University honors programs are supposed to offer talented students a rigorous academic experience. But as a new Goldwater Institute report explains, that’s not happening at Arizona’s most prominent honors colleges, which have been hijacked by activist faculty who force students into courses steeped in diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.
The report, Desert Brain Drain: Arizona’s Honors Colleges Hijacked by Activist Faculty to Force DEI on Students, shows how Arizona State’s Barrett Honors College and the University of Arizona’s Franke Honors College have been transformed into taxpayer-funded vehicles for leftwing groupthink and unserious and ideological pet projects. At Barrett, faculty push anti-capitalist, anti-Israel, and sexually-explicit materials on students. At Franke, students are forced to take academically unserious courses about “Queer Food Politics” and using collages to understand identity and political activism.
Arizona lawmakers should take action to ensure these courses are reviewed and approved by the Board of Regents, and they should take steps to prohibit mandatory DEI courses in public universities and to end automatic state funding for activist research. In the meantime, the Goldwater Institute will continue to expose academic rot and hold public institutions like ASU and UA to account.
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Around the nation, a growing number of public schools are hiding critical information from parents about their kids’ struggles with gender identity. That’s why 19 states are now backing the Goldwater Institute’s petition urging the Supreme Court to safeguard parental rights and to make it clear that those rights don’t end at the schoolhouse door.
Late last year, Goldwater petitioned the Court about the case of Amber Lavigne, a Maine mom who discovered that a school social worker had been aiding her child in a so-called “gender transition.” School officials intentionally kept Amber in the dark about it. Now, with cases like Amber’s proliferating, the coalition of 19 states—led by South Carolina—is asking the Court to provide “clarity” so lawmakers and school leaders nationwide can protect parents’ rights and align their polices with federal law.
In an important decision in a separate case last week, the Court correctly noted that parents—not school officials—are “the primary protectors of children’s best interests.” That’s why the Goldwater Institute will continue to stand with parents like Amber and to fight back when government school bureaucrats come between them and their kids.
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For students and young professionals looking to join the freedom movement, the Goldwater Institute’s Ronald Reagan Fellowship is more than just a résumé line—it’s an “amazing” opportunity to build a broad base of experience and to network with like-minded lovers of liberty at organizations across the country.
That was the message of Goldwater staff members and former fellows during a recent webinar. The webinar explored the many ways that the Ronald Reagan Fellowship can be a launchpad to a career in the freedom movement. Fellows have an opportunity to “be involved with whatever you’re interested in,” said Goldwater’s Marketing and Digital Communications Manager Fiona Baum, a former Reagan fellow. “I wouldn’t have my job today without the fellowship,” Goldwater attorney Parker Jackson added.
If you’re a student—or you know a student—interested in building a meaningful career aimed at empowering Americans to live freer, happier lives, this webinar is for you!
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