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I’m not sure I support this idea, which Donald Trump floated a year ago and is circulating again on social media today.  But I sure do like it.

At the time, American college campuses had exploded in anti-Semitic demonstrations in support of Hamas after their October 7 atrocities violated yet another US-demande cease-fire. Jewish students and faculty were being harrassed and intimidated off of the campuses, and the administrations did little or nothing to enforce Title VI requirements or restore order. Trump recognized the revulsion of Americans outside the progressive bubble and proposed taxing the massive endowments of universities like Harvard and Columbia, and creating an “American Academy” as a free alternative to the radical-Leftist environments in Academia:

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As a political reaction, this was first rate. The point was to emphasize that the government had some options to deal with radicalization and indoctrination, and that the tax and regulatory environments around endowments could always change. Unfortunately, the point didn’t really land at the Poison Ivies with the biggest endowments, or in Academia more generally. The bigger impact came from the House hearings in which Elise Stefanik tore into the presidents of three Poison Ivies, two of whom were eventually forced to resign as a result.

What about as actual policy? It might make some sense to remove tax and regulatory shelters from endowments and instead treat them for what they are: hedge funds. At the very least, that will reduce some of the Left’s enthusiasm for taxing unrealized gains. Creating increased liability for these hedge funds for Title VI violations of the kinds seen over the past year might incentivize even more improvements in campus behaviors, too.

However, the idea of a government-run “American Academy” sounds like trouble in the long run. The idea is similar to what Democrats wanted to do with private insurance by adding the “public option” to ObamaCare — to drive competitors out of business with an artificially lower-priced option subsidized in large part by the industry it targeted. That’s a bad idea, and in education, it’s not even a new idea. Most if not all states already do that with their own universities and colleges, and while those are somewhat less woke than the Poison Ivies, they are not really much of an alternative to the radical Marxist indoctrination at the Poison Ivies, except on price.

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Why doesn’t it work? The states that operate them mostly have the same clique of radical-progressive politicians and education bureaucrats that run the Poison Ivies. That risk would also exist at an “American Academy,” too — maybe not in a Trump term, but Trump will only be president for four years. Once Democrats win a presidential election, the administration will fill the American Academy’s administration with the same radical-Left activists that currently grip the Poison Ivies.

The better choice would be to dismantle the federal education bureaucracy altogether. Conservatives have advocated for the end of the Department of Education almost since the moment Jimmy Carter launched it as a separate agency in 1979, and for good reason. The quality of education has declined sharply in the 45 years since, so the federal bureaucracy at least hasn’t had any beneficial effect, and its impact on curricula has boosted the transition from education to Leftist indoctrination tremendously at all levels of education. The federalization of education policy has wrested control over curricula from where it belongs — local communities and parents — to the point where parents are now treated like domestic terrorists for demanding a say in how their children are educated.

That also applies to Trump’s proposal this week to go after accreditation companies that give carte blanche to indoctrination:

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The problem here isn’t the concept — it’s the execution. That would require Congress to expand federal authority over education, and that expansion will play right into the hands of the Left when they manage to win another presidential election. 

As I wrote at around the same time Trump proposed the “American Academy,” we need a different solution: Decolonize Academia Now. End all federal support for higher education — student loans, grants to students and researchers, the whole smash. Force colleges and universities to compete in a marketplace with complete pricing transparency, where students and parents can rationally judge whether the cost of education makes sense in the expected return on investment. That will force schools to drive down prices by ridding themselves of the vast administrator class that federal mandates have helped create. Leave Title VI and Title IX enforcement to the Department of Justice on the basis of the statutes alone, and shutter the Department of Education altogether. Full stop. 

That would allow these schools to pursue any policies they want. But without federal subsidies, the trough will empty considerably, and the market for indoctrination into cults of victimology and segregation will almost certainly dry up. That is the outcome we seek — free market principles in pursuit of excellence — rather than just seizing the reins of power to impose outcomes to our liking, and then watching as our opponents do the same.

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But honestly … the endowment approach still looks pretty attractive, too. 

Addendum: If President Trump wants an Education Secretary determined to eliminate his own position, I could be available. Just sayin’.