{"id":166942,"date":"2026-03-18T04:18:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/166942\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T04:18:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:18:40","slug":"legislators-must-fight-for-public-interest-and-oversee-higher-ed-manhattan-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/166942\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislators must fight for \u2018public interest\u2019 and oversee higher ed: Manhattan Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Model legislation calls for greater authority to determine value of core curriculum classes, among other ideas<\/p>\n

The current situation in higher education requires state legislators to exercise greater authority over public universities, two scholars at the Manhattan Institute argue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Universities have become \u201cmore insular and less responsive to the public interest\u201d the think tank stated in a news release sent to The College Fix.<\/p>\n

John Sailer elaborated on this concept and proposed solutions in a phone interview. He co-wrote the report and model legislation with Tal Fortgang, a legal policy fellow for Manhattan Institute.<\/p>\n

Public universities are violating the implicit contract they have with taxpayers, Sailer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUniversities are doing a very bad job at actually living up to their side of that bargain,\u201d Sailer said. \u201cThey are not fulfilling those basic purposes for which they were created.\u201d<\/p>\n

For these reasons, it is imperative state legislators step in and have more authority on key issues, including \u201cin the hiring of administrators, the approval of faculty lines, and the creation of core curricula,\u201d according to the issue brief<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sailer explained why these issues are important to reforming higher education.<\/p>\n

When it comes to core curricula, \u201cit\u2019s kind of absurd to think that some of these classes are seen as in any way vital,\u201d the director of education policy told The Fix.<\/p>\n

Absurd classes are a natural outgrowth of limited accountability, the Manhattan Institute researcher said.<\/p>\n

The issue brief argues core curriculum should have clear criteria, including that the courses are \u201cfoundational and fundamental to a sound postsecondary education\u201d and provide \u201cnecessary preparation for civic and\/or professional life.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years university professors have viewed academic freedom in an \u201cidiosyncratic\u201d way, Sailer told The College Fix.<\/p>\n

While many professors view academic freedom as the ability to speak their mind without being fired, many of these bloated public institutions view this freedom as \u201cthe right of institutions to chart their own course without any outside interference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Faculty hiring is another area where professors have wrongly, according to Sailer, come to believe they should have complete autonomy.<\/p>\n

While universities should not cede hiring power to state officials without knowledge of the academic field, many universities \u201cmake the mistake of thinking that there cannot be violations of academic freedom and violations of a university\u2019s mission that come from the faculty themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Organizations like the American Association of University Professors view these internal processes as academic freedom, in many ways the administrators often violate it: \u201cYou have some universities that have created DEI requirements for hiring where a faculty member has to submit a statement on their commitment to DEI in order to get a faculty job.\u201d<\/p>\n

But these requirement statements lead to situations that violate academic freedom \u2013 \u00a0\u201cyou shouldn\u2019t be made to say things you do not believe, and you shouldn\u2019t be punished for expressing viewpoints about which reasonable people disagree,\u201d Sailer said.<\/p>\n

Still, public universities can change for the better.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of public institutions have made really bad decisions when it comes to hiring administrators,\u201d he said. \u201cI think if that can be changed that\u2019s going to be to the benefit of everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AAUP did not respond to multiple College Fix requests for comment about the proposals in the past several weeks.<\/p>\n

MORE: New journal to offer \u2018deeper reflection\u2019 on higher ed renewal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Model legislation calls for greater authority to determine value of core curriculum classes, among other ideas The current…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-166942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}