FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) has proposed model legislation to take on the ever-growing DEI Bureaucracies of Universities, a critically important move for defending academic freedom. In my opinion, aggressive legislation of this sort is necessary, given the way that DEI departments are destroying our universities. Lawrence Krauss recently detailed many of the DEI abuses in his video, “Is Woke Science the Only Science Allowed in Academia?”

Excerpts from the FIRE article:

When colleges act more like giant corporations and less like educational institutions, student and faculty rights suffer. Newly hired bureaucrats need to justify their paychecks, after all — so controversial, dissenting, or simply unpopular voices become targets. “Surely massive administrative bureaucracies of student life must be maintained,” wrote FIRE co-founder Harvey Silverglate in 2011, “if universities are going to enforce the increasingly ubiquitous — in academia —‘right’ not to be offended.”

In recent years, campus administrative growth has focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Whatever the intentions, the imposition of DEI bureaucracy upon the academy has too often come at the expense of academic freedom and freedom of expression. DEI administrators have been responsible for repeated campus rights abuses. …

DEI efforts have threatened student and faculty rights in other ways, too. Most significantly, colleges and universities now routinely require students and faculty to pledge their allegiance to a politicized understanding of “diversity” as a condition of consideration for admission, hiring, or promotion. FIRE has repeatedly come to the defense of faculty who have been pressured into proving their fealty to a specific conception of DEI as the price of serious consideration or continued employment. And we’ve heard concerns about the chilling, coercive effect of mandatory diversity statements from hundreds more.

Providing the “wrong” answer dooms applications and candidacies. At the University of California, Santa Cruz, for example, DEI statements are used as an initial screening tool for applicants, with one public report indicating that 45% of applicants across various searches were eliminated in a first round of DEI statement screening. (That number may be comparatively low. During one department’s hiring process at the University of California, Berkeley, reviewing diversity statements prior to the rest of a candidate’s application eliminated 78% of applicants.)

So today, FIRE is introducing model legislation that prohibits the use of political litmus tests in college admissions, hiring, and promotion decisions. Legislation is strong medicine, but our work demonstrates the seriousness of the threat. While the current threat involves coercion to support DEI ideology, efforts to coerce opposition to DEI ideology would be just as objectionable. Attempts to require fealty to any given ideology or political commitment — whether “patriotism” or “social justice” — must be likewise rejected.

To that end, because we are cognizant of the endless swing of the partisan pendulum, FIRE’s legislative approach bans all loyalty oaths and litmus tests, without regard to viewpoint or ideology. In an effort to avoid exchanging one set of constitutional problems for another, our model legislation prohibits demanding support for or opposition to a particular political or ideological view. We believe this approach is constitutionally sound and most broadly protective of student and faculty rights, both now and in the future.

FIRE strongly believes that loyalty oaths and political litmus tests have no place in our nation’s public universities. Given the pernicious threat to freedom of conscience and academic freedom we have seen on campus after campus over the past several years, legislative remedies are worthy of thoughtful consideration. We look forward to further discussion with both supporters and critics about how best to ensure that our nation’s public colleges and universities remain the havens for intellectual freedom they must be.

Model Legislation can be read at the linked article. Here are a few excerpts from the Model Legislation:

A. No public institution of higher education shall condition admission or benefits to an applicant for admission, or hiring, reappointment, or promotion to a faculty member, on the applicant’s or faculty member’s pledging allegiance to or making a statement of personal support for or opposition to any political ideology or movement, including a pledge or statement regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, patriotism, or related topics, nor shall any institution request or require any such pledge or statement from an applicant or faculty member.

B. If a public institution of higher education receives a pledge or statement describing a commitment to any particular political ideology or movement, including a pledge or statement regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, patriotism, or related topics, it may not grant or deny admission or benefits to a student, or hiring, reappointment, or promotion to a faculty member, on the basis of the viewpoints expressed in the pledge or statement.

C. Nothing in this Act prohibits an institution from requiring a student, professor, or employee to comply with federal or state law, including anti-discrimination laws, or from taking action against a student, professor, or employee for violations of federal or state law.

D. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit or restrict the academic freedom of faculty or to prevent faculty members from teaching, researching, or writing publications about diversity, equity, inclusion, patriotism, or other topics.

E. Nothing in this Act prohibits an institution from considering, in good faith, a candidate’s scholarship, teaching, or subject-matter expertise in their given academic field.

F. Each public institution of higher education in the state shall post and make publicly available all training materials used for students, faculty, and staff, on all matters of nondiscrimination, diversity, equity, inclusion, race, ethnicity, sex, or bias, and all of its policies and guidance on these issues, on its website.

G. A person whose rights were violated through a violation of this act may bring an action against a public institution of higher education, and its agents acting within their official capacities, in a state or federal court of competent jurisdiction to receive declaratory relief or enjoin a violation of this Act. If a court finds a violation of this act, the court shall provide a prevailing plaintiff appropriate equitable remedies, and award damages, reasonable court costs, and attorney’s fees.

H. The Attorney General may file suit to enjoin a policy or practice prohibited by Section A or Section B. . . .

FIRE proposes alternative formulations of an enforcement provision for consideration:

Alternative A

In addition to any relief under Sections G and H, the [State Fiscal Officer] shall impose an administrative penalty of $30 per student enrolled at the institution on a full-time basis in the fiscal year preceding the violation, against a State Education Institution for each violation of this Act. The penalty shall be deposited in the [State Treasury] and shall be allocated to each State Education Institution that is not currently in violation of this Act and has not violated this Act within the preceding two fiscal years.

Alternative B

In addition to any relief under Sections G and H, the [State Fiscal Officer] shall impose an administrative penalty of the lessor of $300,000 or 1% of the State Education Institution’s budget during the fiscal year preceding the violation, against a State Education Institution for each violation of this Act. The penalty shall be deposited in the [State Treasury] and shall be allocated to each State Education Institution that is not currently in violation of this Act and has not violated this Act within the preceding two fiscal years