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Comment by allturtles | Hacker News Reader

Conservatives should start their own universities, if they aren't happy with the existing ones. The federal government has no business enforcing conformity to certain ideological demands in private institutions. It's right there in the very first amendment.

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If the university was founded by the government, it should represent Americans. All of them. Half of Americans are conservative. Approx. half of academia should be conservative.

Harvard is older than both parties. There is no good reason why it should cater to only one half of Americans.

It was founded by a government, not the federal government, let alone this government. It was founded before this government existed.

And it's been a private institution for hundreds of years.

Why should any university go out of its way to "cater to" conservatives and liberals in equal measure if those ideologies don't equally value things like reason and truth? The mission should be providing education and facilitating research, not keeping political partisans happy.

So, we should have merit-based hiring with respect to race and gender, but then have a quota-based system for political affiliation? How do you even measure this? Who counts as a "conservative"? MAGA-only, or do we get to count RINOs? Won't people just lie about their political beliefs to get a job? Do you detect any irony in the way your agenda exactly parallels that of structural racists who see racism in any job where the racial distribution doesn't match that of the general population?

The reason that academia is overwhelming left-leaning is that those are the people that choose to go to grad school and pursue academic careers. For whatever reason (whether ability or inclination) conservatives do so in much smaller numbers. You want conservatives in academia, go get a Ph.D.

Are you arguing that _all_ universities that receive government funding should cater equally to conservatives and liberals? Given that Texas Christian University receives funding from the government, would you argue that it too should stop receiving federal funding until represents America equally?

If they receive federal funding, they should represent Americans. If 100% of Americans will be Democrats, then it can be this monoculture. If more people shift to Green politics, or Libertarian, it should represent those more too.

If there is a Christian university, it should either be sponsored by Christians only, or similar funding should go to other universities representing other major American groups (for example Jews).

Discrimination based on political views should be treated the same as discrimination based on sexual orientation or race.

So you do think that Texas Christian University should lose all federal funding until it proportionally represents all Americans' political beliefs?

I have answered that already.

Either lose funding, or comparable other universities should be funded so all relevant spectrum is covered.

Federally funded institutions should cater for all Americans. The army, police, schools, hospitals... shouldn't be there only for one half of people.

Conservatives have started their own Universities. No one likes going to those schools, and they end up bankrupt, with students who are functionally uneducated.

So, there you go, the market has spoken.

So the existing ones don't need government money, then, right?

Stanford for example.

> Conservatives should start their own universities

They did. Remember Trump University? It got shut down for fraud.

I don't think Trump University was ever indented to be a real university. Wasn't it basically the Trump-branded version of those late night infomercials promising to teach you how to get rich in real estate? You know, the ones where ultimately they basically just sell you a bunch of tapes for $5000?

If you're looking for an actual conservative university, a better example would be a place like Liberty University. I think the problem is starting an institution is hard, it'll only really hit its stride like 100 years after being founded, and it's hard to keep an ideological project on track for such a long period of time.

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