An assessment of the Democratic Party's higher education platform

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CounterCurrent:
A Donkey Walks into Class
An assessment of the Democratic Party's higher education platform

CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, bringing you the biggest issues in academia and our responses to them.
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Category: Current Events, Politics, Higher Ed;
Reading Time: ~4 minutes
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This issue of CounterCurrent is the second edition of a two-part article series. The first was written ([link removed]) a few weeks ago on the Republican Party's education platform, specifically the policies which will influence higher education should Trump get elected. Today’s edition is on the Democratic Party's platform.

The DNC released their Democratic Party Platform ([link removed]) last week, but Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has yet to lay out her platform on higher education—and many other positions. So we will work with what we have: the DNC platform and prior statements made by Harris to map out what higher education would look like under a possible Harris administration.

To kick things off, here are a few statements directly from the DNC platform on education.

Page 26: “A quality, postsecondary education used to be a ticket to the middle class, but the cost that many folks face for higher education today is crippling families, futures, and our entire economy. It has become a barrier to opportunity. Democrats will make quality, affordable, postsecondary education a path forward again.”


Page 27: “Four year college is not the only pathway to a good career, so Democrats are investing in other forms of education as well, including career and technical education.”

Page 33: “We're also boosting investment in STEM education and workforce training programs for women and Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other Minority Serving Institutions …”

The DNC platform promises to continue fighting for the student loan forgiveness plans introduced by the Biden administration—including the SAVE plan ([link removed]) . Additionally, the platform expands promises for financial assistance for college hopefuls,

For young people just heading to college now, we’ve already secured the largest increase in Pell Grants in a decade, and we’ll further extend those grants to 7 million more students, and double the maximum award by 2029. We’ve invested a record $16 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); and we’re working to subsidize tuition at all Minority Serving Institutions for anyone whose family earns less than $125,000 a year.

As far as Kamala Harris’s stance on education, we can only infer from her political record and statements what her priorities will be should she win the election. Harris has a history of backing ([link removed]) tuition-free college, supporting HBCUs, and spearheading student loan forgiveness within the Biden administration. She has also criticized ([link removed]) Trump’s proposal to dismantle the Department of Education (ED). Harris was against the Trump-era changes made to Title IX—as a Senator, Harris co-signed a letter ([link removed]) to the ED in 2019 urging it to rescind the rule that required colleges and universities to hold
hearings when litigating sexual harassment claims. Then this year as Vice President, Harris and President Biden put forth their Title IX rule change to undo the Trump-era reform—a rule currently stalled by the courts. Perhaps Harris will prioritize enshrining Title IX policy changes in legislation as president?

Hopefully Harris will release her vision for higher education before voters head to the polls.

As we near Election Day, academics are throwing their voice and expertise behind the candidates. Sixteen Nobel prize-winning economists warned in a letter ([link removed]) that if Donald Trump wins in November, his plans would reignite inflation and “cause lasting harm to the global economy.” (It is worth noting that this letter was penned back in June of this year, before Biden was replaced with Harris for the Democratic nomination.) While other professors are supporting a Republican presidency. Daniel Klein, professor of economics at George Mason University, and Daniel J. Mahoney, professor emeritus of political science at Assumption University, have written a statement ([link removed]) seeking academic signatories in favor of the Republican candidate for the presidency. The statement proposes that Republicans should be favored over Democrats since Republicans are “less inclined to governmentalize, and more inclined to
degovernmentalize, than Democrats.”

If you know of other statements by academics or universities defining support for one of the two candidates, let us know by emailing me at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

Until next week.

Kali Jerrard

Communications Associate
National Association of Scholars
Read the Article ([link removed])
For more on the current events, politics, and higher ed:
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August 27, 2024


** Investigating the New Radical Ideology ([link removed])
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Ernest Sternberg

We are so accustomed to viewing the world in received ideological categories that we have not recognized the rise of new, world-altering doctrines in our own time.

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August 21, 2024


** Ending the Leftist Think Monopoly on Campus ([link removed])
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Richard Vedder

For learning and discovery communities to flourish, there has to be a diversity of ideas that are explored and debated, with multiple perspectives discussed civilly by veteran scholars—the faculty—as well as inquisitive young learners—the students.

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October 27, 2020


** Report: Dear Colleague ([link removed])
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Teresa R. Manning

Dear Colleague explains how sexual assault came to be a form of sex discrimination and surveys the regulatory path that Title IX administrators took to make this word-play a reality.


** About the NAS
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