Biden Education Sec. questioned on funding 'woke' universities
Biden Education Sec. questioned on funding 'woke' universities
House Republicans want answers on millions given to schools engaging in censorship
In late September, House Republicans from two committees sent a letter to Biden’s Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
Republicans highlighted the millions in federal funds being received by colleges and universities and that certain campuses are engaging in activities that actively undermine and suppress free speech.
The letter was spearheaded by the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), and the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC).
“We are conducting oversight over the U.S. Department of Education’s (the Department) administration of taxpayers’ dollars awarded to public and private colleges and universities under various federal programs. Specifically, we are concerned many of these colleges and universities are undermining free speech and academic freedom on their campuses,” the lawmakers wrote. “Despite this problem, the Department does not seem to be engaged in promoting the free exchange of ideas within our colleges and universities.”
Lawmakers went on to write that “In fact, we were troubled to hear that the Department did not extend the free speech hotline first established by the past administration which was intended to be a resource to report potential free speech violations.”
The lawmakers’ letter requests a briefing from Cardona “to understand better what actions, if any, the Department is taking to promote free speech and academic freedom on college campuses.”
According to the letter, the "proliferation of cancel culture" includes public institutions which are taxpayer-funded, and those schools "should be havens of free speech."
“Often school administrators suppress academic thought because it does not align with ever-changing norms of political correctness,” the letter states. “It appears that, if your speech is aligned with left leaning orthodoxy, it will be protected.”
The lawmakers highlighted top colleges infringing on the free speech of certain groups and individuals.
Examples pulled directly from the letter include:
Administrators at Yale Law School threatened to interfere with one student’s ability to pass the character and fitness examination for his bar license unless he apologized to a student group for an email.
St. Louis University disbursed student fees among student organizations discriminately, based on political or ideological affiliation.
Certain faculty at University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University Law Center, and Princeton University have been placed on administrative leave or faced threats of termination or indefinite “investigations” for expressing their opinions outside the classroom on social media.
A University of Washington computer science professor was disciplined for refusing to include a controversial “indigenous land acknowledgement” statement on his course syllabi.
A federal lawsuit had to be filed to get the University of Michigan to disband its “bias response team” which the letter said “was dampening free speech by seeking out and reporting student conduct that was considered “hostile” or “biased” against certain groups.”
Disruptive student protesters shut down a speech by constitutional law scholar Ilya Shapiro at University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
The examples also included a reference to U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema being harassed in the bathroom by protestors who were upset with her voting record. Sinema is also an instructor at Arizona State University.
“This is no way to run an institution for frank and honest intellectual discourse,” the lawmakers wrote.
“For this reason, these institutions of higher learning should be havens of free speech,” wrote the lawmakers to Cardona after detailing around $150 billion in grants, contracts, and relief aid funded by taxpayers. “Instead, school administrators are undermining the very purpose of their institutions. The proliferation of cancel culture in American higher education threatens the ability of students and faculty to push themselves past their academic limits.”
Cardona was given a deadline to give a “staff-level” briefing by no later than yesterday, October 5.
It is yet unclear if Cardona complied.