The Looming Fight Over Intellectual Diversity – Restoring the Academy’s Reason for Being

Originally published by Townhall

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education hosted negotiated rulemaking through its Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) Committee. The charge was straightforward and overdue: improve the quality of higher education, respond to a rapidly changing economic and intellectual landscape, expand accountability and transparency for students and taxpayers, and rebuild the value proposition of a college degree.

As one of the negotiators in the room, I am proud of what we accomplished. The process embodied the best of American democracy: open and at times spirited debate over hard ideas, careful examination of evidence, more debate, and ultimately consensus, producing a sharper, smarter set of rules.

No issue generated more heat than intellectual diversity: the common-sense principle that universities should expose students to multiple perspectives on the contested issues of our day. In the coming days, expect lawsuits, passionate essays about the supposed death of academic freedom, and the like. But why?

Because it challenges the ideological stranglehold the radical left has on college campuses. 

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