10% Funding Cut for Universities that Flout Fairness and Free Speech

PRESS RELEASE

Rebecca Stewart: 513-479-3335

10% Funding Cut for Universities that Flout Fairness and Free Speech

WASHINGTON / March 28, 2022 – Students and faculty members have well-defined rights to due process, non-discrimination, and free speech. Lawmakers have become increasingly impatient with colleges and universities that infringe on these rights. Campus administrators are urged to promptly correct flawed policies to avoid severe consequences.

Due Process

Campus adjudication committees that fail to follow the rudiments of due process – sometimes referred to as “Kangaroo Courts” – are a major problem. SAVE has conducted an in-depth analysis of 169 Title IX judicial decisions against colleges and universities, revealing a broad range of due process violations such as lack of proper notice, biased investigations, faulty cross-examination, sex bias, and more (1).

In a March 16 decision against Syracuse University, District Judge Brenda Sannes concluded that the University “completely and willfully” ignored evidence submitted by the accused student to campus adjudicators (2).

Female-Only Scholarships and Programs

The federal Title IX law bans sex discrimination in schools. Defying this 50-year-old law, hundreds of universities offer scholarships (3) and programs (4) that openly discriminate against male students.

In its efforts to rectify discriminatory scholarships, SAVE has noted a disturbing pattern. First, the university does not respond to the SAVE complaint letter, prompting SAVE to refer the case to the federal Office for Civil Rights. When later notified of a new OCR investigation, the university hastily corrects the offending scholarships. This foot-dragging does not represent a good-faith attempt to resolve illegal scholarships or programs in a timely manner.

Free Speech

In years past, institutions of higher education were bastions of free speech. But according to a recent FIRE survey of 481 colleges, only 12% received a “green light” rating, meaning they had no written policies that seriously imperil free speech (5).

For example, professor Michael Phillips, a historian at Texas’ Collin College, is suing the school for trying to discipline him over social media posts critical of university policy. Phillips is the third Collin College professor to sue for what he calls an “atmosphere of terror.” (6)

In Idaho (7) and Wyoming (8), state lawmakers have begun to impose budget cuts on schools that sponsor programs based on social ideologies. In Oklahoma, HB 3543 was recently introduced to establish the Oklahoma Free Speech Committee to review First Amendment complaints at public universities (9).

A recent New York Post article tartly concludes that most “academic officials seem to think the law doesn’t apply so long as they’re politically correct. Time for them to learn otherwise.” (5) SAVE urges state lawmakers to impose a 10% funding reduction on universities that flout anti-sex discrimination and free speech mandates.

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