I guess they should teach for free?

Unless they have the money to fund the school without the donors, then perhaps they should just act like everyone else who has a job and do what the people who are paying you tell you to do.

The undersigned faculty members of the University of Pennsylvania unambiguously reject the view that the Board of Trustees, the Schools’ Boards of Advisors, alumni, or donors should determine Penn’s academic priorities or governance policies. The Faculty Handbook makes abundantly clear that the Board of Trustees delegates the management of the University to the President and the decision-making process to the shared governance of faculty, staff, and students (Section 1.A.). The current efforts of some members of the broader Penn community to reverse our longstanding governance structure threatens the freedom of the faculty to conduct independent and academically rigorous research and teaching. Penn’s academic excellence is built upon decades of shared governance in which the faculty play a central role in crafting policies around teaching, research, and all other aspects of our University’s academic mission, grounded in the principles of academic freedom and open expression. These principles and policies strengthen our process of knowledge creation and dissemination, while making our institution one of the foremost leaders in higher education in the U.S. and globally. We oppose all attempts by trustees, donors, and other external actors to interfere with our academic policies and to undermine academic freedom.

In other words, the faculty wants to keep teaching social wokeness, pushing politics, and being antisemitic without interference from anyone else. No surprise there. One of the most common themes of being a woke liberal these days is the thinking that your opinions are the most important things in the entire world, and you need to be allowed to express them 24/7 without any interference or consequences from anyone. While they love to cancel others and demand everyone conform to their beliefs, the second they are called out for behavior or told they have to conform, they have a meltdown. They behave like a little child who didn't get the candy bar at the grocery checkout.

I guess this should not come as a surprise, but it's hard when as we keep being reminded of exactly how out of touch with reality these people really are. They live in their little bubble where they believe that this woke behavior and teaching of such is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that they must be nearly universally worshipped for their great contribution to society. They really don't seem to get that most of the world and most of the country simply thinks they are spoiled academia who have little understanding of how the actual world works. They are collectively seen as the business professor from "Back to School" who bickered with Rodney Dangerfield over how the "legitimate business world" works. But lord forbid they actually see this.

The most interesting paradox of all of this is that college professors actually seem to believe that funding and support outside of the faculty should have no say in running a school. I mean, in essence that is exactly what the letter suggests. They are literally telling their bosses that they are not "the boss over them". You know, like a little child might say to another child who wants them to do something. But the problem is that the board of regents are literally in charge of the broad direction of a school and the people who are voluntarily funding much of this are simply going to have a say. Sometimes the board of regents have to make the tough call, even if it goes against their own personal feelings.

Case in point. Recently the University of Wisconsin regents unexpectedly voted (9-8) to reject a proposal from the state which would cost them nearly a billion dollars in funding (I wrote about this). It was unexpected as a couple of voters changed from "yes" to "no" almost at the last second as some sort of statement move that made no business sense. This left them with what was going to be some very hard choices over cuts and layoffs and left them without being able to provide promised raises for the faculty that they were supposed to be supporting. Apparently, there were enough board members on that board that put ideology over their business needs, figuring that it was more important to remain woke than garner funding.

Fortunately, the board held another vote a few days later and accepted the deal, claiming that they had not had sufficient time to discuss the proposal and potential problems with rejecting the offer. They "vowed" to keep diversity and such a priority even as the proposal repurposed many of the employees of the DEI to help all students and froze any new hiring for DEI. Like what happened at Penn, much of the faculty was upset with the fact that business took precedent over their precious ideology, as if the $800 billion dollars in funding was not an important piece of the puzzle. Like the Penn faculty, they seem to have very little practical understanding of how a business work.

Ultimately this is the decision that many schools will need to make. Either they can continue being woke institutes that teach liberal ideology to students, or they can go back to being teaching institutions where they prepare students to find work and function in the real world. They just have to understand that if they want to be former, that they will need to figure out how to fund their ideology without the support of the State or their donors in many cases. More importantly however, is if they want to go back to being the latter, then they will need to find some faculty who has a general basic understanding of how business and the real-world works. Because the current faculty at most of these universities don't have this understanding. That, unfortunately, might take some time.