The long overdue doorstop of a Higher Education Act contains two particularly interesting gems: it creates the American History for Freedom Program, and it delivers strong language about the importance of intellectual diversity and free expression on campus. The first is a grantmaking program aimed at enabling colleges and universities to launch or maintain "traditional" programs in U.S. history and Western civilization (defined as "traditional American history," "the history and nature of, and threats to, free institutions," or "the history and achievements of Western civilization"). The second is a statement of principle about the "Protection of Student Speech and Association Rights." It stresses the importance of intellectual diversity within and across institutions, underscores the rights of institutions to align their academic programs with their missions, and admonishes all colleges and universities to honor students' free speech and rights of association.

The two complement each other, of course. Students these days labor under a well-documented ignorance about U.S. history. And, as Hamilton College, the University of Illinois, and others have recently shown, attempts to launch history and Western civ programs centered on a more traditional--and less politically correct--approach can meet with major institutional hostility. And that hostility--which amounts to a censorious impulse to prevent certain views and lines of thoughts from even being explored in an academic setting--is part and parcel of the broader disrespect for free inquiry that is now endemic on campus. As ACTA, FIRE, and others have shown, colleges and universities have a bad track record when it comes to supporting student expression and student groups that run counter to institutional orthodoxy (hence the punitive speech codes, and the double standards that tend to be applied to religious student organizations that wish to limit their membership to those of like mind).

So these measures are all to the good. They respond to a pressing need for a substantial shift in higher ed's intellectual culture--as well as to the fact that higher ed's current culture is politicized to the point of anti-intellectualism and tyranny: it excludes whole areas of knowledge and punishes those who don't accept or submit to this exclusion.

NAS executive director Peter Wood has more:

Three years ago, under pressure from Congress, the American Council on Education (ACE) released a statement endorsing the concept of intellectual pluralism as a central principle of academic life. ACE speaks pretty much for American higher education's prevailing sentiments, and it was no surprise that twenty-seven other major higher education organizations, including the AAUP, co-signed the statement. With the final passage of the Higher Education Act last Thursday, Congress took a big step toward bringing to life what, thus far, has been merely a paper pledge.

[...]

Not so long ago, the American History for Freedom Program would have been an anodyne addition to the abundance of federally-supported academic programs. Thirty years ago most colleges and universities were actuated by a conviction that America had been blessed with an extraordinary gift of freedom, and wished an appreciation and understanding of that gift to be transmitted to each rising generation. This conviction, of course, has faded during the era of political correctness and postmodernism. It is no longer a central proposition on campus and it no longer receives much institutional support.

Nonetheless, there remain many individual scholars throughout academe who embrace the idea that Western civilization in general, and American history in particular, have something important to teach us about the creation of free institutions. The American History for Freedom Program is a giant step towards recognizing the value of this scholarly work. The new program will lift these often isolated scholars out of their relative isolation and, by bringing significant new funding to their research, raise their profile on campus.

Precisely because of this, we expect opposition. It is one thing for ACE and other organizations to endorse the idea that "Intellectual pluralism and academic freedom are central principles of American higher education." It is something else when a group of scholars who have been marginalized for more than a generation for pursuing unfashionable ideas suddenly become the recipients of their own federal support program.

UPDATE: The Chronicle of Higher Education casts these provisions--along with another that requires federally funded international studies programs to "reflect diverse perspectives and a wide range of views"--as partisan victories for conservatives, thus badly missing the point and cheapening measures that are consistent with the ideal of free inquiry, aimed at safeguarding academic freedom, and intended to be a substantial benefit for all scholars and students. Regardless of who championed the provisions, they are sound and fair; they are grounded in the positive values of procedural fairness, open inquiry, and diversity; and they should be treated as such. Instead of trying to tarnish them with dismissive labels, the Chronicle should be seeking to transcend the grubby political wrangling that mars so much debate about higher ed reform--and so set a better standard of reporting.