State auditor Shad White has recently taken to portraying himself as an anti-diversity anti-intellectual, apparently an attempt to overcome whatever political liability might arise from being a Harvard-educated Rhodes Scholar married to an equally intelligent wife whose family immigrated from India, a country whose ambassador was refused services at a Jackson cafeteria in the 1960s because of the color of his skin.
It is worth noting that White’s Rhodes Scholarship was awarded based in part on geographical diversity. Its founder saw an education advantage to bringing together students from different parts of the world, a vision similar to that of our university administrators who see an advantage to bringing together students from different backgrounds on their Mississippi campuses, which is something White now criticizes.
Now White has found fault with some of the liberal arts courses our universities offer. Not only are these new attacks illogical, but in his hands they also run contrary to the state constitution and maybe even the federal constitution as well.
White’s latest salvo reports the well-known fact that graduates in STEM subjects, such as engineering, make more money than liberal arts graduates, some of whom, like White, go on to law school. He reports that in the years after college, engineering graduates make $71,000 a year, three times the salary of an anthropology graduate. From this he reasons that the state needs to put more money in engineering education and less in liberal arts courses so Mississippi will have more high-paying workers.
But his report admits that only 36% of the state’s engineering graduates can find jobs that will keep them in Mississippi. If there are only jobs for 36% of the current crop, it is difficult to see how producing more of that crop will help Mississippi. We already produce about three times more than we can keep. Promoting STEM subjects may help our students, but a benefit to the state’s economy is speculative at best.
Of course, it can be argued that the state could do more to attract industry. But White undercuts our ability to do that by criticizing the teaching of German – a degree he says state money should not support. Apparently he has overlooked the fact that two of the largest recent investments in our state, Continental Tire at $1.4 billion and Eurocopter at $100 million, were by companies from Germany. They may not feel as good about their investment when they learn that we don’t think their language is worth teaching. For whatever it is worth, White also questions whether the state gets a proper financial return from teaching religion.
A more fundamental objection to White’s attempt to play politics with the state universities is that the state constitution was rewritten in 1944 to protect them from politicians like White and the legislature he has asked to get involved. The new provision gave an independent Board of Trustees of Institutions of Higher Learning the “control and management” of our universities. Its members are appointed by the governor for staggered terms and must be confirmed by the state Senate. The constitution says the appointments must be “uninfluenced by political considerations.” The state supreme court has said the amendment’s purpose was to “remove political interference” which in the past had caused a loss of accreditation. And the wisdom of this separation of powers – a strong principle in our constitution – was shown in the 1960s when Ross Barnett’s interference with the desegregation of the university caused it to lose many of its better faculty members and students.
Of course, the independence of the College Board does not mean that the auditor has no power to audit its books for things like law violations or fraud. But that brings into play a second objection to White’s foray into the College Board’s territory. The state auditor investigates certain law violations and turns them over to the attorney general for prosecution. But because of his attempt to project himself into national politics by criticizing the universities, any legitimate use of his powers to examine their books could now be subject to challenge as an illegitimate “weaponizing” of his office for political reasons.
In a recent case two federal court of appeals judges offered the opinion that Rankin County prosecutors might have violated the rights of a defendant who supported a political candidate they opposed. The judges thought that, even though the prosecutors had probable cause to allege a trespass, the prosecutors’ political statements meant that the prosecution might have violated the defendant’s First Amendment rights. The judges were expressing an opinion for themselves, not for the court, but it is easy to see how their logic would apply were the state auditor now to investigate an actual law violation by a university program he has recently attacked to further his political agenda.
White will assert that state law gives the auditor the power to comment on the effectiveness of the College Board. That may be true, but effectiveness is to be judged based on policies the College Board has adopted, not on polices the auditor would prefer. In any event, a state statute cannot be used in a way that violates either the state or the federal constitution.
The bottom line is that if Shad White wants to be a columnist who writes more articles in the Wall Street Journal that use half-baked analysis to criticize our universities, he should be free to do so, but he should first resign as state auditor. The Mississippi history of political official interference with our universities teaches that it is never a good thing. The state constitution was rewritten to prevent it, and his culture war attacks jeopardize his ability to carry out the legitimate law enforcement functions he has effectively embraced in the past.
Luther Munford is a Northsider.
