It appears that being unrelentingly woke means that you need fewer dormitories. The University of Oregon is facing a major budget crisis and will cut $65 million from its budget and close dorms due to low enrollment. That growing crisis, however, did not stop Oregon from burning almost a million dollars fighting against free speech. It also did not induce its faculty to offer greater intellectual diversity and tolerance to prospective students. Oregon is a cautionary tale for a generation of academic social warriors, but also an opportunity for those who want to restore balance in higher education.
Oregon has long been an example of academic orthodoxy. While most state schools begrudgingly yield to First Amendment demands and offer better free speech alternatives to private universities, Oregon is known as a hardened silo for the far left in teaching.
We previously discussed how Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley, who was blocked from the Twitter account of the University of Oregon’s Division of Equity and Inclusion after tweeting “All men are created equal.” Oregon spent almost a million dollars fighting to bar such speech.
Such controversies have plagued the university for years, with no sign of self-examination by administrators or academics. The university was criticized for its monitoring of social media to punish errant thoughts or microaggressions. The law school’s law review was accused of anti-Israel discrimination.
The school previously gave special recognition to University of California (Santa Barbara) Professor Mireille Miller-Young, who criminally assaulted pro-life advocates on the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara. At the University of Oregon, she was honored as a featured speaker at the University of Oregon’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Part of its “black feminist speaker series,” Miller-Young’s work was highlighted by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of English to show “the radical potential of black feminism in the work that we do on campus and in our everyday lives.”
Now, the school is facing declining revenues and enrollments.
President Karl Scholz recently announced that this was due to lower out-of-state first-year enrollment, which means lower tuition revenue, increased costs, and a loss of grant funding.
Strangely, while closing dorms, the school is still building two new dorms.
Putting aside the school’s past budget judgment and discipline, the university’s reputation for intellectual orthodoxy deters many who do not want to pay tuition for their children to be indoctrinated or silenced. Even with plunging trust in higher education, administrators and faculty cannot resist the temptation to exclude opposing voices.
Oregon is not the only school facing such shortfalls. Some woke institutions have closed entirely. The irony is that faculty would seem to prefer to see their institutions die than restore balance to their departments. However, this may offer a real opportunity for legislators and donors to force real changes in the culture of these schools.
As I have previously written, parents and students who value free speech must increasingly look to public universities where faculty are subject to constitutional guarantees. Public universities may be the final line of defense for free-speech advocates.
We now largely have two systems of higher education for those seeking education with a diversity of opinions and viewpoints. Except for outliers like the University of Chicago and other private universities holding the line on free speech, the orthodoxy found at private universities remains a barrier to many conservative and independent thinkers.
If we are to protect these bastions of free speech, legislatures will need to play a more active role in addressing the exclusion of both faculty candidates and speakers on public campuses. Too many faculty members continue to take the view that citizens are a captive audience expected to continue funding their departments, while excluding conservative or dissenting views held by many, if not most, citizens in a given state.
If faculty members want to continue maintaining echo chambers for their own viewpoints, they should have to seek private donors to sustain such intolerance and orthodoxy.
Legislatures can demand evidence that schools are maintaining intellectually diverse faculties in determining the level of continued support from citizens.
When some of us have argued for such campaigns, academics hypocritically claim that we are calling for political litmus tests or hiring based on political parties. It is an absurd argument that I have previously addressed, including in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The call is for donors and legislators to withhold funding until they see real reforms, including greater diversity on faculties. They are not directing the hiring but looking at the results. The faculty members objecting to such calls have watched passively (or actively supported) the purging of conservative or libertarian faculty from universities and colleges.
When confronted by their own obvious ideological litmus tests, they shrug. Some acknowledge that their departments are overwhelmingly liberal, but insist that they just cannot find “competent” or “intellectually promising” conservatives. A few will admit that they do not believe that conservative views have a place in their departments.
It is impossible to deny the purging of faculties to create an academic echo chamber. If a large corporation effectively eliminated women or minorities while claiming no conscious discrimination, they would be trounced in court.
For years, I have raised concerns about the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculty members replicate their own views and values. There is no evidence that any faculty members (including those acknowledging the loss of virtually all faculty from the right of center) are honestly willing to reform their schools.
That ideological echo chamber is hardly an enticement for many facing rising tuition costs and relatively little hope of being taught by faculty with opposing views.
A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll.
There is little evidence that faculty members are interested in changing this culture or creating greater diversity at schools. In places like North Carolina State University a study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 20 to 1.
As college and university presidents face these shortfalls, it is time for legislators and donors to demand real proof of diversity in hiring and a change in the culture of these institutions. Otherwise, schools like Oregon will continue to close dorms as they push wokeness over wisdom.
Four thoughts.
1. The first course for many new college students is Hate 101, which is more like a catechism than an academic adventure.
2. Faculty recruitment committees are more like a Inquisitory boards, always seeking purity in the candidates’ wokeism, now a secular religion.
3. While this worked for a generation or two, citizens have grown tired of their children regarding activism as a career choice.
4. The problem is that in Oregon, wokeism has become like their forest-living nemesis, the pine bark beetle. It has burrowed in, and is now killing its future crop of people.
Professor Turley’s claims about conservatives being “purged” from universities is plain ol’ fashioned BS.
The primary reason for the imbalance of political leanings on college campuses is self-selection. Study after study shows that individuals with conservative political viewpoints simply choose not to pursue PhDs or seek careers in academia at the same rate as liberals.
Remember Conservatives have an aversion to higher education. The anti-intellectualism speaks for itself. Why would they go to do what they are against?
A comprehensive study by political scientists Jon Shields and Joshua Dunn Sr. found that conservatives are vastly more attracted to high-earning, practical sectors like business, law, engineering, and private industry rather than the low-paying, highly grueling track of academic publishing and tenure.
Peer-reviewed data indicates that the political divide begins before anyone steps foot on a university campus. More liberal-leaning high school students choose to attend college and pursue humanities/social science graduate degrees, while conservative students naturally self-select into other career fields. You cannot “purge” a demographic that isn’t applying in the first place.
Turley relies on aggregate, sweeping statistics—such as a Georgetown study showing only 9% of law professors at top schools identify as conservative—to claim an institutional purge. This completely misrepresents how varied academia actually is.
Data compiled by the Heterodox Academy highlights that while the humanities (English, Gender Studies, Sociology) lean heavily left, fields like Economics, Business Administration, Accounting, and STEM fields maintain a significantly higher proportion of moderate and conservative faculty members.
Turley frames the debate as a stark binary: Liberal vs. Conservative. However, a major University of California study on the politics of the professoriate found that a massive chunk of faculty members (upwards of 46%) actually identify as moderates or independents. They are apolitical, centrist professionals who do not participate in culture wars, completely dismantling the “hardened echo chamber” narrative.
Turley seems to be living in an academic bubble of his own making. Likely because he’s only catering to the MAGA crowd.
The west coast became the dumping ground for the detritus of society. The flowers have all wilted and gone to ground.
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) tracking data reveals that public universities are struggling heavily to attract specific types of students, and private universities are taking severe hits.
Private Four-Year Nonprofits: Witnessed a sharp 1.6% drop in undergraduate enrollment, indicating that expensive, non-public institutions are struggling to justify their price tag to families.
Private For-Profits: Dropped by 2.0% in undergraduate counts.
Data compiled in early 2026 indicates that new international student enrollments in the U.S. plummeted by 17%, largely due to shifting global mobility patterns and tightening federal visa restrictions. This has had a devastating impact on large public research universities like the University of Oregon, which rely heavily on out-of-state and international tuition margins to subsidize operations.
The data shows that the students who are pursuing post-secondary education are choosing paths with a quicker, cheaper return on investment, leaving expensive university dormitories empty.
The NSCRC report noted that while 4-year bachelor programs saw a meager 0.9% increase, undergraduate certificate programs spiked by an overwhelming 28.3% since 2021. Isn’t that what conservatives have always promoted?
Students are increasingly choosing trade certificates, vocational credentials, and community college programs (+3.0%) over the traditional, multi-year residential university experience, leaving campus dorm housing underutilized.
This has nothing to do with wokeness. But that didn’t stop professor Turley from implying it without any real evidence to back it up. It’s just another MAGA morsel for griping about issues they barely understand.
Never mind withholding funding. Give the University of Oregon a real sanction, one with substance. Kick them out of the Big 10.
Sigh, Professor Turley sure knows how to spin a good story without proper context or real data. He seems to be a big fan of correlation equals causation ideas. Wow.
Higher education is currently falling off the long-predicted “demographic cliff”—a sharp decline in the college-aged population resulting from the drop in U.S. birth rates during the 2008 financial crisis.
Enrollment is dropping nationwide, regardless of a school’s political reputation. Furthermore, regional economic factors, inflation, and skyrocketing housing costs on the West Coast have heavily impacted out-of-state recruitment, which UO President Karl Scholz explicitly noted as the primary driver of tuition revenue losses. This has nothing to do with wokeness.
Turley writes that “some woke institutions have closed entirely,” framing closures as an ideological purging by the market. However, the exact same economic and demographic forces are forcing conservative, traditional, and faith-based colleges to cut budgets or shut down completely.
If “wokeness” were the sole driver of university collapse, common sense would dictate conservative and deeply traditional campuses would be thriving. Instead, they are closing at an unprecedented rate due to the same financial pressures and there are plenty of examples.
The King’s College (New York): A deeply conservative, Christian liberal arts college that collapsed and canceled all classes due to a severe financial crisis and plummeting enrollment, despite its explicit commitment to traditional values and free-market principles.
Birmingham-Southern College (Alabama): A historic, traditional institution in a deeply conservative state that officially shut down after failing to secure a state-funded loan lifeline to survive its operational deficit.
Fontbonne University (Missouri) & Lourdes University (Ohio): Traditional, faith-based institutions that have faced closure or massive, multi-million dollar structural budget deficits, forcing them to eliminate majors, cut faculty, and close residential halls.
Providence Christian College (California): A conservative Christian college that officially ceased operations, citing insurmountable financial challenges and an inability to maintain sustainable enrollment numbers.
If we use Turley’s correlation equals causation logic these conservatives schools are closing because they are also not diverse enough, they don’t have an adequate number of liberal faculty, right?
I note you refer to “freshmen enrollment” at the University of Oregon as “first-year enrollment.” Refusal to call freshmen as such is one key reason I quit supporting my alma mater, the University of North Carolina, and I encourage you to always use the word “freshmen” in your articles about colleges.
Several years back, I discovered this (about UNC) when I read a letter from the chancellor addressed to alumni, and THREE times, in one very short paragraph, he called freshmen “first-year students.” My first thought was, “Why didn’t the chancellor have an editor review his letter before sending it out? Surely that poor writing style would have been caught?” Then I started looking into it and discovered it had become official policy at UNC to NOT use the word “freshman” anymore (“they’re not all men!”), just as they had previously stopped allowing chairmen and chairwomen of departments to be call such, instead opting for “chairs”! Since then, I have enjoyed telling “student callers”–(i.e., beggars)–exactly why I will not contribute any longer, and I enjoy explaining to them why such usage is so offensive.
If you look at the prospects for jobs in some of the degrees that the colleges offer you may understand why some of the schools are facing enrolment problems. Women’s studies and the like do not have much of a demand these days. It used to be that people and businesses looked at the 4 year degree as a sign of a hard working stick to it knowledgeable person to hire. Not so any more with all the antics that are wildly reported in the press.
The nations demand for the trades is immense and the pay once you are trained is not that bad. A licensed plumber in my area makes $120.00/hour. Not bad for 5 years of training and work and work to get your license. Electricians are another one of the high demand jobs. When and while the project is under way you can stand back and see your work and be proud.
And yes I was a general contractor for 35+ years in residential historic restorations, remodels and additions, so I am prejudiced.
Why do these faculties not know what a shipyard knows? You don’t build what you’re making to traverse a becalmed duck pond. You build to stand up to blue water rogue waves.
On the other hand, Some universities have had explosive growth over the past 12 years. Purdue University had tremendous growth from 2014-2024 to the point of overwhelming the building plans for dorms and off campus housing as well as teaching facilities. So much so that the administration had to drop the admissions for 2026 by approx les than 1 % in oder to pause the growth while facilities caught up. Despite this pause the applications rose another 5% for another record. Main Campus in West Lafayette is approx 56,000 and statewide campuses are up to 108,000. Strong faculty, high level achievements, pruning lightly attended courses and tuition freeze for almost 10 years has made quite a difference. This has also led to a boom in High tech and other business and manufacturing in the surrounding area with marked population growth and a great deal of road building and Traffic. Strange what reasonable cost, moderation, and openness can result in.
Of course the state has grown by an estimated 200,000 (approx) since 2020. No ocean with beaches but then no hurricanes either.
“If we are to protect these bastions of free speech, legislatures will need to play a more active role in addressing the exclusion of both faculty candidates and speakers on public campuses.”
No…those colleges and universities are NOT bastions of free speech. They need to be destroyed….and the buildings bulldozed to the ground….and salt poured on top of the rubble. Terminate the employment of every person on the payroll and refuse them any employment in the new schools.
Then start over, fresh, and return to the traditional standards of free speech, diversity of thought, and tolerance for opposing views and those that hold them. Either one embraces the notion of fairness, equity of thought, and the core foundations of our freedom and concept of government and human rights….or be gone.
There can be no compromise.
When one deals with cancer…excising the tumor is part of the process otherwise it continues to destroy its host.
Click on the story about “Professor” Mireille Miller-Young and check out what passes as a professor these days as she was featured in their black feminist speaker series. This isn’t Mortimer Adler with his Classic Books series teaching young people how to thing by studying the greatest works of our civilization, this is a nasty, whining, coffee klatch of disgruntled mid-wits trying to have a struggle session in order to keep the gravy train rolling.
Want to know how to start life with a low paying job and a $400,000 debt? Get a major studying under nasty, dumb, whining women (or men) that will teach you nothing about how to succeed in life. Think you’re angry at 19, wait until you are 30 after having paid off about 5% of your loan. You will end up like Anonymous, highlighted above, making angry, ageist, classist insults at those of us that have reached a comfortable spot in our lives.
Come On Man – the WHOLE STATE is a Whack Job Asylum. If it Looks Like a Whack, It Sounds like a Whack, and it Quacks like a Whack, it’s probably a WHACK! Bah haha. The Loony Tune State is barreling towards DOOM LOOP and the University of Organ-Failure is the lab rat for what is coming.
George!, George are you out there? Can we get a quote? Did Turley lie about his opinion? Do you have proof that Turley is a liar and intentionally withholds info to make you look bad?
Yes.
Are you going to be able to prove me wrong?
No need to prove you wrong, you do it yourself every day.
We have watched academia morph into blatant intellectual corruption and dishonesty for the last sixty years. I remember the Vietnam era college campus. I was a student then. Professors went insanely left. Their pressure on the administrators forced the entire school to the hard left. Sixty years of leftist dominance, doctrine and classroom indoctrination has perfected the progressive, socialist product. Oregon is its own example. It screams dysfunction. It doesn’t strive to teach, it indoctrinates. It doesn’t train, it intimidates students into submission. It doesn’t open minds, it closes them. It’s goal is not to be a forum for ideas, but rather a factory for Group Think. Let it wither away. Let the place and the hideous malformation it has become be relegated to the dustbin of history. Let it be a museum of failure. An example of what not to be.
I think a phone call to George and Alex Soros is in order.
University of Chicago is as woke as others. For sure in their hiring practices.
woke… because yo say so. Clearly you are a stuip_d person. Maybe not even a person, an idiot most likely.
Ranting again? At some point in your life, you’ll wish you had been more open to alternative opinions.
Maybe the university could dip into the bank of NIL money Nike spends on the Ducks’ football program.
Oregon extreme Liberal/Woke policies as a State and University have ruined the state and university. No wonder their are parts of the state want to leave Oregon and join Idaho. Perhaps the University should seek funds from the financial backers of Antifa and other radical groups for a bail out.