Public universities need support from the entire public, not just from one party

On July 10, 2017, the Pew Research Center released the results of polling conducted to determine partisan attitudes towards various important American institutions. Some of the results were fairly predictable, such a higher level of support for labor unions among Democrats than Republicans, but one particular poll result stood out and has drawn much attention. To quote directly from the Pew report:

While a majority of the public (55%) continues to say that colleges and universities have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country these days, Republicans express increasingly negative views. A majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (58%) now say that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country, up from 45% last year. By contrast, most Democrats and Democratic leaners (72%) say colleges and universities have a positive effect, which is little changed from recent years.

Moreover, this negative perception among Republicans has increased dramatically over the past several years, with 58 percent of Republicans saying in 2010 that higher education institutions have a positive effect on American society, versus 36 percent in 2017. This viewpoint is common among various GOP demographic groups.

{mosads}The Pew poll didn’t delve into the reasons for these negative opinions, but it is likely that this trend among Republicans is based on the belief that universities are hostile places for conservatives, with media images of “safe spaces” (which often seem to exclude conservatives) and campus unrest feeding conservative views on this issue. Whether or not such opinions have a strong basis in fact is beside the point. It may be a cliché to say that perception is reality, but that doesn’t mean that phrase isn’t true.

This poll was of particular interest to me because of a piece I wrote here at The Hill in February about academic tenure, where I suggested that the decreasing percentage of university instructors who have tenure makes it harder to defend tenure politically, because fewer voters will have any experience with tenured faculty, much less any positive experience with them.

There’s no way to view such polling and not see what the likely political implications are for public colleges on all issues, including with respect to tenure policies and general funding. (I’m leaving private colleges out of this discussion, but they aren’t completely insulated from external political factors.)  

Also, one shouldn’t assume some Democrats won’t join in the skepticism. The Pew poll showed that a nontrivial percentage (19 percent) of Democratic voters had a negative view of the role of universities in our society. Even university-friendly Democratic politicians like former President Barack Obama have been known to make critical comments about humanities majors, and it’s easy to imagine how such attitudes can play out with regard to support for public universities.

But the main action would be on the Republican side and with Republicans holding control of most state legislatures, Democrats would be foolish to dismiss or ignore this trend and how it would affect funding for and oversight of public colleges.

There isn’t a simple response to this issue, but the Pew poll shows that Republicans have had a more positive view of higher education in the recent past. This indicates that impressions can change over time, so perhaps this movement can be reversed. One thing that university leaders can do is encourage a culture of support for free speech on campus. While threats and incitement to violence should never be permitted, speakers (and this includes conservative students) who otherwise have a legal right to be on campus should be able to speak without fear of the heckler’s veto or worse.

Further, conservative university graduates have just as much invested in their alma maters as liberal graduates do and they will act to support public universities when they think the value of the education they received is at risk. Texas is a conservative state and it’s safe to assume many if not most of its public university graduates are Republicans.

But when former Governor Rick Perry tried to enforce certain ideological prescriptions on the University of Texas and Texas A&M (Texas’s largest public universities), there was a strong backlash from alumni. If Texas can maintain such support, than other states can do so as well.

Public universities need support from the entire public, not just from one party, and it is vanity for liberals to think that conservatives don’t care about or are automatically hostile to universities. Strong public universities are a great benefit to American life and we shouldn’t let them become a fiefdom or adversary of any political party. Plus, from a purely practical matter, if liberals want to prevent a backlash against higher education, they have to engage conservatives.

As Daniel Drezner wrote in the Washington Post, “academics will need to learn how to talk, and listen, to conservatives”. That is true for universities in general, and goes double for universities that rely on the support of conservative legislators for funding and oversight.

Mark R. Yzaguirre is associate general counsel and associate vice chancellor for legal affairs at the University of Houston. He’s written for FrumForum, the Independent Journal-Review and the Huffington Post, and specializes in higher education, politics and law. Opinions solely his own. You can find him on Twitter: @markyzaguirre.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.