If Davidson College is to become an institution where open and critical debate on ideological issues is central to the search for truth, it is essential that its Board of Trustees be diverse ideologically and that the Board’s operating rules feature open dissent and respect for divergent views—the goal being to arrive at consensus based on fact-based airing of all sides of an issue.

We strongly recommend that the Executive and Nominating Committees of the Board be ideologically diverse.

While the process by which board members are selected is kept confidential, we urge that one of the Board nominating committee’s priority assignments be making the body broadly representative of the viewpoint diversity of the alumni community and the country at large.

The strength of America’s higher education system rests in independent governing boards. Trustees must be more than boosters and fundraisers: they must be active and engaged fiduciaries, reviewing and benchmarking the work of faculty and administrators. 

We believe that Davidson’s governance would be enhanced with the following steps: to improve accountability and effectiveness: 

• Reduce the size of the Board of Trustees to no more than 20.
• Make career accomplishment, business acumen, and deep understanding of long-term issues facing small liberal arts colleges the principal criteria for Board member selection.
• Improve through commissioned external independent assessments the information the Board needs to do its job.

The available evidence from voter registration data, political contributions, and student reports indicates that the faculty of Davidson is heavily Democratic (with Republicans constituting a very small minority). The current faculty is liberal/left-of-center, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, the faculty is substantially more Democratic and ideologically liberal than the student body. 

We believe that Davidson’s commitment to teaching students how to think critically, evaluate competing arguments, and form their own judgments would be strengthened by the College diversifying its faculty ideologically. Such diversification would be a major step towards realizing the intent of the College’s Commitment to Freedom of Expression. And diversification would help spur the sort of soul-searching faculty committee report produced this year at Yale, making recommendations for addressing mission drift, excessive cost, grade inflation, political and intellectual conformity, administrative growth, and technology and diminished human engagement at Yale. (Report of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education: https://president.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2026-04/Report-of-the-Committee-on-Trust-in-Higher-Education.pdf)

We recognize the institutional challenges to faculty ideological diversification and suggest that Davidson’s new Institute for Public Good can provide the pathway for diversification—a role that similar civic institutes at other universities are performing. We have offered to collaborate with the college on such an initiative and provided a list of qualified candidates the college should consider inviting to the campus as either a Visiting Professor or permanent faculty. In short, through the Institute initially, conservative faculty should be hired and more conservative speakers invited to campus. We would suggest at a minimum that two DFTD board members be included in the Institute’s Advisory Board. 

When colleges and universities take positions on social or political issues officially, they weaken the conditions for open debate and chill the speech of would-be dissenters on campus. We urge that Davidson adopt its own version of the 1967 University of Chicago Kalven Report, which provides that colleges and universities should not, as institutions, take positions on social and political issues unless those issues threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. Instead, these discussions should be left to students and faculty. 

The Institutional Neutrality Policy adopted by Johns Hopkins University in 2024 is a good recent model to consider (https://president.jhu.edu/messages/2024/08/15/on-institutional-statements-from-the-university/). Such a policy at Davidson would be a safeguard against mission drift towards politicization and social activism and would strengthen the College’s obligation to foster a diversity of perspectives on campus.

Davidson would be in good company in adopting an Institutional Neutrality policy, as upwards of 100 US universities and colleges have already adopted such policies, including Harvard, Stanford, UNC, Vanderbilt, Purdue, UPenn, UVA, Yale, Washington University, Dartmouth, Colgate, Brown, Tulane, Tufts, and Barnard. 

While we appreciate that Davidson College has in recent years, chosen institutional restraint on political matters, this is not known as College policy to alumni. Formal Adoption of Institutional Neutrality would ease the concerns of many alumni who strongly oppose a politicized and activist campus.  

Davidson currently offers 74 majors, and students can graduate with credits from a wide variety of courses without necessarily having acquired the core knowledge and values needed for leading productive work lives. We urge that the College reinstate a Core Curriculum anchored on the major works and ideas of Western Civilization, and that successful completion of this curriculum be a graduation requirement for all. The aim of the core curriculum should be giving students a common education in the knowledge and principles they need to become educated citizens.

A model to consider is the Core Curriculum of the University of Texas at Austin.(https://jamesgmartin.center/2026/09/ut-austin-puts-the-core-back-in-core-curriculum/)

Recognizing the challenges of a major change in curriculum at Davidson, we envision the Institute for Public Good as being fertile ground for testing out the new curriculum and assessing its appeal to students and faculty. 

An accountable educational institution should be transparent regarding what it teaches. Students should be well informed on course content before they sign up; parents should be aware of what their children are being taught; and donors should be informed on the uses of their contributions. Yet, Davidson does not permit non-students to view syllabi posted on its website, and students have access only once they have signed up for a course.

We advise that course syllabi be viewable by all Davidson.edu website visitors, and that they contain information on any mandatory ideological requirements. The latter is particularly important for subjects in STEM that are non-ideological in principle.

During the 2020 pandemic, many higher education institutions, including Davidson College, ceased requiring the SAT/ACT tests for admissions. The current trend among elite institutions is to reinstate the tests as part of the admissions process. Those doing so in the 2026 or 2027 admissions cycles include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Columbia, U Penn, MIT, Stanford, CalTech, Georgetown, and Notre Dame. And public universities in North Carolina, Florida, and elsewhere have done the same. 

Three considerations have provoked the policy turnaround. First, internal studies at Dartmouth, MIT, and Brown found that standardized test scores are the most reliable predictor of first-year academic performance—in part because of rampant grade inflation in secondary education. Second, test scores help admissions officers identify high-potential students from under-resourced schools who might otherwise be passed over because their applications lacked the polish of better-resourced peers. And thirdly, the absence of test scores has forced admissions officers to weigh other factors more heavily, and those factors (recommendations, essays, activity profiles) have been shown to be more correlated with family socioeconomic resources than SAT/ACT scores are. Schools simply found that test-optional admissions had not produced the equity gains that had been the original justification for the policy.

Given the strong body of evidence that a test-optional policy is counter-productive, we advise that Davidson—on grounds of both educational excellence and equity—restore the SAT/ACT test admissions requirement.

A particularly vexing problem in higher education for many years is grade inflation (https://gradeinflation.com/)—which scholars like Richard Vedder argue is the predominant single factor in the precipitous decline in student learning in American colleges and universities.  

The limited publicly available data indicate that the mean GPA at Davidson increased by around 19 percent over the last 20 years. The problem is also evident in the high proportion of Davidson graduates accorded honors degrees each year, as reported by economics professor emeritus and Dean of the Faculty Clark Ross.

With the current GPA average at Davidson being 3.72, it appears the college is violating its own Honor Code. The true “A” student is being deprived of appropriate recognition while many others less qualified for distinction benefit from “equity” adjustments to their true grades. This is not right and impugns Davidson’s reputation for Honor and Integrity. The fact that other institutions grade-inflate is no defense: two wrongs do not make a right. And employers should be able to rely on transcripts received from the College. At present, this does not appear to be the case.  

The negative effects of grade inflation are well documented, and some institutions are trying out possible solutions. Harvard is currently instituting a cap on “A” grades and a system for evaluating honors degrees; Yale is considering a common grading standard; and a faculty committee at Dartmouth is examining grading and assessment. Princeton infamously instituted guidelines to control grade inflation in 2004, only to abandon them in 2014, apparently due to student and administrative pressures. 

Whatever the challenges, we urge that Davidson take a leadership role in addressing this problem, noting that in doing so, it would set itself apart from the pack of competing elite institutions. Employers would certainly take note that a high GPA from Davidson actually means something, and the College could use this as one of its attractions to applicants.

DFTD heartily endorses Davidson’s efforts to create an environment in which students from different backgrounds can participate and succeed. However, we objected to the creation of Davidson’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office in 2024—our main concern being that while equality of opportunity for all at Davidson is a vital objective, an implicit goal of equal results for all works against high academic standards and is demeaning to the very people it is meant to benefit.

Prominent African American academics like Shelby Steele have long argued that racial-preference and diversity programs reinforce racial consciousness, encourage victim-centered identities, and allow institutions to demonstrate moral innocence without solving underlying educational problems. Liberal Columbia University linguist and New York Times columnist John McWhorter maintains that DEI programs have become centered on fighting “whiteness” and calls for eliminating their ideological excesses. Brown University economist Glenn Loury argues that university DEI programs are generally intellectually hollow, bureaucratic, and based on treating racial disparities as proof of discrimination. He favors equal citizenship, intellectual independence, and attention to behavioral and economic causes of inequality. Economist Thomas Sowell views DEI as a dangerous fallacy that replaces merit, and individual potential with administrative force and group quotas.

In response to criticisms such as these and national civil rights law issues, higher education institutions across the country are closing their DEI programs or reshaping them to conform clearly with civil rights law. The institutions doing so thus far include MIT, Emory University, UVA, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, the UNC System, and the University of Texas System. 18 other states have enacted legislation restricting DEI offices or initiatives in public higher education. Numerous private universities have removed DEI statements, changed hiring procedures, or renamed offices (albeit not always changing the underlying operation).

The College’s Honor Code mandates equality of treatment and inclusiveness. It does not abide discrimination, but DEI does-- as evidenced by the mandatory I am Not Racist Am I? film which was itself racist and divisive. DEI is a political acronym which must be jettisoned by the college. The focus should be on Honor and Integrity, not required equity outcomes. In our view, as pertains DEI, the proverbial road to Hell is paved with good intentions that are misplaced and need to be discarded. 

DFTD applauds Davidson vice president for DEI Chloe Poston’s work to create spaces where all individuals can thrive and contribute their best and to ensure that all departments operate within the parameters of federal civil rights law. But we think it wise that the College does not continue a formal Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The term itself is now radioactive as a misnomer for unconstitutional and misplaced affirmative action, and the strategy is increasingly discredited for its divisiveness and lack of visible results.

By any measure, a 4-year education at Davidson is a costly undertaking—now approaching $400,000. While this sum is not out of line with the costs of other elite colleges, it is symptomatic of the run-away inflation in higher education costs over the last 30 years. Davidson’s annual sticker price rose from approximately $28,000 in 1999–2000 to almost $93,000 in 2026–27. That is a nominal increase of about 4.5% compounded annually, while the national general inflation rate over the same period was 3.0%. Notably, the fastest recent Davidson cost increase—6.7%--was for 2026-27.

With respect for higher education in the U.S. today at an all-time low, many recent college graduates unable to find and keep jobs, less privileged families losing ground in American society, the college-age population falling, and the AI revolution  threatening many entry-level jobs, the question has to be asked: does Davidson not have a moral and strategic obligation to undertake a thorough examination of its costs, with the aim of identifying ways to control costs to no more than that of the general inflation rate? If faculty salaries need to be raised to retain talent, should not compensating cuts be made in other areas, e.g., administration? 

Davidson has been fortunate, given its endowment and donor giving, to be able to subsidize student bills so that its high costs are not felt directly by most students and families. But other high-cost institutions like Princeton now find themselves having to cut budgets drastically. Some universities are reported to have borrowed from their endowments. The long-term outlook for every private higher education is different, and Princeton’s predicament and that of smaller and less wealthy troubled private colleges may not be bell weathers for Davidson. But they should be taken at the least as cautionary tales. 

Accordingly, DFTD urges the Board of Trustees to commission an independent McKinsey-level examination of Davidson’s cost structure to identify the chief drivers of the college’s inflation and recommend steps to reign them in. We suspect that particular attention needs to be given to factors such as the administrative staff/faculty ratio; spending on amenities vs. education; the long-term operating costs of expensive new buildings; and the proliferation of courses and majors with limited enrollment. Stress testing Davidson’s business model against possible national and regional economic, financial markets, and demographic scenarios is strongly advised.