Former Governor Weighs In on the Future of DEI at Davidson

By James (Jim) Martin '57

The Davidsonian

February 26, 2025


As a loyal alumnus, I love Davidson College. There are few things here that I don’t love. Perhaps you feel the same, for similar or different reasons.


While privileged to teach chemistry here for twelve years, I got into politics as a Mecklenburg County Commissioner. For five decades since retiring from the faculty to become a member of the US Congress, I followed Davidson mostly in passive ways. My annual giving was modest until I was in a position to increase my donation and deliver a significant gift from Duke Energy while on its Board.


This and generous friends endowed Professor Malcolm Campbell’s multidisciplinary Genomics Program and a chair in chemistry honored to support Professor Erland Stevens. While Governor of North Carolina, I received an honorary degree and spoke at graduation.


All this is a self-aggrandizing way to say I’m part of Davidson College and fully committed to helping it become the best it can be.


This was tested when our Trustees decided that the President and the majority of Trustees need no longer be Christian. I joined eleven other former Trustees in a statement objecting to what we believed would undermine Davidson’s tradition and Statement of Purpose. This angered some alumni, especially recent graduates. You might be amused at how many defended the change simply by denouncing us as “old white men.” This trifling trifecta of accursed identity was true, but ignored thoughtful reasoning.


This drew me to an even smaller, unofficial group of concerned alumni, Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse (www.dftdunite.org). Since 2018, its founders had petitioned Davidson College to adopt the Chicago Principles on Freedom of Expression. Pleading from a conservative viewpoint, they got little respect. Even with support from hundreds of alumni representing a wider range of interests, ages and viewpoints, DFTD continued to be disregarded.


In 2021, President Carol Quillen heeded a similar appeal from several faculty members, whose interests weren’t aligned with ours. She appointed me to a group of six chaired by Professor Issac Bailey to compose a Davidson vision for academic freedom of expression reflecting Davidson’s commitment to ideals of diversity.


The resulting document containing every element of the Chicago Principles was deferred until the arrival of new President Doug Hicks. With his calm inspiration, earnest discussions among faculty won growing acceptance. In early 2023, “Davidson’s Commitment to Freedom of Expression” was affirmed by a nearly unanimous vote.


DFTD found ways to support greater diversity of viewpoints on campus. A student chapter of Free Speech Alliance was founded and DFTD was pleased to provide funding for their and others’ invited speakers. This led individual students to entrust us with suspected violations of their academic freedom.


Most alarmingly, we heard about several dozen academic courses with syllabi requiring students to confess themselves “oppressors,” repent and atone . . . religious conditions irrelevant to the subject matter. Ironically, DEI is Latin for “gods.”


We learned from other students about an astonishing “mandatory” order that all Davidson athletes attend a one-sided, provocative documentary entitled, “I’m not Racist…am I?” Its message? If you are white, you are racist. If you’re non-white, you can’t be racist. Melanin matters.


While we don’t object to anyone studying such controversial notions, we protested the coercive way highly partisan objectives were imposed as a condition for participating. After several months with no assurance that our concerns were taken seriously, we reported this to our subscribers. Our purpose was to bring about a remedy, not punish or accuse any individual as was making national headlines at other schools. We figured some may have felt they were doing what was expected of them.


One of us mentioned this campus issue in an interview on Fox News. This exploded into far wider circulation than we had foreseen or intended. Faculty and administration were flooded with vile communications from hundreds of anonymous individuals. At the time, this threatened to damage the reputation of Davidson College as well as DFTD, likely among opposing factions. I see no consequent injury against the College today, and DFTD’s standing has become more respected or tolerated even among some who dispute us.


We made a point to welcome Dr. Chloe Poston as DEI Vice President at Davidson. She listened to our encouragement to explore ways to reform those abuses. Was it fair, in the cause of including diversity, to blame students for past discriminatory practices for which they bore no personal responsibility?


We were pleased to discover, not long after the fall term began, that every course whose syllabus had defamed students as “oppressors” had dropped the insulting indoctrination. To us, this was good news, reflecting a less divisive and more welcoming attitude on campus.


We commend those among faculty, administration, and students whose thoughtful contributions led to these corrections. Other reforms may need attention. Do any departments still require DEI allegiance in ways that filter out conservative scholars? Do students or faculty still feel intimidated to self-censor their thoughts and questions? Will Davidson adopt institutional neutrality for ideological controversies?


There’s now the question whether Davidson‘s more welcoming, less doctrinaire approach to inclusion of a wider diversity of attributes, cultures and viewpoints will survive the national backlash against DEI. The federal government has declared a campaign to eradicate any trace of it.


Among our DFTD membership we’ve learned to respect divergent views among friends, but I can tell you there is division over this. Some are convinced the same old divisive malpractices will simply be continued behind new titles, concealing the enforcement of identity politics. Others trust that Davidson’s new approach can be a positive model for others.


Davidson can demonstrate a standard of healthier assurance that every student, without regard to their culture, religion, attitude, politics or appearance, will be genuinely welcomed and encouraged to grow intellectually, socially and spiritually. Large universities with massive DEI staffing must choose to fold or fight. If Davidson can restore diversity’s original ideals without the partisan excesses, other elite colleges might choose to defend this more sensible approach.


The Davidsonian 2/26/25 by Davidsonian - Issuu

Where Liberty and Learning Endure

June 29, 2026
As America commemorates 250 years of independence, we reflect on the enduring principles of liberty and learning that have defined Davidson College for nearly two centuries.

Bankruptcy and Higher Education

June 21, 2026
By Todd Zywicki The Wall Street Journal June 21, 2026 Auburn University is known for its agricultural and STEM programs, its flight school and athletic programs. But the land-grant university recently became notable for another reason: The board of trustees is taking control of the school back from its faculty. The board began seizing the university’s academic programs—including curriculum, course offerings, degree requirements and academic credentials—at its June 5 meeting. The board also dissolved the faculty senate and replaced it with an advisory council to the president, which includes two faculty members from each of the university’s colleges and additional members appointed by the president. The board’s assertion of authority mirrors incoming mandates by the Alabama Legislature restricting the role of faculty senates in the state’s public university system. Predictably, Auburn’s faculty has responded with howls of outrage, decrying these intrusions on the faculty’s authority over academic operations. How could outsiders appointed through a political process have the expertise to make such delicate decisions? I’ve been a professor at a state university for almost 30 years, and I am sympathetic up to a point. But before becoming a professor I was a bankruptcy lawyer. And bankruptcy law teaches an important lesson for how academia can respond to this moment. Bankruptcy gives businesses an opportunity to admit mistakes, reform and emerge stronger. Successful enterprises don’t need bankruptcy lawyers. But when an enterprise loses its way, it goes into receivership. Most universities aren’t financially bankrupt but have lost their mission and direction. Society has long recognized certain institutions’ authority to manage their own affairs. Two notable examples are licensed professionals—such as doctors and lawyers—and universities. Universities, even state universities, have run their enterprises with minimal external oversight. Faculties enjoyed substantial rights of self-governance because they committed to higher standards than those required by ordinary jobs. Professors would establish and maintain standards of scholarly integrity, freedom of speech and inquiry, and rigorous dedication to merit-based assessment of research in specialized areas. They policed their own house, enforcing norms of truth-seeking, maintaining scholarly integrity and rigor, and ensuring that students emerged with basic knowledge, employable skills and civic competency. But over the past several decades, commitment to those values collapsed. Surveys by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression consistently reveal fear among students and faculty around expressing unfashionable ideas. Universities have seen shout-downs, cancellations and even violence against speakers. Merit and quality yielded to “diversity” and “equity.” Truth-seeking has been displaced by faddish theories and ideologically charged teaching and research. Professors design esoteric departments and teach niche classes to cliques of activist students while the needs of other students and taxpayers for real education go unaddressed. Like companies I represented, universities have lost their way. And many have proved either unable or unwilling to self-correct. When that happens, it is appropriate to put institutions into receivership until they reform and rededicate themselves to their mission. At Auburn incoming students must now take certain required civics and history courses to master basic competency in U.S. history and government. To ensure the classes actually meet that objective, professors will have to make their syllabi publicly available. In the classroom, instructors will be expected to stick to the matter at hand and avoid free-ranging political punditry. Just as other companies can learn from the ones that go bankrupt, other institutions of higher education can learn something from Auburn: Fix what’s broken, or someone else might fix it for you. Mr. Zywicki is a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He was a Dartmouth College trustee, 2005-09. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/bankruptcy-and-higher-education-4c2b178e

Race Preferences Are Falling Nationwide

June 19, 2026
By the Editorial Board The Wall Street Journal June 19, 2026 The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against racial preferences is turning out to be a landmark with profound consequences as its influence spreads. On Thursday the famously progressive Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a state program that issued scholarships based on race violates the U.S. Constitution. Justice Annette Ziegler wrote for the court that the Constitution requires “that every person ‘must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,’” and that the state cannot “use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.” That must have been painful for the activist liberal majority on the court. In a concurrence, Wisconsin Chief Justice Jill Karofsky took some shots at Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College (2023) before acknowledging that “I am bound by the precedent set forth in SFFA” and other Supreme Court rulings “when interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment.” The case was brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty against a 1985 Badger State law that reserved need-based scholarships through a grant program for “Black American,” “American Indian,” “Hispanic” and some Southeast Asian undergraduate students enrolled in Wisconsin’s private and technical colleges. Last week the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a scholarship program earmarked for black University of Iowa students studying physical sciences was “impracticable” under SFFA. State governments would be wise to repeal these discriminatory grant programs, or the courts will do it for them.
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