LET THEM REAP WHAT THEY HAVE SOWN: A West Virginia college divests its remaining conservatives. A conservatarian academic discusses his experience at a financially ailing, ideologically intolerant college:
Why would a cash-strapped liberal arts college in West Virginia turn its nose up at $1 million in grants? University officials wouldn’t say it explicitly, but the reason couldn’t be more obvious: the money came from classically liberal and libertarian foundations. Even in a fiscal crisis, that simply would not do.
Last academic year, faculty and staff at West Liberty University (WLU) went on the ideological warpath to oust its center-right president simply because he was politically right of center. The public fallout of their acrimonious demands plunged the university into an enrollment and budgetary shortfall as the staff and faculty aired their disdain in public. Turned off by vitriolic statements about their overburdened life, parents sent their kids to other schools and major donors began to withhold funds. . . .
In September, administrators informed me the college was eliminating the entire political science major, and, as a result, my services were no longer needed. When I inquired how they arrived at such a decision, they fumbled an answer, citing a lack of majors in the program. However, several other programs on campus have fewer students.
When I offered to help offset some of the departmental costs from the nearly $1 million in grants I secured, the administration balked. So, there must have been another reason they wanted to terminate my contract. My position on campus did not fit their ideological biases. As a result, I had to go.
I taught one of the few classes on campus that was dedicated to the classical liberal arts. It was, in part, funded by the generous grants from BB&T, Koch, and the Institute of Humane Studies at George Mason University. It also funded grants and scholarships for promising students to offset the cost of books and tuition. The sole purpose of the grants was to expose students to the ideas of free markets, liberty, and equality rightly understood. . . .
Parents should be questioning whether to send their sons and daughters to institutions that are long on indoctrination and short on the ideas of freedom and liberty.
These are deeply unserious and vapid times in higher education. Unfortunately, the ideological intolerance at WLU is no different than that we see on many other campuses in the nation.
Yep. Smart parents (and students) are beginning to vote with their feet/tuition dollars. Schools like this one–that lack the “prestige” factor–will soon pay the price for their intolerance.