Let Them Be Hillsdale

Why I signed the Manhattan Statement on Higher Education, line-by-line

In the United States, one institution of higher learning — Hillsdale College — refuses all government funding. (Another, Grove City College, abjures all federal funding, but still accepts some state funding). As a result, Hillsdale is exempt from a vast range of government regulations, both federal and state.

Historically speaking, this is a recent development. Although Hillsdale was founded in the mid-19th century, the U.S. government waited until the 1970s to start suing them for non-compliance with federal anti-discrimination rules. Remarkably, the government did not even accuse Hillsdale of actually discriminating against anyone; they sued Hillsdale merely for refusing to document their compliance with federal discrimination law.

After many years of litigation, the courts finally ruled that Hillsdale could ignore government regulation if they refused government funding. With much help from loyal philanthropists, Hillsdale gradually became financially independent: It stopped taking federal funding in 1984, and state funding in 2007.

I am not a lawyer, but I do speak English. Given the Hillsdale precedent, I say two things with confidence.

First, since Hillsdale is not legally entitled to government funding, neither is any other notable college in America. Why? Because unlike Hillsdale, virtually every college in the United States has been flagrantly discriminating on the basis of race and sex for decades. Selective schools discriminate in both admissions and hiring. Unselective schools discriminate in hiring. Everyone who works in the industry knows this to be true, though of course many embrace the Tertullian-inspired (“I believe because it is absurd”) doctrine that discrimination against whites, Asians, and men isn’t discrimination.

Second, every college in America that wishes to continue discriminating has a legally straightforward way to do so: be Hillsdale. Abjure all government funding, like Hillsdale, and you can ignore a wide range of government regulations, like Hillsdale.

I am well-aware, of course, that laws are often bad. I further maintain that bad laws are made to be broken. The best government funding policy, as I explain in The Case Against Education, is full separation of school and state. But we shouldn’t let the best be the enemy of the good. And all things considered, denying government funding to organizations that flagrantly discriminate is good. For three reasons:

First, while discrimination should be legal, it is still a serious evil and should not be subsidized by taxpayers.

Second, spending taxpayer money wisely is better than spending taxpayer money foolishly. Meritocratic admissions and hiring is wiser than any alternative, and far wiser than the travesty of woke admissions and hiring.

Third, since at least some schools will spurn onerous funding conditions, imposing onerous funding conditions moves us closer to my ultimate goal. Which is, to repeat: separation of school and state.

I signed because it is literally true.

Given these views, no one should be surprised that I signed the recently published Manhattan Statement on Higher Education. But since some of my friends were in fact surprised, I’m now going to walk through the statement line-by-line and explain my reasoning. The original statement is in blockquotes (or double blockquotes); I’m not.

America’s colleges and universities have long been the bright lights of our civilization. For nearly four centuries, they have pioneered new fields of knowledge, brought the arts and sciences to new heights, and educated the men who built our republic. But over the past half-century, these institutions gradually discarded their founding principles and burned down their accumulated prestige, all in pursuit of ideologies that corrupt knowledge and point the nation toward nihilism.

The first two cheerleading sentences gave me pause, but they’re still literally true. Lots of great stuff has happened over the centuries at American colleges and universities. And if you’ve read any of my writings on wokeness, you know why I emphatically agree with the last sentence.

There have been warnings. From William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale to Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, conservatives pleaded for the universities to maintain their basic commitments, while liberals promised to reform the campus from within. All of these attempts failed. The conservatives were ignored; the liberals were steamrolled; and the process of ideological capture accelerated.

Yep.

Now, the truth is undeniable. Beginning with the George Floyd riots and culminating in the celebration of the Hamas terror campaign, the institutions of higher education finally ripped off the mask and revealed their animating spirit: racialism, ideology, chaos.

Poetic but nonetheless true.

The current state of affairs is untenable. The American people send billions to the universities and are repaid with contempt. The leaders of these institutions seem to have forgotten that the university and the state are bound together by compact. During the Founding era, schools of higher education were established by government charter and written into the law, which stipulated that, in exchange for public support, they had a duty to advance the public good, and, if they were to stray from that mission, the people retained the right to intervene.

I naturally believe that schools should be free to refuse any compact with the government. (I also think that government should refuse any compact with schools!) But if you’re receiving taxpayer money, it is the fiduciary duty of government to get good value for the money.

Over the years, the locus of this particular compact has changed—the universities have entered into a relationship with the federal government—but the underlying principle remains the same: higher education must serve the public good and, in times of trouble, must be reformed.

If wrote the statement, I would have added, “Or better yet, privatized.” But I still agree with the sentence as written.

The troubles of the current era are neither light nor transient. The universities have brazenly, deliberately, and repeatedly violated their compact with the American people. They have engaged in a long train of abuses, evasions, and usurpations, which, with every turn of the ratchet, have moved our society toward a new kind of tyranny—one in which ideology determines truth, and the university functions as a political agent of the Left.

Let us enumerate the facts:

[…]

I have publicly agreed with all of the Manhattan statement’s accusations for many years.

Enough. The American people provide status, privileges, and more than $150 billion per year to the universities. In light of these transgressions, we have every right to renegotiate the terms of the compact with the universities and to demand that they return to their original mission: to pursue knowledge, to educate the citizen, and to uphold the law. In exchange for continued public support, these institutions must abide by the principles of the Constitution and honor their obligation to public good.

Implicit in the final sentence, of course, is that colleges retain the Hillsdale option: Lose all your government funding, and you can do as you please.

To that end, we call on the President of the United States to draft a new contract with the universities, which should be written into every grant, payment, loan, eligibility, and accreditation, and punishable by revocation of all public benefit:

I am well-aware that Trump is a caricature of an evil politician. But just as I call on him to stop enforcing U.S. immigration laws, I am happy to call on him to stop wasting taxpayer money. And all of the following are reasonable ways to waste less taxpayer money.

The universities must advance truth over ideology, with rigorous standards of academic conduct, controls for academic fraud, and merit-based decision-making throughout the enterprise.

All common sense, and I’m much more worried that American high ed will weasel out of these common-sense expectations than that these expectations will be weaponized for bad purposes. Indeed, though I greatly distrust anyone who wins an American presidential election, I utterly distrust university administrators.

The universities must cease their direct participation in social and political activism; the proper vehicle for criticism is through the individual scholar and student, not the university as a corporate body.

Totally reasonable — and if you don’t like it, be Hillsdale.

The universities must adhere to the principle of colorblind equality, by abolishing DEI bureaucracies, disbanding racially segregated programs, and terminating race-based discrimination in admissions, hiring, promotions, and contracting.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “anti-racism” is racism. If you demur, we are at an impasse.

The universities must adhere to the principle of freedom of speech, not only in theory, but in practice; they must provide a forum for a wider range of debate and protect faculty and students who dissent from the ruling consensus.

Yes. While no one has violated my free speech rights yet, I have ample first-hand knowledge of other scholars and students who were not so lucky. Even at schools that officially embrace free speech.

The universities must uphold the highest standard of civil discourse, with swift and significant penalties, including suspension and expulsion, for anyone who would disrupt speakers, vandalize property, occupy buildings, call for violence, or interrupt the operations of the university.

The “call for violence” clause gave me pause. Chris Rufo has the right to (mistakenly, in my view) defend the American Revolution, and GMU Ph.D. student Nicholas Decker has the right to (also mistakenly, in my view) wonder if now is the time for violent rebellion against Trump. But that’s an overly expansive notion of “call to violence,” which normally means, “Let’s commit non-defensive violence right here, right now.”

The universities must provide transparency about their operations and, at the end of each year, publish complete data on race, admissions, and class rank; employment and financial returns by major; and campus attitudes on ideology, free speech, and civil discourse.

I can see why an innocent college might, like Hillsdale back in the 1970s, object to these onerous reporting requirements: “We’re not even suspected of discriminating, yet you’re still requiring us to prove we’re not discriminating.” But since virtually every college in the country has been blatantly discriminating for decades, these onerous reporting requirements are reasonable.

We acknowledge that the crisis of higher education will not be resolved in an instant. Still, we maintain faith that these proposed reforms will provide a starting point for a broader restoration, which can push back the forces of radicalism and create the space for real knowledge. Despite the challenges, we refuse to abandon the hope that America’s universities can once again be those bright lights, pursuing truth, sustaining our highest traditions, and educating the future guardians of our republic.

When Chris Rufo asked me to sign the Manhattan statement, I told him that all of my serious reservations were for this final paragraph. Yet on reflection, I determined that the sentences were literally true. While I have near-zero hope for American high ed, I refuse to abandon hope. Hope is cope — and I am pro-cope.