OPINION:
“Why do you need a group like Young America’s Foundation on campus? Why not just have the kids exposed to all different points of view?”
These were the questions posed to me by a member of the audience when I spoke at Arrowhead High School in Wisconsin a week ago.
Other than the parents of the young man who organized the talk, everyone in attendance was a student at the school. The woman asked her question after I spoke and took questions for about an hour. She had been taking notes while I spoke and occasionally shook her head. Before asking her questions, she acknowledged disagreeing with me on everything I said to the students.
If there was a club on campus where students discussed issues, I encouraged the students in the audience to join it. We need more civil discourse on important matters. I noted, however, that the vast majority of college professors and an increasing number of educators in K-12 education are providing young people with only a highly skewed, liberal point of view.
Days later, a report from the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership clearly showed the lack of intellectual diversity within the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It reinforced my point.
The report states that the faculty “are substantially more liberal than both the general American public and Americans with doctoral degrees. Seven in ten faculty identify as some form of liberal, while fewer than one in ten identify as conservative. This imbalance is present across all academic fields, though it varies in degree, with the Humanities showing the highest concentration of liberal faculty. Economics-related fields stand out for greater ideological diversity than other social sciences, though they still lean liberal overall. Junior faculty are more liberal than senior faculty, raising the possibility that the imbalance may increase over time.”
Various reports affirm similar trends in higher education. For example, a study last year showed that 83% of the faculty at Yale University were registered Democrats. Overall, data from 2024 shows that fewer than 10% of professors are conservative. We see similar trends in the administration of colleges and universities across the country.
These are more than numbers on a survey. Conservative students routinely respond that they feel threatened when they bring up their views on campus. They often say they have to self-censor to maintain their grades in class or to avoid protests from certain student activists.
Young America’s Foundation and similar groups receive frequent reports from students who talk about the challenges of hosting conservative speakers or even holding meetings. Liberal college administrations and radical student government officials often block or restrict conservative groups.
Legal action at public institutions often forces the hand of administrators and officials. Ultimately, those at places such as the University of California, Berkeley, are forced to allow Young America’s Foundation student leaders to host speakers. It is a right guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Free speech should be revered on a college campus. Yet, this is where it is often most at risk.
In 2022, I noted that the predicted “red wave” became more of a red mist. The media tried to claim that it was about a specific issue or the quality of the candidates. Without a doubt, issues and candidates matter. In the end, however, the biggest issue was the gap with younger voters.
When I mentioned this in the media, several interviewers asked whether that meant that I was afraid of younger voters. My response was simple: I am concerned about younger voters who hear only one side of the story.
Research shows the huge imbalance in intellectual diversity in higher education. We have seen similar reports about corporate media. Before Twitter became X, there were tremendous concerns over social media.
Much as I said to the woman at the back of the room during my talk at Arrowhead High School last week, conservatives want young people to hear more than one point of view. We know that our ideas work.
The requirement that voters show a copy of photo identification before casting a ballot was the one issue this detractor raised in her commentary. She claimed that it was a deterrent to voting.
The facts suggest otherwise. Voter turnout has gone up in each of the major elections since I signed the law requiring photo identification to cast a ballot. The same is true in Georgia, where they claimed voter suppression by proponents of the legislation in that state. Voter turnout percentages went up after Gov. Brian Kemp signed the legislation, making it easy to vote but hard to cheat.
That gets me back to my original point: I am all for having a real dialogue on the issues. Our conservative reforms work. It would be wonderful to debate these ideas on a level playing field.
• Scott Walker is a columnist for The Washington Times. He was the 45th governor of Wisconsin and launched a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He lives in Milwaukee and is the proud owner of a 2003 Harley-Davidson Road King. He can be reached at swalker@washingtontimes.com.
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