Hicks: If Indiana colleges wanted equality, they'd admit more men

The debate over ideological diversity on campus won’t end with Senate Bill 202.

The heart of the issue isn’t what most people think. It doesn’t fit easily into ideological labels of conservative or liberal, and it isn’t about political party. The issue is not about gender, race or ethnicity, or the mix of ideas discussed on campus. It isn’t about acknowledging lingering discrimination, recognizing the ugly parts of American history, or even choosing the right tactics to promote equality.

Many folks would like to make these claims, but the issues are far more fundamental, and far different, than we’ve seen in any American institution for a very long time. The central fight over ideological bias on campus involves two competing visions of the world. One view reflects the founding principles of the Constitution; the second is wholly different and incompatible with the Constitution.

In the first view, the individual is at the center of morality and law. In this view, we are each unique beings, created equal and responsible for our individual actions. That still-radical idea came to us from the Enlightenment, though some of us find it in our faith tradition. It took political form in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the bodies of laws that built upon them.

In the second view, classes of people, not the individual, are at the center of morality and law. In this view, individuals are irrelevant unless they are mobilized by class interests in a struggle for political and economic power. The goal of that struggle is to dismantle the structures of oppression, colonization and exclusion. This view comes to us through an early 20th century branch of German Marxism, and has today become known as Critical Theory.

Critical Theory closes debate on campuses

Many readers will have heard of Critical Race Theory, or CRT, as part of the culture wars. Critical Theory is a much broader ideology.

Marxism focused on economic classes, such as the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Critical theory adds to them intersections of race, ethnicity, and an expanding list to include queerness, body weight, trauma experience and the like. Critical Theory claims that the more a class is oppressed, the more merit it must possess and the greater its moral vision. As individuals, we are irrelevant and disposable. Only our intersectional class matters.

The debates on campus speech and ideology are really a struggle between these two wholly incompatible worldviews. Conflict is not only certain, but necessary.

Speech rules on public university campuses are derived from the first view, because the Constitution offers no alternative. In contrast, admissions, hiring, promotion and tenure are heavily controlled by the use of Critical Theory. In many campuses, you cannot be admitted, hired, tenured or promoted without pledging commitment to Critical Theory.

To be clear, I’m not talking about classroom teaching. The same freedom of expression required by our Constitution permits professors to teach Marxist and Critical Theory in classrooms. That is where ideas are challenged and succeed or fail on their merits.

In contrast, Critical Theory explicitly views freedom of speech as a tool of the oppressors. As intended, this closes debate on campus.

Our culture wars are the direct result of this longstanding divide on campus. I also think much of the current political chasms stem from the use of Critical Theory as campus policy on admissions, hiring, funding, programming, tenure and promotion. Let me provide a concrete example.

Colleges discriminate against men

In the late 1970s, as I grew into adulthood, women faced considerable discrimination. In higher education, to their credit, universities not only preached equality, but also practiced it. By the time I entered college in 1980, America’s colleges were evenly split by gender. Occupations once closed to women began to open, first begrudgingly, then quickly. Facts and experience changed minds. It was a huge national achievement.

Today’s college students inhabit a wholly different world. At Ball State, two out of every three students are women, and women earn almost seven out of 10 degrees. This is roughly the national average.

As institutions, universities rarely preach equality. Worse still, they don’t even attempt to practice equality. For example, men don’t just attend Ball State at lower rates; they are also accepted by the university at much lower rates.

Yes, it is likely that young men applying to Ball State are less qualified. After all, the use of Critical Theory in K-12 schools is downstream from the colleges that train teachers. But men are now under-represented minorities, much in the way women were in the 1950s. Any discussion of this is off limits.

One consequence is that Ball State, like other Hoosier schools, discriminates against men.

There are many small examples, or “microaggressions,” in the language of Critical Theory. One obvious example are several scholarships available only to women in that bastion of male supremacy — nursing. This continues because campus diversity efforts aren’t aimed at diversity. They exist to indoctrinate Critical Theory.

Young men are the wrong class of students.

Faculty need to admit there's a problem

The campus message young men receive today is drastically different from the message of equality I received 40 years ago. Many find themselves being told that to be part of a campus community, they must reject outdated visions of masculinity. They are told that an objection to this is simply nostalgia for a time when their class had power. These bizarre examples are drawn directly from training offered to young men at my campus.

I write this firmly believing Ball State is better than most schools on these issues, but that is far from sufficient.

After my last column on SB 202, one young man offered me this eloquent view of graduate school in Indiana: “. . . it was an incredibly stifling environment for anyone exploring alternative viewpoints, or even just expressing honestly held beliefs that didn't quite vibe with the consensus. At the time, as a privileged White man, I felt this was justified b/c quite frankly, didn't we deserve to be humbled into adherence? But in retrospect, NO, that's absolutely not okay, nor conducive to the mission of higher education, and although I believe the program truly opened my eyes to other viewpoints, I also believe that my own creative pursuits suffered as a result of the stifling environment.”

This testimony should embarrass and humble every faculty member in the state.

The reluctance of universities and faculty to even admit a problem is why we see the legislatures addressing these issues in Indiana and nationwide. While many faculty members fear these laws as an attack by conservative legislators, they are mistaken.

The actual challenge to the use of Critical Theory as a guide to university admissions, hiring, promotions and tenure doesn’t come from some right-wing conspiracy. It comes from the timeless words of Thomas Jefferson, and the Constitution.

Michael J. Hicks is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research and the George and Frances Ball distinguished professor of economics in the Miller College of Business at Ball State University.