Senator wants to make Washington universities, colleges more politically diverse

If you’re a prospective student looking for a liberal campus, Washington state may be the place for you. According to college search website Niche, Washington universities are some of the most left-leaning colleges in the country.

And one state lawmaker wants to take official action to shake up the political atmosphere on public campuses.

Niche ranked the University of Washington as the 20th most liberal school in the U.S., while Western Washington University comes in at  no. 27.

Sen. Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) — who obtained his master’s degree at the nation’s 27th-most-liberal university, according to Niche — introduced a bill this past session to require the hiring of professors who lean more to the Right.

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The bill would have made it so that one-quarter of professors hired had to “ascribe to conservative political and moral principles,” defining conservative as “an advocate of individual liberty, limited government, and free markets.” Additionally, it would have mandated that the final round of any hiring process include at least one conservative.

Ericksen noted that 42 to 45 percent of Washington families identify as more conservative, yet this same ratio does not tend to be represented by professors.

“Why are those families forced to send their kids to college campuses where less than 1 percent of faculty identify as conservative?” he asked, adding, “They shouldn’t have to send their kids to those kinds of universities, where they’re going to be taught every single day that everything they learned growing up was wrong.”

Ericksen said that college interns at the state capitol have horror stories of what happens to conservative or Libertarian students at their universities who give their political views in class.

“They’re afraid on campus to be able to talk about their conservative views. They feel their professors will give them worse grades because of what happens if they talk about their conservative views,” Ericksen said. “There’s really a real state of fear and intimidation on our college campuses these days for kids who are conservative.”

This also means that conservative guests who come to speak at campuses should not be scared off. At the University of Washington last year, Campus Republicans documented posters being torn down by other students for an event featuring conservative activists Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens. If a spectrum of political guests are virtually not allowed to come and speak, Ericksen questioned, how is that free speech?

He has talked to presidents of universities around the state, but said he received “almost dismissive” responses.

“It’s very alarming in many ways, the way they treat the understanding of what’s actually happening on their campuses,” he said. “Some of the college and university presidents I’ve talked to will recognize, ‘Yes, it would be good if we were a bit more diverse,’ but they don’t really have any concern or care about it.”

Politics are not Ericksen’s only concern when it comes to state universities and colleges. Because Evergreen State College is suffering from low enrollment, he proposes it be converted into a technical institute in order to send state dollars toward “prepar[ing] kids for what is actually needed in Washington state.”

“I’ve got the legislation ready to go and I think we should pursue it here in Washington,” he said.