Rantz: Legislation to mandate conservative hires at public schools is misguided

A Republican state senator is introducing legislation to mandate 25 percent of new hires at public college campuses in Washington go to conservatives. It’s well-intentioned, but a bad idea.

“Once you send your kids off to college, about less than 1 percent of all college faculty are Republicans or conservative or even moderate in many cases,” State Senator Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) told the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “So, I just don’t think it’s fair for hard-working families in Washington state who are more conservative, more Republican in nature, to be forced to send their kids to colleges that overwhelmingly identify as left-wing and liberal.”

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The issue Ericksen raises is a serious one and he’s been a champion on trying to bring ideological diversity to campuses that claim to support diversity, but almost always ignore the ideological kind.

Consequently, you have a bunch of progressive students who are rarely challenged to think differently than their progressive professors, and you have conservative students who feel like they need to change their political opinions just to avoid getting graded down.

But Ericksen’s bill is not the answer.

Affirmative action is wrong. We can’t say no to I-1000 while then endorsing a bill like this. Rather than mandate a quota, we ought to constantly remind colleges — and demand as taxpayers — that they better serve their commitment to diversity by finding conservative faculty members to even out the severe imbalance.

Students must be further empowered to create conservative clubs on campus and push the faculty for better diversity and bring conservative speakers to campus. On the Jason Rantz Show, we frequently highlight the work of college Republicans to better encourage them to speak out.

I love going to college (and high school) campuses to speak to any club that wants to hear our perspectives (I was just at the UW, Seattle University, and Henry M. Jackson high school).

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It won’t be easy — many campuses seem to have a dearth of conservatives (either because they don’t exist in large enough numbers or they’re too scared to come forward). College campuses can be very tough on conservatives and it takes some willingness to deal with the bullying that will occur once you become active.

Finally, we must make a stronger push to ensure conservative students aren’t being penalized by their progressive professors over political opinions, and we should propose severe punishments when it happens. Seattle, rather ironically, has protections for people based on their ideological beliefs. A bill worth passing would ensure any political ideology a protected class on a college campus.

None of this will be easy, but it’s worth it. A law to push faculty quotas? Not worth it, hard to implement, and impossible to truly enforce.

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