GOP Platform’s bright spot: Protecting free speech on campus, stopping ideological bias

The Republican Party platform for 2016 includes plans to combat issues in higher education and free speech on college campuses, among others.

In the 66 pages of the GOP’s platform, in addition to free speech, other higher educations issues are addressed such as federal financial aid, liberalism on campuses, political indoctrination, and the need to encourage new systems of learning to complement traditional four-year colleges.

The GOP’s platform emphasizes that while private colleges and universities have the freedom to decide what to teach their students, public institutions should not promote the liberal agenda because they are funded by taxpayers.

“Our colleges, universities, and trade schools … form the world’s greatest assemblage of learning,” but “their excellence is being undermined by an ideological bias deeply entrenched within the current university system,” the platform stated.

The platform said the trustees of state schools “have a responsibility to the taxpayers to ensure that their enormous investment is not abused for political indoctrination.”