Justus For All

I agree with you that private colleges shouldn’t be told what they can do by the government. But a college shouldn’t receive tax dollars with no strings attached.

I certainly understand the logic of if you take the money you are obligated to follow the rules logic. To an extent, I even agree with it. I have two problems with this though.

First off, we as a society agreed to provide money to educational facilities and individuals in order to recieve the benefits of educated people in our society, not to support equal gender programs or military recruitment. These may be worthy goals, but the are decidedly secondary to the primary purpose of higher education funding. I would certainly support the idea that if you don’t meet given standards of education you don’t get the money. Adding on secondary items is a different thing entirely though.

Secondly, federal funding for higher education distorts the market. It makes it reletively unfeasible for any higher learning institution to be able to compete without receipt of federal funds. This combined with the principle of if you take the money you must follow the rules idea gives the federal government an effective monopoly on determining the characteristics of higher education.

As I said, I am not against Title 9 or the Solomon amendment as far as the goals they have. However, I am not positive that all uses of this power will be as benign. I would suppose that congress could pass a law demanding that all biology students be taught intelligent design as well as evolution, for example. Or that a law could be made demanding all students take an anti-gun class. The possibilities are endless, and I don’t necessarily trust the federal government with that type of control.