In Response to "Ideas, Not Ideology: A Line Universities Cannot Afford to Blur" by Walter Wendler
- Terrence Cheng
- Mar 5
- 5 min read
This came up in my LinkedIn feed.
I wanted to respond on LI, but it was way too long. So here it is.
To start, the author is clearly a long-time academic leader, and only those who have sat in the seat understand how hard it is. He has clear and firm convictions, and nothing I say here is meant to offend the author or attack his positions and values in an ad hominem manner.
Also, this is not a “Red” State v “Blue” State thing. This is an “are we doing the best we can to help students and people” thing. I may be a New Yorker who works in Connecticut, but I have colleagues and friends all around the country in higher education. We are all working to generate more funding, create more access, drive enrollment, enhance transparency and accountability—and most importantly, educate and support students to the best of our knowledge and ability. This has nothing to do with politics. This work happens because of the commitment and hard work of leaders, faculty and staff everywhere, including the author and their institution. That needs to be said.
I appreciate this post because it made me think even more deeply about my own positions and values. These are my “ideas” in response to the post. I hope they can be “tested in the heat of disciplined disagreement.” Because, “When ideology dominates, inquiry diminishes.”
Ok, let’s get into it.
First, I agree colleges and universities should not pray to the altar of any ideology. Testing truth, creating knowledge, inventing, innovating, improving, lifting people up—all of this needs rigor and objective, agnostic inquiry. Challenging and testing ideas and using DATA and RESEARCH. (More on this below.)
Second, ideology is the codification, or even petrification, of a set of ideas. But is there a clear line of demarcation when ideas become ideology? And if so, based on what, and determined by whom?
Third, many states, like the author’s own, have passed legislation banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Several states are weakening tenure, telling faculty what they can and cannot teach, suppressing (to be kind) academic freedom and even first amendment rights. But based on what—ideas or ideology?
*Note: in Tennessee a legislator recently withdrew proposed legislation to end tenure after he “stumbled into a little bit of the history.” He said, “It got me to thinking about political lines, pendulums, they’re always moving…I kind of think that way about tenure…In a controversial time, I kind of understand you want those protections in place to not lose the talent that you’ve been able to acquire.”
To the legislator’s point: Can we only talk about certain things when the pendulum is swung in a particular direction? Certain religious points of view? Black and Brown histories in America? Women’s history? By not talking about LGBTQ+ issues, identities, and concerns, do they not exist? If we are serious about testing ideas, then why are certain areas of inquiry not accepted or allowed?
And when the public and our students know that ideas related to them are considered anathema, what are we saying to them? What is the impact on our students and their chances of success inside and outside the classroom?
We forget in the miasma of rhetoric that supports for minoritized and marginalized students are put in place because there is an historical gap when we look at graduation, retention, earnings, and other critical success metrics. Does that gap exist because these students are lesser than? NO. Is it because we need to do better with them, for them, and by them? YES. Because history shows we have not. (More on that below.)
Fourth: data, facts, and history. The data shows that when you have representation in the curriculum, in the faculty and staff, and student support that recognizes one’s inherent value and humanity, it has a positive impact on student performance. Which in turn has a positive impact on workforce development, economic development, community health, societal well-being, and so forth. That is not an idea, much less ideology; those are the findings of research. I hope at an institution like the author’s, where it is nearly 40% non-white students, they take this into consideration.
Final thoughts:
“From Morrill’s founding of the land-grant movement to the GI Bill (both ideas), American universities have been stewards of the constitutional experiment.”
Both created access and opportunity to education and more, but factually, the original Morrill Act did not benefit Black students, which led to the 1890 Morrill Act that led to the creation of HBCUs. Further, the GI Bill largely failed Black veterans. There has been a great deal of research done on this and it is indisputable.
“Second, hire and reward merit, performance and integrity. When universities are led and staffed by individuals of high talent and high character, they prosper. When conformity replaces competence, decline follows.”
There’s a lot packed into this very short paragraph. “Merit” is a coded word in many of these contexts, a way of saying “race-blind” and not acknowledging history. “Conformity” is another code word, and in this case juxtaposed with “competence.” I interpret this to assert that any kind of equity or inclusive hiring practices lead to universities that are not “led and staffed by individuals of high talent and high character.”
I don’t know if that is the author‘s intent here, but I do have to ask: what have we been conforming to? Are we saying that our universities have not been staffed by “individuals of high talent and high character”? Personally, I have done and seen a great deal of hiring in my career: Black, white, Asian, Latino, gay, straight, trans, male, female, nonbinary, urban, rural, early career, more senior, etc. Do people perform at different levels? Yes. I have certainly worked with people who didn’t have “high talent” or “high character,” but NOT because of inclusive and equitable hiring practices. If anything, such practices have helped me build incredible teams through the years.
So if this “idea” is meant to insinuate that any kind of equitable or inclusive hiring practices results in the hiring of people who are not “individuals of high talent and high character,” I vehemently disagree.
“The call to restore public trust is not a call to abandon values, but a call to pursue them rightly.”
How do we define “rightly” and according to whom? Who determines who is right and who is wrong? Especially when we are supposed to be challenging and testing ideas, and pursuing knowledge? Is knowledge meant to be judged as right or wrong?
“When universities appear more committed to enforcing fashionable consensus than encouraging courageous debate, higher education squanders moral authority. It takes decades to earn trust, but it can be lost in a heartbeat…Institutions that suppress ideas in pursuit of moral certainty inevitably betray the very ideals they claim to defend.”
I couldn’t agree more.
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