A national higher education watchdog says the University of New Mexico-Albuquerque is falling badly short on free expression, viewpoint diversity and intellectual openness, giving the state’s flagship university credit for just three out of 20 measures in a new campus free speech report card.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, or ACTA, released its latest Gold Standard for Freedom of Expression evaluation for UNM on August 18. The report is part of ACTA’s Campus Freedom Initiative, which reviews universities against a 20-point plan the organization says is designed to restore “higher education’s commitment to excellence and open inquiry.”
UNM did not fare well.
According to ACTA, UNM receives credit for only three of the 20 Gold Standard measures. The organization said its research highlights UNM’s strengths in protecting free expression, but also identifies “areas it must work on to improve the student experience.”
The three areas where UNM received credit were limited. ACTA gave the university marks for encouraging student groups devoted to free expression, civil discourse or a plurality of perspectives; establishing policies that protect free expression rights on campus and set clear consequences for disruption of sponsored speakers, events and classes; and reviewing student government policies to ensure viewpoint neutrality in student group recognition and funding.
Everywhere else, according to the report card, UNM came up short.
ACTA says UNM has not adopted the Chicago Principles on Freedom of Expression or a similarly strong statement. It also faults the university for lacking clear free expression expectations in student and faculty handbooks and codes of conduct, failing to include a free expression unit in new-student orientations, and not adopting an institutional neutrality policy such as the Kalven Report.
The watchdog also says UNM does not sponsor campus debates that model civil discourse and does not enforce policies protecting free expression rights with clear consequences for disruptions.
The criticism continues in ACTA’s section on intellectual diversity. UNM received no credit for encouraging presidents, provosts and deans to model respect for a broad range of viewpoints; guaranteeing viewpoint diversity in student life policies; supporting academic centers dedicated to free inquiry and intellectual diversity; or ensuring faculty hiring, evaluation and promotion are based on merit while making clear the institution is open to intellectual diversity.
In the “break down barriers to free expression” category, ACTA says UNM has not eliminated speech and IT policies that have a chilling effect on free expression, has not ensured Title VI, Title VII and Title IX enforcement does not infringe on free expression, and has not disbanded bias response teams.
UNM also received no credit in ACTA’s leadership accountability category. The group says the university has not included free expression commitments in key institutional documents, has not made free expression a criterion in searches and evaluations for top administrators, has not required free expression and viewpoint diversity training for administrative staff, and has not conducted regular surveys to assess the state of free expression and intellectual diversity on campus.
The organization describes itself as launched in 1995 and says it works with alumni, donors, trustees and education leaders to support liberal arts education, high academic standards, the free exchange of ideas and affordable, high-quality college education.
InfluenceWatch describes ACTA as a “conservative-leaning organization” that encourages trustees, alumni and donors to take a more active role in setting university policy. The left-wing Media Bias/Fact Check (so, take this with a grain of salt) rates ACTA as right-biased with “Mixed” factual reporting, citing its conservative advocacy, lack of donor transparency and one-sided reporting, while also noting it has no recorded fact-check failures.
But those caveats do not erase the substance of the UNM report card.
The central finding is straightforward: by ACTA’s standards, UNM has not built a serious institutional framework for free speech, viewpoint diversity or academic neutrality. Instead, the university received credit for only a small handful of procedural protections while failing most of the group’s broader tests for an open campus culture.
For New Mexicans, the report raises obvious questions. If the state’s flagship public university is funded by taxpayers and serves students from across the ideological spectrum, why has it not adopted stronger protections for free expression? Why has it not embraced institutional neutrality? Why are regular campus surveys on intellectual diversity not already standard practice?
ACTA’s report does not accuse UNM of being the worst campus in America. It does something more specific: it measures the university against a detailed free-expression checklist and finds it badly lacking.
In an era when universities increasingly face criticism for ideological conformity, DEI bureaucracy, shout-downs, bias reporting systems and administrative activism, UNM’s 3-out-of-20 score is not a small warning sign.
It is a failing grade from a group that believes universities should be places where ideas are debated, not managed by bureaucracy.
Here is “Higher Education”…..College is a waste of time and money.
For the most part yes especially when you have stuff like this going on. This kind of nonsense is what turns off intellectual thinkers. Not much has changed since the late 1980s. Professor Berthold would literally bully Christians on the first day of class of History 101. Basically he would say if you’re a Christian I want you to stand up and would just spew his vitriol towards Christianity. Oh yeah he had freedom of speech but you better not do anything if you disagree. UNM finally fired him after 9/11 when he said America deserved to be attacked. But this is what is out on the campus. We saw the hatred towards Riley Gaines when she came to UNM a couple years ago. UNM charged her a thousand bucks for security because the absolute hatred of standing up for women’s sports was so prevalent on the campus. Other groups aren’t charged for security. But UNM made sure to penalize her and Turning Point USA.
yes they did “fire” him, but I think it did take a national tragedy that a majority of the nation united behind in contradistinction to the majority of the faculty and staff whose sympathies then and today lie with the very non free speech, for ideologically intolerant -isms they like so much. Berthold like to claim he was the epitome of western civilization (he had chances to “teach it” ) western philosophy but as you find out he did not like the christian religion in general. He paraded around campus mostly unclothed with a loin cloth on. Otherwise he was decent.
No, but like it has been for a long time, a Liberal Arts degree (or any of them in a non-technical or scientific field) simply show that the graduate had the money, patience, and determination to spend another 4 years in generally boring classes doing work and learning things that he/she should have learned before graduating from high school.
shut down UNM law. it produces subversives that the fools in NM elect to run the state legislature. the elected lawyers then rig state laws to financially benefit themselves. as an added plus they get the sweetheart pension deal which was just increased – is it almost double what it was now ? NM a backwards downtrodden state with no interest in improvement or advancement. as for UNM itself, it has long been known for refusing to let conservatives speak on campus – for “security” reasons. the security reasons are caused by liberal imbeciles who have no impulse control and threaten violence and anarchy, aka progressive liberal students.
The people here love their communism, and this is what this is, it is a form of communism. It can never be broken at this point; the people have allowed it to go too far. It will self-destruct as all other empires in history have. And this will only hurt the innocents in NM, including the animals being cared for.
I agree that UNM Law school should be closed, as well as ALL law schools in the country!. We have too many lawyers, as demonstrated by the fact that 3/4 of the billboards along I-25 are advertising for law firms (a practice that was considered unethical and unprofessional 30 years ago). Courts have become playgrounds for lawyers arguing on legal points and precedent rather than on the facts of the case, or guilt-or-innocence and advertising how much they have gotten their clients in lawsuits, making the populace suit-happy (and driving away the victims).
They have also become breeding grounds for (generally) liberal and activist judges and politicians.
Easy fix, 1/3 of the faculty should be either conservative or liberal/progressive. Failure to meet this requirement means the loss of state funding. Steps must be made to ensure folks are not just switching sides to meet this requirement. Students should be able to report professors or faculty that belittle anyone or do not allow individual views. Multiple substantiated reports (done by both sides) regardless of tenure, should have professors or faculty punished if not fired. We are in a state where liberal/progressives are not the majority but they run the majority of the state. That is just wrong, it is also a result of our poor schools from primary to university. What as citizens are we doing about it?
The people here in NM have done and will do nothing about it. The state loves the university because it bows down to their ideological practices. The state has taken place of the church, here in NM. When you have over 60% employed by City, County and State gov’t, you’ll never achieve balance unless the People demand it from their representatives. But this can only happen with a moral and educated people; which NM has no longer any because they remain silent. Your silence is your acquiescence. Maybe it will change tomorrow.
This is a total sucess…you must realize that college has no need to teach , just extend the indoctrination of years of uncontrolled daycare, gov ed and liberal parents/media. The use rate of a degree in ” the social impact of autistic lgbyqxyz ×+ ballet” is hardly a marketable or contributary skill. Look at aoc, bartender, owes 50k of our money in loans, but the hero of the “resist “tribe. The reason for illegals is to do the actual work unm grads cant/wont do. Proving again that “progressive intellectuals”are the true racists…and lazy.
Calling college higher education is like calling abortion healthcare.