This commentary is by Peter Smith. He is a former U.S. representative from Vermont, and the former president of Community College of Vermont and of California State University, Monterey Bay.
The fundamental principle lying behind higher education in our American democracy is that colleges provide and learners choose — and that the government stays out of telling colleges what or how to teach.
Throughout our nation’s history, this is a principle on which people across the political spectrum have agreed. Today, anti-freedom legislation threatens to undermine that principle. In state after state, we have seen a rise in legislation that bans books and censors ideas in our educational institutions. This should alarm conservatives just as much as liberals.
I speak from experience. With a career spanning decades in politics and higher education, I am skeptical of demagoguery wherever it arises. As a former Republican state senator, lieutenant governor and representative from Vermont, and as a former community college and state university president, I have always been guided by a commitment to open dialogue. That is why I object to government interventions attempting to control faculty behavior, curriculum content and “rules of speech” in our public and private colleges and universities.
Ted Cruz and I both went to Princeton and Harvard. Despite our similar educational backgrounds, it is safe to say that we have profound disagreements when it comes to public policy. While it may drive some people crazy, as it does me from time to time, my and Ted Cruz’s divergent political trajectories should be seen as a positive testament to our alma maters.
These institutions should be credited for laying the groundwork for their students to develop diverse belief systems. Across different types of colleges and universities — from Ivy Leagues to community colleges — we see ideological diversity flourish.
Later in my career, at California State University-Monterey Bay, my team had intense discussions about the mission and purpose of the institution during its early years. The outcome, more than 25 years later, is a high-performing majority-minority institution, a vibrant community and a curriculum that includes service learning and diverse historical and philosophical perspectives in multiple content areas while hewing to high academic standards. No one perspective, including mine, “won” our early debates about mission and curriculum. The result is a dynamic blend that has served the surrounding communities, as well as the university itself, very well.
In other words, the learners won.
People who advocate for gag orders, speech restrictions, book removals, employment restrictions such as eliminating tenure to change perceived philosophical biases and loading boards of trustees with specific political beliefs are, in fact, promoting the very practices they profess to oppose. They seek to control speech and ideas through state-imposed rules and restrictions. This is decidedly un-American.
When it comes to race, immigration, antisemitism, islamophobia, a woman’s right to control her health, or controversies around gender, to name a few, tensions run high, and angry people sometimes go beyond the bounds of civility in voicing their opinions. The solution to this problem is more dialogue — not to clamp down on speech. Imposing restrictions on content, be it in books, curricula, or conversation, is not the answer. Listening to differing points of view is one of the most important ways we learn.
The government has no place further regulating speech and thought in those environments. Let freedom of speech and freedom of conscience reign. It’s the American way.
