This is the Kator Daily Podcast for Thursday, July 7th, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Ideological diversity ought to be something university's value, but newer screening mechanisms used by some schools stand in the way of

living up to that value.

Daniel Ordner is an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation.

We talked about how many schools use diversity statements as a way of weeding out the

undesirable. When universities sign on to have an environment of

academic independence of promoting of

uh... academic independence promoting the

scholarship of the people who are professors and and researchers there

what are they promising?

Essentially, what are they promising in a very real sense?

Yeah, I think it's a guarantee that the environment will be one of open intellectual discourse and discussion,

that ideas will be evaluated on their merits

without interference.

And at the university will be a place

where people can disagree, new ideas can come about.

That's the promise of academic freedom and of the Constitution.

To the extent that universities make these pledges in public, that is like a statement on

a website, these are the things we're committed to

they're in some sense like legally bound to some of those statements yeah they can

make legally binding guarantees of academic freedom and there have been some lawsuits I think

...