining whether colleges qualify for federal funding. Currently, accrediting organizations often require institutions to align with certain DEI initiatives to maintain their status. The End Woke Act would block these requirements, ensuring that schools don’t have to adhere to any political or ideological viewpoint to stay accredited.
 
We ask: Why should private accrediting bodies have such influence over public funding in the first place? Accreditation has become a bureaucratic tool, often favoring particular ideologies. The government should not outsource funding decisions to external organizations, much like courts and legislatures should not be beholden to the advice of the private American Bar Association.
 
The bill also incorporates the Respecting the First Amendment on Campus Act, which takes cues from the University of Chicago’s 2014 principles on free speech. These principles emphasize that universities should be arenas for open debate, where no idea is off-limits, even if offensive to some. This legislation would require colleges to disclose their free speech policies and ensure students and faculty are aware of their rights to free expression.
 
However, we must also be cautious about how such attempts to liberate speech can wind up restricting it. Florida’s Stop WOKE Act is an example of how well-intentioned laws can overreach. Its broad restrictions on how race and gender can be taught in higher education have made professors afraid to even discuss certain topics. This same chilling effect could result from overly detailed regulations in the End Woke Act.
 
This bill commendably opposes political litmus tests in hiring and promotion. In recent years, some colleges have required applicants to submit statements affirming their commitment to DEI as part of the hiring process. The result is that faculties in the humanities are monolithically left-wing. The bill seeks to ban such requirements, arguing that they suppress intellectual diversity. Protect The 1st agrees. Whether someone supports or opposes DEI or any other political or partisan stance should not determine their eligibility for academic positions.
 
Any ban on litmus tests, however, that restricts the free associational choices of private colleges and universities, as opposed to public institutions, undermines rather than promotes First Amendment rights. This is true even if it is done in the name of promoting First Amendment values. A private Catholic university should have the right to hire faculty who uphold its religious values. Similarly, a private liberal arts college committed to the Constitution, or a private sustainability-focused institution, may want professors who actively promote these ideals. There is little overlap between the communities of Hillsdale and Oberlin colleges. This bill could prevent such schools from ensuring faculty align with their institutional identities and core missions.
 
This last point gets to a serious shortcoming in this legislation. It uses access to federal funds to impose these rules on private universities and colleges as well as public ones. Those who want to use these strings to outlaw “woke” instruction in private institutions of higher learning are paving the way for government to dictate instruction of all kinds, including religious schools. If this approach were to become law, you shouldn’t be surprised if some future administration tells a Catholic college that its teachings on traditional marriage or abortion are not allowed. Once you meddle with speech, you create a weapon that can be pointed in any direction.
 
We applaud the thrust of this bill – absurd ideological demands, like requiring DEI statements, are anathema to academic freedom. However, there has to be a better way to restore ideological diversity to the academy than to give the government the power to approve curricula and compel instruction at private universities.
 
We urge the bill’s authors to return with a more targeted approach to opening public institutions of higher learning to true intellectual openness and vigorous debate on wide-ranging ideas.