Some new University of Virginia trustees are pushing for the university to collect information on the political views of faculty and students. Daily progress reported
At a Board of Visitors meeting Friday, Douglas Wetmore, who was appointed to the board by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, last year, asked why the university’s diversity panel does not include an assessment of the ideologies of students or teachers.
“How come we don’t have dashboards that track, say, faculty political ideology?” asked Wetmore. “Why wouldn’t we do that to try to convince ourselves that we have a balance and that we’re serving the full range of needs of our constituents as a leading public university?”
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Bert Ellis, also appointed last year, said he agrees with Wetmore’s suggestion and wants to see more “robust debates” at UVA that can only happen with a diversity of viewpoints and beliefs. “You can’t have them if everyone has the same views as you,” Ellis said. “It’s no fun debating with like-minded people, which I rarely do.”
President Jim Ryan said diversity includes “the entire spectrum of human attributes, perspectives, identities, backgrounds and disciplines.”
While Ryan said he is open to suggestions about ways to track political affiliations among those at the university, he told the board he has reservations about “legal prohibitions” on inquiring about the political views of a future teacher or student.
