A bill just passed the Florida legislature that requires colleges to survey their students and employees on their political beliefs in the supposed interest of diversity of thought on campus. As I work in institutional research on a college campus (luckily, in California, not Florida), the implementation of such a law would likely fall to me.
The position this would place me in would be difficult. I have to say, that unless certain important safeguards are in place, I would likely refuse. If I were in Florida, I might well resign.
While those who are saying that the state is requiring people to register their beliefs are being a bit hyperbolic, the law is dangerous, nonetheless.
Surveys are part of my job. Not all surveys must be anonymous, but surveys on sensitive topics usually should be, precisely because of the sensitivity. If people don’t trust that their responses are anonymous, they likely won’t respond or will respond disingenuously.
Nothing in the new Florida law guarantees this anonymity. While there may not be an immediate, specific reason to believe they would do so, anyone responding to college surveys would not be able to be confident that their responses would not be used against them, either by the college or by someone at the state level.
It’s not conspiratorial thinking. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and others have made it clear that if the results aren’t what they like, university funding may be on the chopping block. College leaders know this and would likely act accordingly in hiring and tenure decisions as a means of self-preservation.
Academic freedom is an important value in higher education, and it is important that colleges allow for diversity of thought. Some subject areas might naturally attract more conservatives or more liberals, but both are typically well represented.
While viewpoint diversity might seem a reasonable goal, mandating levels of representation across campus by political party, or anything close to that, would be dangerous to that very academic freedom and counterproductive to the missions of many departments. This is especially true as the nation has become polarized and parties have diverged on key issues, and in some cases, diverged from reality.
Consider what would happen if you require political parity in a biology department, when no national candidate from one of the two major political parties will admit to a belief in evolution, one of the foundational tenets of the field. The same could be said for anything related to climate science, when leaders of the same party are in denial of the worldwide scientific consensus. None of that is to say that there aren’t biologists or climate scientists who are Republicans; there are. Humans are complex creatures with varying motives for how they vote. However, if we say that the parties should have equal representation when one is increasingly doubling down against science, and on anti-education initiatives and anti-intellectualism in general, it would lead to the dumbing down of subjects across the curriculum.
It wasn’t always this way. Years ago, Republicans trusted scientists slightly more than Democrats. Now, after years of religious and corporate propaganda, there is a massive partisan divide on the issue. What has changed isn’t science; it’s the Republican party.
Neither party, however, is immune from groupthink, or from failure to examine its own biases. We should always be cognizant of that possibility and should ensure that we allow for diversity of thought on campus while recognizing that not all arguments have equal validity. Teaching critical thinking is one of our core mandates. Even if one can blame Republicans for Democrats dominating college campuses, that doesn’t mean there isn’t potential for a problem if too many people who think too much alike fail to question orthodoxy. Colleges should be alert to the issue.
Surveys can be a tool to address this, if used properly, which means not being used as a weapon to push a specific agenda, but as a measure of how well institutions are living up to their values of inclusion and open dialogue. In our three-college district, I created the first employee climate survey, which has been repeated three times since, with some tweaks. The survey was, and as long as I am in any way involved, will remain, anonymous.
Anonymity is only part of it. It’s also about what you ask on student and employee surveys and what you do with the results. Surveys like this address issues of trust, morale, communication, professional development, and interactions on campus. One thing we ask is how open and welcoming the campus is in similarities and differences in race, gender, sexual orientation, educational level, etc. Political diversity can be a part of this discussion, but it only works if it is done in the spirit of collegiality. Those responding must trust that their leaders are actually interested in the results and in improving the atmosphere on campus. If a survey is conducted under the threat of the budget axe, or of employees or students needing to think or believe a certain way to keep their positions, the results will be useless at best and dangerous at worst.
Ultimately, laws like this serve only to foster the grievance culture of those promoting them. They exist so that the governor can test his presidential aspirations on the backs of students and university employees. In the end, they are closer to 1950s McCarthyism than they are to the academic freedom their proponents claim.
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