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THE RIGHT-WING NETWORK MANUFACTURING THE WAR AGAINST HIGHER EDUCATION
 
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Colleen Scerpella
July 3, 2024
Center for Media and Democracy
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_ The current wave of legislation targeting higher education is a
coordinated effort between wealthy elites, a network of right-wing and
libertarian think tanks, and Republican politicians at the state
level. _

,

 

A recent white paper by Isaac Kamola, director of the Center for the
Defense of Academic Freedom, details the ongoing culture-war backlash
against higher education in America, largely in response to the
grassroots activism of Black Lives Matter in 2020 and increasing
LGBTQ+ visibility. More than 150 bills seeking to undermine academic
freedom and intervene in university governance were introduced in
state legislatures across the country during 2021-2023. While these
bills are typically interpreted as an “organic” consequence of
increasing polarization among Americans, the current wave of
legislation targeting higher education is a coordinated effort between
wealthy elites, a network of right-wing and libertarian think tanks,
and Republican politicians at the state level.

The paper
[[link removed]] published
by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) identifies
11 right-wing and libertarian think tanks responsible for
manufacturing the cultural backlash against both K–12 and higher
education. A steady stream of papers, op-eds, talking points, public
events, and media appearances emanating from these groups have
conveyed a false impression of intellectual legitimacy behind their
arguments, which conservatives have leveraged for political capital.
As a result, the inflammatory narrative that all college and
university faculty are “liberal,” biased, “woke,” socialist or
Marxist, and hostile to free speech and conservative values has taken
hold in the mainstream. 

Unsurprisingly, the think tanks behind these attacks are prominent,
influential, and well-connected operatives in the right-wing
ecosphere. Seven of the 11 are members of the State Policy Network
[[link removed]] (SPN),
a web of 167 far-right nonprofit organizations in 48 states,
Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom. SPN members
play an integral role in ensuring the passage of legislation in state
houses by providing academic legitimacy when called on to testify at
hearings, producing “studies” or model legislation, and attracting
media attention. 

In addition, eight of the 11 highlighted think tanks sit on the
advisory board of _Project 2025_ [[link removed]], a
series of policy proposals from The Heritage Foundation
[[link removed]] outlining
the sweeping authoritarian and Christian nationalist reforms
conservatives expect to see if Trump is reelected this year. While
proposals promising to severely curtail reproductive rights and
environmental protections have received the majority of public
scrutiny, the 900+-page document also outlines a plan to radically
alter how America’s educational system is funded and administered.
Proposals include dramatically cutting federal funding for education,
“rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory,” weakening
accreditation standards, ending student loan forgiveness, strictly
focusing higher education on job training and economic growth, and
expanding “parental rights” and school choice, among other reform
measures.

AAUP also identifies the top 25 donors to the 11 think tanks and SPN
between 2020 and 2022, which include prominent right-wing 501(c)(3)
nonprofits like the Roe Foundation
[[link removed]],
the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
[[link removed]],
the Searle Freedom Trust
[[link removed]],
the Sarah Scaife Foundation
[[link removed]],
Leonard Leo’s 85 Fund
[[link removed]], the Walton
Family Foundation
[[link removed]], Stand
Together Fellowships
[[link removed]] (formerly
the Charles Koch Institute), the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation
[[link removed]],
the Bradley Impact Fund
[[link removed]], and
the John William Pope Foundation
[[link removed]]. 

However, a majority of funding for SPN and the think tanks comes from
donor-advised funds, which means that the origin of the funds—the
actual donor—is completely obscured. DonorsTrust
[[link removed]], the
preferred donor-advised funding conduit of right-wing billionaire
families, is by far the biggest donor. Between 2020 and 2022, it
contributed more than $37 million to 10 of the 11 think tanks and SPN.
Other donor-advised funds in the top 25 list include the Fidelity
Investments Charitable Gift Fund, the National Christian Charitable
Foundation, the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, the New Venture
Fund, the Servant Foundation, and the Morgan Stanley Global Impact
Funding Trust. 

GENESIS OF THE LEGISLATIVE BACKLASH

The catalyst for the backlash against educational institutions and the
accompanying wave of legislation can be traced back to an executive
order signed by former President Trump in September 2020 as well as to
the right-wing operative who set it into motion. Executive Order 13950
made it illegal for federal agencies to incorporate “divisive
concepts,” “race or sex stereotyping,” and “race or sex
scapegoating” into their training protocols. Notably, Trump issued
the executive order three weeks after right-wing activist Christopher
Rufo, a senior fellow at multiple conservative think tanks, appeared
on _Tucker Carlson Tonight_ to disparage the concept of critical
race theory (CRT) and call for an executive order banning professors
from teaching it. The day after that appearance, Trump called Rufo to
discuss the specifics of the executive order. 

Though less well-known to the mainstream at the time, Rufo was already
a relatively established figure on the Right who has held (or
currently holds) positions at the Claremont Institute
[[link removed]], Heritage, the
Pacific Research Institute, The Federalist Society
[[link removed]], and the
Manhattan Institute. A recent investigation
[[link removed]] by
the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and Important Context
revealed the handful of right-wing billionaires and major foundations
funding these think tanks. Rufo’s existing ties to both these groups
and the donors behind them presaged the key players at the center of
the full-fledged assault on higher education.

With millions of dollars in financial backing, right-wing and
libertarian think tanks mobilized around promoting a reactionary
legislative response to the “liberal excesses” of higher
education. The legislative backlash began with “academic gag
orders,” or bills seeking to ban CRT and other so-called “divisive
concepts.” The AAUP white paper found that all but 19 of the 99
academic gag orders introduced in state houses between 2021 and 2023
drew on language taken directly from EO 13950, or from two model
bills: the “Model School Board Language to Prohibit Critical Race
Theory” drafted by the Center for Renewing America
[[link removed]] (CRA)
and Heritage’s “Protecting K–2 Students from Discrimination.”
This includes Florida’s infamous “Stop WOKE Act” (HB 7), which
was signed into law in April 2022 and includes the definition of
“divisive concepts” outlined in the Trump executive order and the
CRA model bill. 

Despite enthusiastic support from Republican politicians for these
academic gag orders, only 10 of the 99 initially introduced passed
between 2021 and 2023. As a result, conservative activists refocused
their efforts and shifted their framing. During the 2023 legislative
session alone, anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bills were
introduced in various states 40 separate times, and all of them
addressed a combination of the same four objectives: ending mandatory
DEI training, preventing the use of diversity statements in job
applications and promotion materials, prohibiting hiring practices
designed to increase diversity, and/or ending state funding for DEI
offices and personnel altogether.

One example is Texas SB 17, which made it illegal for colleges and
universities to “establish or maintain a diversity, equity, and
inclusion office” or to “hire or assign an employee of the
institution or contract with a third party to perform the[se]
duties,” among other measures. The bill drew from model legislation
produced by the Manhattan Institute
[[link removed]] and
co-written by Rufo, Ilya Shapiro of the Manhattan Institute, and Matt
Berenberg of the Goldwater Institute
[[link removed]]. Texas
Public Policy Foundation
[[link removed]] (TPPF)
Senior Fellow Sherry Sylvester, TPPF’s Richard Johnson, Heritage’s
Adam Kissel, and prominent Black conservative academic and politician
Ben Carson testified in favor of the bill before the state Senate
Subcommittee on Higher Education. TPPF’s Daniel Bonevack and a
University of Texas professor who regularly works with TPPF testified
in support of the same bill before the House Committee on Higher
Education. Despite more than 100 witnesses who testified against the
bill in either the Senate or House committee hearings, the small
number of think tank employees proved to be sufficiently persuasive
that SB 17 passed along party lines. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
[[link removed]] and other Republican
politicians in the state proved to be just as receptive. There HB 931
redefined “loyalty tests” as including a commitment to
“diversity, equity, and inclusion,” which effectively ended
general consideration of diversity during the hiring process. Sections
of the bill were taken directly from the model legislation known as
“End Political Litmus Tests in Education Act,” which was
co-written by Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public
Policy Center
[[link removed]],
along with fellows from the Martin Center and the Goldwater Institute.
In March 2023, a month after HB 931 was introduced in the state
legislature, DeSantis held a roundtable discussion titled “Exposing
the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Scam.” Speakers at the event
included Rufo, Claremont’s Scott Yenor, and Carrie Scheffield
[[link removed]] from the Independent
Women’s Forum
[[link removed]]. 

Academic gag orders and anti-DEI bills have undoubtedly been the
centerpieces of the Right’s manufactured backlash against higher
education. However, other types of bills have also been promoted and
introduced in state legislatures, including ones that weaken tenure
and accreditation standards, and others that undermine existing
academic governance. Between 2021 and 2023, bills attacking tenure for
faculty were introduced 20 times in various state legislatures, with
three of them passing. The original version of one of those bills,
Texas SB 18, would have eradicated tenure for faculty members hired
after September 1, 2023. Although this version didn’t pass, two of
the three advocates to testify in favor of it were Thomas Lindsay of
TPPF and Adam Kissel of Heritage. 

The aforementioned Florida HB 931 includes provisions to
institutionalize “intellectual diversity” by establishing an
Office of Public Policy at each of Florida’s public colleges and
universities, which undermines academic governance. This section comes
directly from a model bill published by the National Association of
Scholars and written by Kurtz. Similarly, Ohio’s SB 117 appropriated
$24 million over two years to create “intellectual diversity”
centers at the state’s public universities. Representatives from the
American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the National Association of
Scholars, Speech First
[[link removed]], the Jack
Miller Center, and Heritage all spoke in favor of the bill, which was
ultimately passed during the 2023 legislative session. 

“It is important to follow the money when examining the culture war
attacks on higher education,” Kamola told CMD. “The goal of
plutocrats and billionaires has been to paint all higher education as
threatening to American values because the end goal is defunding all
public goods. Attacking higher education not only scores short-term
political points but also paves the road for delegitimizing all public
institutions.”

_Sign up for CMD's __biweekly newsletter_
[[link removed]]_ to stay updated with their __latest
work!_

_Colleen Scerpella is a research assistant with the Center for Media
and Democracy. Her previous research experiences centered around
political violence, right-wing extremism, and humanitarian
coordination. She graduated from Boston College in 2023 with a
Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Studies._

* higher education
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* right wing attacks
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