On March 24, a bill (SB 1139) was introduced in the General Assembly that would require each of the 16 institutions of the UNC system to adopt an “academic bill of rights.” The bill does not state exactly how each school’s bill of rights (ABOR) would have to read, but specifies the key points that must be covered.

Under the bill, each institution’s ABOR would recognize that students and faculty members have certain rights, including:

• Students should receive “a broad range of serious scholarly opinions pertaining to the subjects they study.”

• Students should be graded solely on the quality of their work and not “on the basis of their political, ideological, or religious beliefs.”

• Faculty members should not persistently introduce “controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that has no relation to their subject of study and that serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose.”

• Administrators must not “infringe upon the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of conscience of students and student organizations.”

• Faculty members should be free to discuss their own findings and perspectives, but should also “make students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other than their own.”

• Faculty members shouldn’t be “hired, fired, promoted, granted tenure, or denied promotion or tenure on the basis of their political, ideological, or religious beliefs.”

In short, the ABOR seeks to lower the level of politicization of colleges and universities. While it has been introduced as legislation aimed at the state university systems in several states, there is no reason why it necessarily has to be accomplished through legislation. Any individual school, public or private, could adopt the principles contained in ABOR.

What has given rise to the movement in favor of ABOR is the extent to which some campuses have been taken over by administrators and professors—“tenured radicals” as Roger Kimball calls them—who delight in turning them into platforms for political activism. Rather than merely teaching students about academic fields, many professors believe they must do everything they can to advance their own vision for the world.

There is nothing wrong in having a vision of what the world should be like. A professor who believes that the United States would become a paradise if only we followed the ideals of Karl Marx is entitled to his opinion, and to do what he wants to advance it. UNC campuses, however, should insist that class time and assignments be used for the purposes of teaching a body of knowledge to students, not regaling them with opinions and matters tangential to the course.

It isn’t an attack on academic freedom to say that faculty members should do their politicking on their own time and only with students who want to listen to them. Nor is it inimical to academic standards to say that students should not be graded (either high or low) because their own convictions happen to agree or disagree with those of the professor. That’s the way colleges and universities used to run, and it wouldn’t be frightful to go back to rules that put academics first and turned down the political heat.

One of the criticisms leveled against ABOR is that it would require universities to adopt a quota hiring system in an effort to bring about political balance. If you read the bill, however, it’s clear that political quotas are expressly prohibited. Colleges already declare that they are “equal opportunity employers,” and what ABOR would call for them to live up to that by not automatically rejecting applications from people whose philosophy isn’t the same as that of the departmental chairman.

If the General Assembly were to pass the bill, would it really make much difference? After all, exactly the same people who now control university life would still be in control. Even with their version of ABOR in place, administrators and faculty members could conduct “business as usual,” turning a blind eye to all but the most egregious violations.

That approach would be short-sighted. Passing ABOR would tell UNC officials that they should put the brakes on the politicization of their schools. ABOR permits them to do that on their own, and UNC officials should be smart enough to understand that if they don’t do so, the next time the General Assembly faces this issue, it may act more forcefully.

George C. Leef is executive director of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.