Category: Education

 

As I type this Microsoft’s Copilot AI awaits, demon-like, for a summons to replace my words with its own. The temptation is great, but I resist. For now. But AI is persistently pervasive, and educators fear both its threat and promise. This essay provides a concise overview of three threats: AI cheating, Artificial Incompetence, and Artificial Irrelevance.

When AI became available, a tsunami of cheating was predicted. Like many, I braced for flood but faced a trickle. While this is anecdotal evidence, the plagiarism rate in my classes has been a steady 10% since 1993. As anecdotal evidence is not strong evidence, it is fortunate that Stanford scholars Victor Lee and Denise Pope have been studying cheating. They found that in 15 years of surveys, 60-70% of students admitted to cheating. While that is not good, in 2023 the percentage stayed about the same or decreased slightly, even when students were asked about cheating with AI. This makes sense as cheating has always been easy and the decision to cheat is based more on ethics than technology. It is also worth considering that AI is not great for cheating. As researchers Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor have argued, AI is most useful at doing useless things. Having “useless” work that AI can do well could be seen as a flaw in course design rather than a problem with AI. There are also excellent practices and tools that can be employed to discourage and limit cheating. As such, AI cheating is unlikely to be the doom of the academy. That said, a significant improvement in quality of AI could change this. But there is also the worry that AI will lead to Artificial Incompetence, which is the second threat.

Socrates was critical of writing and argued it would weaken memory. Centuries later, television was supposed to “rot brains” and it was feared calculators would destroy mathematical skills. More recently, computers and smartphones were supposed to damage the minds of students. AI is latest threat.

There are two worries about AI in this context. The first ties back to cheating: students will graduate into jobs but be incompetent because they cheated with AI. While having incompetent people in important jobs is worrying, this is not a new problem. There has always been the risk of students cheating their way to incompetence or getting into professions and positions because of nepotism, cronyism, bribery, family influence, etc. rather than competence. As such, AI is not a special threat here.

A second worry takes us back to Socrates and calculators: students using technology “honestly” could become incompetent. That is, lack the skills and knowledge they need. But how afraid should we be?

If we look back at writing, calculators, and computers we can infer that if the academy was able to adapt to these technologies, then it will be able to adapt to AI. But we will need to take the threat seriously when creating policies, lessons and assessments. After all, these dire predictions did not come true because people took steps to ensure they did not. But perhaps this analogy is false, and AI is a special threat.

A reasonable worry is that AI might be fundamentally different from earlier technologies. For example, it was worried that Photoshop would eliminate the need for artistic skill, but it turned out to be a new tool. But AI image generation is radically different, and a student could use it to generate images without having or learning any artistic skill. This leads to the third threat, that of Artificial Obsolescence.

As AI improves, it is likely that students will no longer need certain skills because AI will be able to do it for them (or in their place). As this happens, we will need to decide whether this is something we should fear or just another example of needing to adapt because technology once again rendered some skills obsolete

To illustrate, modern college graduates do not know how to work a spinning wheel, use computer punch cards or troubleshoot an AppleTalk network. But they do not need such skills and are not incompetent for lacking them. But there is still the question of whether to allow skills and knowledge to die and what we might lose in doing so.

While people learn obsolete skills for various reasons, such as hobbies, colleges will probably stop teaching some skills made “irrelevant” by AI. But there will still be relevant skills. Because of this, schools will need to adjust their courses and curriculum. There is also the worry that AI might eliminate entire professions which could lead to the elimination of degrees or entire departments. But while AI is new, such challenges are not.

Adapting to survive is nothing new in higher education and colleges do so whether the changes are caused by technology, economics, or politics. As examples, universities no longer teach obsolete programming languages and state universities in Florida have been compelled by the state to change General Education. But AI, some would argue, will change not just the academy but will reshape the entire economy.

In some dystopian sci-fi, AI pushes most people into poverty while the AI owning elites live in luxury. In this scenario, some elite colleges might persist while the other schools perish. While this scenario is unlikely, history shows economies can be ruined and dystopia cannot be simply dismissed. But the future is what we make, and the academy has a role to play, if we have the will to do so.

In Utopian sci-fi, AI eliminates jobs we do not want to do while freeing us from poverty, hardship, and drudgery. In such a world of abundance, colleges might thrive as people have the time and opportunity to learn without the pressure of economic necessity. Or perhaps colleges would be largely replaced by personal AI professors.

In closing, the most plausible scenario is that AI has been overhyped and while colleges will need to adapt to the technology, they will not be significantly harmed, let alone destroyed. But it is wise to be prepared for what the future might bring because complacency and willful blindness always prove disastrous

As professors we worry students will use AI to cheat (until it takes our jobs). But we can also transform AI into a useful and engaging teaching assistant by creating AI personas tailored to our classes.

An AI persona defines the distinctive character and tone of an artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT. It is like an NPC (non-player character) in a video game. Both are designed to interact in a way that feels natural and engaging, enhancing the overall experience.

Creating a custom AI persona for a class involves two general tasks. While a robust Large Language Model (LLM) like CoPilot or ChatGPT will have a vast database, it will probably lack content specific to your class. So, the first task is to provide that information. The second task is to design a suitable persona. But why bother?

There are several advantages to having an AI TA. Unlike a human, it is available all hours and provides immediate responses. Human professors have other tasks, their own lives outside of academics and, of course, need to sleep.

Students are often reluctant to ask questions in class or during office hours, perhaps because of fear of embarrassment or being judged. As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes noted, people often do not take criticism well from other people, for “to dissent is like calling him a fool.”  But a student can interact privately with an AI TA without fear of embarrassment or judgement.  And some people are more comfortable with (and addicted to) interacting with devices rather than other people, so an AI TA has an advantage here as well.

And, as Kyle Reese said of the Terminator, “It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.” While we do not want our AI TAs to terminate students, it will never get tired, angry, inattentive, distracted or bored. This provides an advantage over humans, especially when a student is struggling with material or prefers to learn at a different pace from that offered in the classroom. As these advantages arise from the AI aspect of the AI TA, you might wonder why you should create a persona.

One reason is that creating a persona allows you to set guardrails, so the AI TA does not, for example, do the work for the students. Another reason is that, going back to the NPC comparison, an AI with a persona is more interesting and can make conversations feel more natural and relatable, thus keeping students engaged longer. A persona can also be designed to add humor, creativity, or unique quirks, making interactions more enjoyable. While this can be controversial and raises some moral concerns, a persona can convey empathy and understanding, creating a sense of trust and comfort.

One practical concern about customizing the persona is analogous to picking the paint used for classrooms. While most find the usual neutral colors dull, they also do not find them annoying. While creative use of color in the classroom might appeal to some, it might also be annoying and distracting to others. And we must never forget the lesson of Microsoft’s Clippy. As such, care should be taken in making an appealing but not annoying AI TA.

A persona can also be designed to fit the needs of your class and students, thus creating a customized experience. A well-designed person can also simplify complex interactions, guiding the students through, for example, how to structure their paper or a complex problem. If the idea of having an AI TA is appealing, it is surprisingly easy to make this happen.

There are many ways to enable your AI TA. The cheapest and easiest is to provide your students with a prompt to create a persona and a file to upload to, for example, CoPilot. The downside is that the persona will be simple and both it and the file will be forgotten as soon as the session ends, requiring students to take these steps each time. The student will also have control over the persona prompt, so they can easily remove any guardrails you included.

A more expensive option is to get a subscription, such as that offered by ChatGPT, that allows you to create a persistent persona with custom content. This is easier for the students and allows you to ensure that your AI TA will operate within your specified guardrails (mostly).

There is also the option of hosting your own customized local LLM. While you will need suitable hardware, this is much easier than it sounds. For example, with the free software Ollama you could be running your own LLM within minutes. Customizing it and creating a web interface for students is much more challenging, but there is also free software available for this. No matter what approach you take, you will want to ensure that your AI TA operates and is used safely and ethically. Here are some recommendations.

While the AI TA should help students, it should avoid providing complete answers to exam questions, essays, or assignments. Instead, it should focus on guiding students through problem-solving techniques and frameworks. It can also be designed to ask thought-provoking questions and encourage exploration of topics to deepen understanding.

On the moral side, you need to communicate the AI TA’s limitations and your ethical guidelines for its usage. Encourage students to use the AI TA as a tool for learning rather than for shortcuts.

If the AI TA detects repeated behavior suggesting attempts to cheat (e.g., asking for answers to specific assignments), it could notify the user of the ethical standards. While you might worry that this would annoy students, Aristotle notes in his Nicomachean Ethics that “although people resent it when their impulses are opposed by human agents, even if they are in the right, the law causes no irritation by enjoining decent behavior.” While Aristotle’s claim can be disputed, the same should apply to the AI TA.

My name is Dr. Michael LaBossiere, and I am reaching out to you on behalf of the CyberPolicy Institute at Florida A&M University (FAMU). Our team of professors, who are fellows with the Institute, have developed a short survey aimed at gathering insights from professionals like yourself in the IT and healthcare sectors regarding healthcare cybersecurity.

The purpose of The Florida A&M University Cyber Policy Institute (Cyπ) is to conduct interdisciplinary research that documents technology’s impact on society and provides leaders with reliable information to make sound policy decisions. Cyπ will help produce faculty and students who will be future experts in many areas of cyber policy. https://www.famu.edu/academics/cypi/index.php

Your expertise and experience are invaluable to us, and we believe that your participation will significantly contribute to our research paper. The survey is designed to be brief and should take no more than ten minutes to complete. Your responses will help us better understand the current security landscape and challenges faced by professionals in your field, ultimately guiding our efforts to develop effective policies and solutions for our paper. We would be happy to share our results with you.

To participate in the survey, please click on the following link: https://qualtricsxmfgpkrztvv.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8J8gn6SAmkwRO5w

We greatly appreciate your time and input. Should you have any questions or require further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at michael.labossiere@famu.edu

Thank you for your consideration and support.

Best regards,

Dr. Yohn Jairo Parra Bautista, yohn.parrabautista@famu.edu

Dr. Michael C. LaBossiere, michael.labossiere@famu.edu

Dr. Carlos Theran, carlos.theran@famu.edu

While there are arguments in favor of school choice that transfers public money to private schools, many of them focus on the benefits to those able to leave public schools. Those left behind seem largely ignored. This is a problem.

An argument in favor of school choice is based on the claim that it allows students to escape from dangerous public schools. It is true that public schools can be violent places and protecting children from violence is laudable. This approach is analogous to moving away from high-crime areas, ideally to well-policed gated communities. While this is beneficial to those who can choose to escape, it does nothing to address the underlying problems of school violence. It merely allows some to escape, while leaving the rest behind.

It could be argued that school choice can still solve the problem. However, the obvious reply is that even if all children are (for example) given vouchers, this will merely recreate the problematic public schools but in private form. This undercuts the safety argument for school choice. It would be like trying to solve the problem of high crime neighborhoods by creating gated communities and then moving everyone within the gates. This shows the basic problem with trying to create safety by moving some people away from unsafe areas: it does nothing for those left behind.

One could counter that the solution is dilution: if the problem children could be identified and distributed among various schools, they would be more manageable. This does have some merit, but this could obviously be done without school choice programs.

It could be argued that what matters is securing the safety of some, be it in private schools funded by public money or in gated communities. As such, school choice is good for those who matter. Those left behind do not matter. While this might be appealing to those on the right side of the gates, the obvious problem is that they do not (yet) exist in total isolation from those left behind. So, failing to address the underlying safety issues still leaves people unsafe. This argument is like arguing that public roads are unsafe because of poor maintenance, so the solution is to provide some drivers with publicly funded road vouchers so they can drive on the safer private roads. While this can be great for those who get the vouchers, it does nothing for those stuck with the dangerous public roads. It would make more sense to use the public money to make the public roads safer.

A second stock argument, the quality argument, in favor of school choice is that private schools perform better than public schools, so parents who want their children to get a good education should favor programs that permit their children to avoid or leave public schools in favor of private schools. This assumes that, in general, public schools will be inferior schools. Let us suppose that is true and the higher quality of private schools is a reason to provide public funds to allow some parents to remove their children from the inferior public schools.

From the perspective of those leaving, this seems like a good argument. Who would not want to be able to choose a better education for their children? However, what happens to those left behind, such as those who do not get vouchers? They, obviously enough, remain in what are claimed to be inferior schools. What about them?

It could be claimed that the choice programs can be expanded to allow more children to escape the bad public schools. But diverting more money to school choice programs will result in less funding for public schools, thus resulting in a spiraling decline for these schools.

It could also be argued that the choice program can be funded without taking money from public schools, so public schools would also be well-funded. However, this creates a problem for the quality argument. If public schools are bad, then it would make more sense to use public money to make them better rather than diverting funds to private schools. If public schools are properly funded and become good schools, then the quality argument would be undercut. Using public money so children can “flee” a good school to attend another good school has little appeal. So, the quality argument is self-defeating.

While school choice is appealing to those who want their children to escape public schools, it does nothing to address those left behind. This is a serious failing of school choice and makes one suspect that its proponents do not really care about the good for all children, just what is good for certain people.

 

My Amazon Author Page

 

In the previous essay, I considered some arguments in favor of school vouchers. Another set of arguments focus on the choice aspect, that vouchers allow parents to select the education that best fits their children and that will cultivate the desired values. For example, choice proponents claim that vouchers enable parents of children with special needs to pick a tailored program not available in public schools. An obvious reply to these arguments is that the main reason public schools lack tailored programs is that they are underfunded. Schools could offer tailored programs if they had the funding and diverting public money to vouchers makes less sense than funding these programs. This would be like arguing that public money should be diverted from community rec centers to private gyms because the rec centers lack the variety of equipment possessed by private gyms. If the equipment is critical for the community, then the funding should be used to get that equipment for the rec centers rather than funneling money into private gyms.

A third set of arguments focus on economic efficiency and accountability. The gist of the arguments is that private schools will be more economically efficient and more accountable than public schools. While I will not deny that public schools can be inefficient and lack accountability, the same is true of private schools. Look at the nightmare of for-profit colleges to see what can go wrong in the private education sector. There is no public sector curse and private sector magic, one can have bad or good in either. If a school district is inefficient and not accountable, going private is not an automatic fix. It just leaves all the problems in place in what remains of the public sector. Rather, the solution is to increase efficiency and accountability in the public sector, as has been done with many very good public schools. In the case of for-profit schools, there is always the obvious question about how they can do all that a public school would do for less yet still make a profit. At the college level, the answer was that they did not.

A final set of arguments focus on how vouchers and similar programs improve schools by offering competition. While, as a runner and gamer, I do recognize that competition can result in improvements, this does not seem to apply in education. First, consider the disastrous for-profit colleges. If the competition hypothesis held true, they should have been better than public schools and helped improve them. However, they ended up being vacuums for public money and disasters for their students. Public schools mainly responded by doing what they could to help their victims. After the for-profit college debacle I attended meetings about what we could do to help the “refugees” from the failed for-profit colleges. Second, public schools operate at an incredible disadvantage in the competition. They are more accountable than private schools, they must meet far more requirements than private schools, they are subject to state assessment and grading, they must accept everyone, and their funding is limited. Arguing this way for vouches is like arguing that giving places like Disney and Six Flags public money from the state park system would improve the state parks because of the competition. This would not improve the state parks—they are far more limited than the private operations and already have far less funding. If we want better state parks, taking away money is not the way to make that happen. Likewise, taking money from public education is not going to make it better.

In sum, while vouchers are good for some people, they do not benefit public education. The arguments in their favor are problematic, while those against them are strong. As such, vouchers (and similar programs) are a bad idea.

My Amazon Author Page

While strong support for public education has been bipartisan at times, it is now split along ideological grounds Most opposition to vouchers is from the left and they use various standard arguments. First, it is argued that the voucher system is intended to transfer public money to private businesses, thus making it a form of “wealthfare” in which public money benefits the well-off. Second, it is argued that vouchers take money from underfunded public schools that desperately need funding. Florida does very badly in spending per student and is at the bottom of the states for teacher pay. There are many unfilled teaching positions, schools have broken air-conditioning, and teachers routinely buy their own classroom supplies. Third, it is argued that vouchers are often a way to channel public money into religious institutions through their schools and using taxpayer money to fund churches is unconstitutional and wrong. Fourth, it is argued that the voucher system is intended to undermine public education to maintain the existing class structure and undermine democracy. While I agree with these arguments, it is worth considering the claimed merits of vouchers. After all, to simply embrace or shun something solely on ideological grounds would be to reject critical thought. As such, I will consider some of the reasons advanced in favor of voucher programs.

One set of reasons can be grouped under what I will call the “better student argument.” The gist of this argument is that vouchers are good, because they create better students. To be specific, choice advocates point out that private schools have better safety, better academic performance and better graduation rates than public schools. From this, they contend, it follows that vouchers are beneficial.

It certainly makes sense that private schools often have better students than public schools. But this is because they can select their students, and public schools must take everyone. To use an analogy, comparing the two is like comparing intramural teams which must take everyone and varsity teams that have strict tryouts. The varsity teams will almost always be better teams. But it is not being varsity that makes the varsity team better, it is the selection process. The fast runner is not fast because she is on the varsity team, she is on the varsity team because she is fast.  The same holds for the private schools; they get better students because they are free to reject the ones they do not want.

One could also use an analogy to public health: the private schools are like hospitals that can select their patients and exclude those they do not want. Public schools are like hospitals that must take everyone. Such exclusionary hospitals would have better outcomes than the public hospitals as they would select the better patients and would be getting more money. However, this would hardly be a good solution to public health problems. 

On the one hand, if your child is a good student and can get accepted by a private school, then the voucher program is appealing. You can get your child into a school with better students. On the other hand, if your child is the problem child or bad student that other children are trying to escape, then the voucher program will not help you. Your child will be stuck in an ever-declining public-school system. While this might be just a problem for the children who cannot escape and their parents, these children are part of society and are thus everyone’s concern even if the concerns are purely pragmatic about crime and employability. Using a public health analogy, abandoning people into a declining public health care system puts everyone at greater risk.

If it is replied that the problem students will also get vouchers, then the obvious problem is that private schools will no longer be better or safer. Going back to the sports analogy, this would be like varsity teams trying to still claim to be better while responding to criticism about leaving people out by opening the teams to everyone. They would soon cease to be better. Likewise for the voucher program: if it is open to all children, then the public schools would be replicated in private form. If the schools are exclusionary, then people will be left behind in what are claimed to be more dangerous and inferior schools. As such, the better student argument is problematic. Excluding the “problem” students so that the private schools are better means abandoning these citizens to declining public education, which will hurt everyone. Opening the schools up to everyone would mean they would be the same as public schools, so they would not be better. The discussion continues in the next essay.

My Amazon Author Page

As noted in previous essays, competition over opportunities is usually unavoidable and can be desirable. However, this competition can do more harm than good. One example of this is opportunity hoarding.  Opportunity hoarding occurs when parents try to seek advantages for their children in ways that are harmful to others. As would be suspected, opportunity hoarding typically occurs when parents use morally questionable methods to secure advantages for their children at the expense of other children. An excellent example of this is the 2019 college admissions scandal and I will use this to set the stage for the discussion.

As many writing about the scandal pointed out, the rich have many legal means of tipping the admission scales in favor of their children. These include methods that have nothing to do with the merit of the applicant, such as the use of legacy admissions and making financial contributions to the institutions. Other methods aim at improving the quality of the applicant (or at least the application). These methods include paid test preparation courses, paid counselors, paid tutors, and paid essay coaches. Because the rich have so many advantages already, the admission scandal seemed especially egregious and even perplexing. After all, given the vast advantages the wealthy already enjoy, why would they risk any consequences by using illegal or socially unacceptable methods?   From a philosophical perspective, the scandal raises an interesting general moral question about what methods are acceptable in the competition for opportunities.

Some might consider a Hobbesian state of nature approach to this competition, a war of all against all with no limits, as a good idea. But this would violate the moral intuitions of most people. After all, while we might disagree on specific limits, we almost certainly agree that there are limits. To illustrate, murdering, blinding or maiming children is obviously unacceptable even to give one’s own children an advantage. But once the blatantly horrific is out of the way, there remains a large area of dispute.

One approach is to use the law to define limits. On this view, parents may use any legal means to restrict opportunities in favor of their children. While this might have some appeal, it suffers from an obvious defect: the law is whatever those in power make it, so the evil and unfair are often legal. The usual extreme, but legitimate, example is the legality of slavery. As such, while it is often right to obey the law, it does not follow that what is legal is ethical.  So, if a parent justifies their actions by pointing to their legality, they merely prove they acted legally and have not shown they have acted rightly. So, something is needed beyond legality to determine what the limits of the competition should be.

Since this is a question of ethics on a national scale, an appeal to utilitarianism seems sensible: the limits should be set in terms of what will be most likely to create the greatest benefit and least harm. This leads to the usual problem of sorting out what it means to create the greatest positive value and least negative value. It also requires sorting out the measure of worth.  For example, certain limits on competition might make the children of the wealthy even wealthier while the less wealthy become worse off. But this could create more total wealth than a more equitable system in which even the poor were well off. If what matters, as it does to some, is the overall wealth then these would be the right limits. However, if maximizing value is more about the impact on each person, then the more equitable division would be the moral choice.  It would create more positive value for more people but would fail to create the most total positive value.

Since a utilitarian approach recognizes only the utilitarian calculation of value, some might find this approach problematic. Instead, they might favor a rights-based approach, or one based on a principle of fair competition. To illustrate, Americans profess to value competition, merit and fairness: the best competitors are supposed to win in a fair competition. This, obviously enough, just returns to the problem of fairness: what means are fair to use in the competition for opportunity?

One possible approach is to use a principle of relevance: a fair competition is one in which victory depends on the skills and abilities that are relevant to the nature of the competition. For example, if the competition is based on academic ability, then that should be the deciding factor and donating money should not influence the outcome. This will, of course, lead to a debate about what should be considered relevant. For example, if it is argued that donating money is not relevant to determining college admissions because it is not relevant to academic ability, one might then argue that race or sex are also not relevant and should not be used. So, if relevance is used, it must be properly and consistently defined and applied.

While relevance, in general, is a reasonable consideration, there are also concerns about the preparation for the competitions. To illustrate, the children of the wealthy get a competitive edge in college admissions because their parents can get them into good K-12 schools, pay for tutoring, pay for test preparation, pay for counseling, pay for help on essays and so on. That is, they can buy many advantages that are relevant to the competition for college admissions and careers. On the one hand, these seem to be unfair advantages because they are not available to the children of the poor simply because they are poor. On the other hand, they are relevant to the competition because they do improve the skills and abilities of the children. One possible solution, for those who value fair competition, would be balancing things out by providing the same support to all children, thus making the competition fair. But those who push for “merit” based competition usually want to ensure that the competition is as unfair as possible in their favor. This leads into the question of how far the quest for fairness should go.

At this point, some might be wondering if I will advocate forcing parents to be no better at preparing their children than the worst parents, to even things out. After all, a parent who can spend time engaging in activities with their kids, such as reading to them and helping with homework, confers an advantage to their children. Since making parents do a worse job would make things worse, this would be wrong to do. As such, I obviously support parents being good parents. I only bring this up, because of the usual straw man attacks against advocating for fairness. However, many parents face the challenges of lacking time, resources and education to be better parents and these should be addressed. As such, I would advocate lifting parents up and reject any notion to bring them down.

The above is only a sketch and much more needs to be said about what the rules of competition for opportunity should be in our society. This is, obviously enough, a matter of values: are we just making empty noises when we speak of “fairness”, “opportunity for all” and “merit-based competition” while embracing the practice of unfairly buying success? Or do we really believe these things? The Trump administration and its ideological allies seem intent on ensuring that “merit” based competition is built on an unfair foundation. That is, the “merit” is based on the  advantages conferred by one’s economic class.

The fact that college admission is for sale is an open secret. As with other forms of institutionalized unfairness, there are norms and laws governing the legal and acceptable ways of buying admission. For example, donating large sums of money or funding a building to buy admission are within the norms and laws. But there was admission scandal in which celebrities and other elites broke the rules to get their children into elite colleges. On the face of it, there is no need to argue that what they did was morally wrong. What is more interesting is considering the matter in the context of fairness.

On the surface, the actions of the accused are clearly unfair. While the tactics varied, they included altering admission test results, bribing coaches to accept non-athletes as recruited athletes, and the classic direct bribe. Interestingly, most comments on these misdeeds noted the elites could have used traditional legal and accepted methods of purchasing admission. These methods are unfair because admission was not based on the students’ merits, thus they might have unjustly taken the places of students who merited admission. While the parents did act unfairly, it is worth considering this unfairness within the broader context of our society.

As many others have pointed out over the years, even the normal admission system is unfair. Poor children will almost always attend inferior schools and have far less opportunity to engage in the application enhancing activities available to the well-off. Poor children will also usually not be able to afford tutors, test preparation training, personal statement coaches and so on. They will also usually lack connections that influence admission. In contrast, wealthy children will enjoy a cornucopia of admission advantages. While there were programs and other efforts to provide some microscopic mitigation of disparity, the Trump administration is intent on defunding and dismantling most of these. As such, the disparities in admissions will grow.

It might be countered that some people rose from poverty to attend elite institutions and go on to great success, while some born into wealth have been failures. The obvious reply is that while these stories are interesting, they are just anecdotes and what matters is the general statistics. While some people succeed despite incredible odds, these few examples only show getting out of poverty and into an elite school is extremely unlikely. If people regularly arose from poverty, such success stories would be unremarkable.

In general, college admissions are like a race in which some people must run on foot, some get bikes, some get cars, and some get rocket ships. While one can talk about the merits of people in this race, the competition is fundamentally unfair in intentional ways. I do, obviously, recognize that people vary greatly in abilities. My point is, to stick to the analogy, that even the most talented runner is not going to win against someone who gets to race with a car.

While the elites cheated, they cheated in an already unfair race. To continue the analogy, their children were already driving fast cars in competition with people forced to run. These parents did things analogous to cutting the course and using illegal modifications on their cars. While this certainly matters, it does not matter that much from the perspective of those who were already competing by running. Again, I am not denying that people do vary in ability or that no one ever wins this race on foot or that no one crashes their metaphorical car. My point is that if fairness truly matters, then we should not just be outraged when the elites cheat in an already unfair system, we should be outraged by the unfair system.

During Trump’s first term, a New Jersey teacher was accused of bringing politics into the classroom in the form of an anti-Trump t-shirt.  In his second term, Trump’s administration has aggressively targeted education and this includes the threat to eliminate the Department of Education. As such, it makes sense that educators feel threatened and might be tempted to respond within their classrooms. As a professor at a state university, I am both an educator and a public employee and these two roles can conflict because of the distinct duties of each.

An educator at a state institution is a public employee. While being a state employee does not rob a person of their right to free expression, it does impose limitations on this right above and beyond the usual moral limits. As an example of the usual moral limits, there is a popular example about not having the right to yell about a non-existent fire in a crowded theatre.

As public employees are paid by the taxpayers to do a job, it is reasonable that they do not have the right to express political views to the public while working. As an analogy, I do not have the right to sell my books to students during class. Likewise, I do not have the right to try to sell my politics to students during class. There is also the matter of professionalism: while I am on the clock, I am representing my institution and not myself. As such, I am morally obligated to distinguish between my own views and those of the institution.

It might be objected that elected public officials, such as Governor DeSantis of my adopted state of Florida, use their offices for political activities that benefit themselves and their party. As such, it is morally unfair to deny the same opportunity to other public employees. One counter is that elected public officials are politicians, so politics is their job. That said, there are moral concerns about politicians using public resources for their re-election or to campaign against a ballot initiative; but this is more a matter of the use of public funds than a free-speech issue. As such, it seems morally acceptable to insist that public employees refrain from political activities while on the clock. But perhaps being an educator is a relevant difference.

On the one hand, it could be argued that even in political science classes the educator does not have the right to preach their politics. After all, the function of the educator is to teach rather than preach. If a teacher takes a clear stance on a political issue, then students might feel pressured to accept it. There is also the concern that expressing political views will alienate students and harm their education. For example, a teacher who expresses anti-Trump views can create a hostile learning environment for MAGA students.

On the other hand, it can be argued that educators do not surrender their right of free expression in the classroom.  If they use it responsibly in the classroom, they have the right to express their political views. This view is appealing at the college level. Professors are supposed to have positions on intellectual and academic issues, and these include political issues.  That is, they should be able to profess. But the proper role of a professor is a matter of debate. One classic ideal is the professor as one who professes by advancing their positions on the academic issues and inviting students to engage them. This does raise the usual concerns about the power disparity and, of course, the matter of grades. Another classic ideal is the professor neutrally presenting theories and ideas by laying out the ideas and letting students decide which they like best. The problem with this approach is it does not help students determine which ones are better and this would be a problem in engineering, math and science classes in which there are better and worse answers.

My practical solution to the problem has been to stick to the general issues of politics when they are relevant to the course.  Since I do not want my students to just repeat what I think on paper and tests, I am careful to present the positions fairly. If pressed for my opinion in class, I will refer to any writings I have done and warn them to never uncritically accept what I have written. I also make it clear that paper grades are not based on whether I like their view but on how well they argue for their view. When I use examples of politicians (usually for fallacies and rhetoric) I do try to include examples across the spectrum. However, the party in power does tend to be the subject of more examples than the party out of power for the obvious reason that they provide more examples.

As noted in previous essays, there is a diversity issue in higher education: liberals outnumber conservatives. Given that conservatives have made their view of diversity clear, it is fair to apply their ideology to the issue of the dearth of conservatives in higher education.

When faced a lack of diversity, conservatives usually have two replies. I addressed first in an earlier essay: members of the underrepresented group freely decide to exclude themselves. For example, one might explain the relative low number of women and minorities playing tabletop wargames, such as Warhammer 40k, by claiming that they are generally not interested in the hobby. The second explanation is that the lack of diversity is due to a lack of competence on the part of the allegedly excluded groups. For example, the low number of women in top business, military and academic positions would be explained in terms of women being less capable than men. Some might add that incompetent people are capable in other area where they are more proportionally represented or even dominant. For example, someone might say that while women are inferior to men in science or business, they are capable nurses, speech language pathologists and grade schoolteachers. In some cases, these assertions are undeniably true. For example, men dominate American football because the strongest men are stronger than the strongest women. As another example, women are generally more capable than men for the role of surrogate mother. Since conservatives often find this explanation appealing, it seems fair to consider that a lack of competence is the reason why there are few conservatives in higher education.

Applying this conservative view to conservatives, the explanation for the lack of diversity is that conservatives lack the ability to succeed in higher education. While there are some exceptions, the ideological distribution is fair because of this disparity in ability. This is like the conservative claim that the lack of women in the upper levels of business, academics and the military match the distribution of ability: they claim most women are not as capable as men, hence men rightfully and fairly dominate. By parity of reasoning, most conservatives are not as capable as liberals, hence liberals justly and fairly dominate the academy.

An obvious reply is that ideology is different from sex or ethnicity. Conservatives can be of any sex or ethnicity because ideology is a matter of values. As such, it could be claimed, the idea that conservatives are less capable than liberals make no sense. It would be like saying that deontologists are less capable than utilitarians, that impressionists are less capable than surrealists, or that Yankees fans are less capable than Red Sox fans. This does have some appeal, but we should not abandon the conservative explanation too quickly.

This reply can be countered by arguing that while ideology does not change a person’s capabilities, a person’s capabilities might determine their ideology. That is, people with certain non-ideological qualities would tend to be conservative while people with other qualities would tend to be liberal. While psychology is not an exact science, it does show some interesting claims about the differences between conservatives and liberals. For example, it has been claimed that conservatives tend to be more afraid than liberals and hence have a greater desire for safety and security. Given these differences, it makes sense that conservatives would be less capable than be liberals in areas in which these differences would matter. Higher education, it can be argued, is such an area: the qualities that make a person more likely to succeed as a professor also tend to make them liberal. In contrast, the qualities that make a person more conservative would tend to make it less likely that they would have the ability to become professors.

While some liberals might be tempted to claim that conservatives are stupider than liberals, this need not be the case. After all, becoming a professor is not just a matter of being smart. Most smart people are not professors, and not all professors are smart. Conservatives can be just as intellectually capable as liberals, yet some of the other qualities that make them conservative could impair their ability to become professors (or so one might argue). One factor is that the process of becoming a professor involves having one’s most cherished ideas questioned, challenged and even attacked over the course of years—something liberals might handle better. As charitable conservatives might say that as women and minorities are well-suited for some fields, a charitable liberal might say that conservatives are well-suited for some fields outside the academy.

If it is true that what makes people conservative or liberal is relevant to their ability to become professors, then there are solutions to the problem of diversity. One is to engage in a process of affirmative action and DEI for conservatives: preferential hiring and adjusted standards to address the lack of diversity. Conservatives who oppose affirmative action and DEI would not be able to accept this approach. Unless their view is a matter of self-interest rather than a principle.

A second approach is to see if the academy can be modified to be more inviting to conservatives. For example, it might be that the way grad school classes are taught that deters conservatives. While conservatives are generally not fans of efforts of inclusion, they would presumably welcome such efforts if they were the ones being benefited.

Some readers might think the real reason conservatives are underrepresented in the academy is that liberals are to blame. I will address this in my next essay.