After years of disdaining identity politics, Republicans are now taking part in the game — and employing affirmative action policies like the ones they’re known for scorning.
In February, Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-ottumwa, filed legislation that would require Iowa’s public universities to consider professors’ political affiliation when hiring, and to reject a prospective professor whose presence would create a political-affiliation majority of more than 10 percent among faculty. Explicitly, Chelgren’s aims to maintain a “partisan balance of the faculty.” Implicitly, it’s to help Republicans.
Liberal bias at colleges is a real problem, and Chelgren correctly identifies it. But he essentially proposed an affirmative action policy, and, like other such policies, its good intentions fail to solve the problem. Ultimately, the policy is more than impractical — it’s counteractive. It treads the path of identity politics, descending into a mire of agendas that obscure the real problem at hand: conservative values are at stake.
Like other identity-driven policies, this legislation is dangerous. First, it assumes that “Republican” is a fundamental identity. Second, with that superficial identity, it calls for quotas and regulations that favor a minority and that won’t ultimately effect change where it’s needed: in people’s minds.
The minority of Republicans on campuses claim an identity that’s ultimately meaningless and just as superficial as race- or gender-based identity groups. Voter registration isn’t really an accurate indicator of political affiliation, after all. A 2015 Gallup poll found that a mere 42 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are socially and economically conservative; likewise, there are socially conservative economic liberals and economically conservative social liberals. The bottom line is, a university can mandate that all professors on campus be Democrat (or Republican) and still end up with diversity of thought.
The Republican minority group just plays identity politics now, angling for better status on the basis of a tangential identity that doesn’t really define its members as individual humans — or indicate how they’ll teach. But being Republican has never been an end-all identity.
Really, this legislation can’t acknowledge or remedy the greater cultural problem at hand. Injustice — whether against women or African-Americans or Republicans — violates not just an identity-based morality, but a universal, objective moral code. When college students riot during speeches, when campuses discriminate against religious groups, when professors lose freedom of speech, there is more at stake than Republican ideology. Civility, morality, and truth are on the line. Legislation directed toward special interest groups can have little, if any, role in fixing such a malady.
It’s not that the law should never get involved when real discrimination and injustice are at hand. But setting quotas and mandating funding rarely solve problems, leading to unintended consequences that a far-removed government can’t foresee. The real solution comes from the ground up, not government — from individuals who persist in speaking truth and living out their beliefs.
As with the market, let things play out at an individual level. Conservatism prevails as long as conservatives faithfully live out their principles. We must remember that “Republican” has never been our ultimate identity.
Ms. Ault is a sophomore studying economics, journalism, and German.
