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Conservative Think Tanks and Higher Education Policy: Selected Public Policy Research Institutes and Their Views on Issues in Higher Education

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Conservative Think Tanks and Higher Education Policy: Selected Public Policy Research Institutes and Their Views on Issues in Higher Education 1 CONSERVATIVE THINK TANKS AND HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY: SELECTED PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTES AND THEIR VIEWS ON ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION Susan Marie Willis A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 1991 Approved by Doctoral Committee: ____________________Advisor Department of Educational Foundations and Inquiry ___________________ Graduate College Representative ____________________ _________________ _ i Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincerest thanks to those persons who contributed to the successful completion of this dissertation. I shall always be grateful to Dr. William York, Professor Emeritus, who helped me formulate the study initially and who encouraged me to pursue this methodology. Special thanks are owing also to Dr. Malcolm Campbell, who as my advisor took me down the home stretch and never stinted with his wise and patient advice, nor failed in his professional commitment. To the other members of my committee, Drs. Leigh Chiarelott, Thomas Wymer, and Carney Strange, I extend my appreciation -- "they also serve who only stand and wait." There are many other individuals I knew at Bowling Green State University who gave of themselves personally and intellectually over the years, especially my colleagues in graduate school, those named and unnamed. For all the support, the brainstorming, and the friendship, for all the good times, I wish to thank Dr. Karen Wheeler, Louise Paradis, Susan Pastor, and Patrick Kennedy. ii ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to describe four conservative public policy research institutions as organizations in comparison with more traditional policy organizations such as the Brookings Institution, and (2) to examine their views on current issues in higher education in relation to selected national higher education reports. The four conservative "think tanks" chosen were the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, the Free Congress Foundation, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. A review of the literature and related research revealed that no study of this topic had been undertaken previously. Data about the conservative think tanks were gathered from both primary and secondary sources. Telephone interviews with selected individuals were also employed in a very limited way. Ten national higher education reports published between 1980-90, and a survey of articles published in Change magazine during the same period, were examined to discover which higher education issues were receiving attention from professional educators. Articles and lectures published by the conservative policy institutions were likewise examined to determine the content of their views on higher education issues. The study revealed that these conservative think tanks are substantially different from more traditional policy institutions in their open advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and in the relative weakness of the scholarly credentials and policy experience of their personnel, compared to more established policy organizations. Their positions on higher education issues focused on a perceived decline in the teaching of Western culture, opposition to affirmative action and multicultural studies, and calls for decreases in funding for higher education. By contrast, the issues addressed in the national reports and in Change were concerned iii with opportunity, access, diversity in higher education populations, and belief that the federal government has an important responsibility in the funding of American higher education. On only one point was there agreement: that the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum should be strengthened. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................1 Reasons for the Study.....................................................3 Statement of the Problem ...............................................8 A Note on Special Terms................................................10 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY ...........................................12 Choice of Methodology..................................................12 Delimitations of the Study..............................................13 Identification of the Think Tanks...................................15 Data Collection...............................................................15 Changes in Original Research Plan ................................17 CHAPTER THREE: POLICY EXPERTS AND "THINK TANKS"..........................................................19 CHAPTER FOUR: AMERICAN CONSERVATISM AND CONSERVATIVE THINK TANKS ....................33 The Old Right .................................................................34 The Neoconservatives....................................................37 The Libertarians..............................................................40 The New Right................................................................41 The Heritage Foundation................................................46 The American Enterprise Institute..................................55 The Free Congress Foundation.......................................60 Page v The Ethics and Public Policy Center..............................64 CHAPTER FIVE: THE NATIONAL REPORTS, CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGY, AND ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION............................................68 The Department of Education.........................................69 Dominant Themes in the New Right Critique................74 The Conservative Think Tanks and Higher Education........................................................................78 The National Higher Education Reports ........................92 Change Magazine...........................................................104 CHAPTER SIX: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS..................108 BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY............................................................118 REFERENCES ...............................................................................123 APPENDIX A.................................................................................134 APPENDIX B .................................................................................136 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 has been viewed as ushering in a new era of conservatism in American society and politics. There was the full expectation that federal policy, especially domestic policy, would be recast in a more conservative mold. A basic tenet of this conservative approach proved to be, as expected, a retreat from the formerly activist role of the federal government, both in funding and in initiating social programs, including those concerned with higher education. However, developments on the right of the political spectrum in the United States which made possible the Reagan and Bush presidencies reflect a fundamental questioning of many of the accepted post-World War II assumptions concerning economic, social, and foreign policy: a questioning which had been gathering strength and momentum for at least two decades prior to the 1980 election. It has been suggested that this alteration in the American political climate was spurred in part by the influence of certain conservative intellectuals and writers disillusioned with the idealistic enterprises of the New Frontier and Great Society years.1 Michael Harrington named these converts to conservatism “neoconservatives” (e.g., Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, and Nathan Glazer), and, while they may not always support particular policies of the conservative Republican administration, it may be argued 1Gillian Peele, Revival and Reaction: The Right in Contemporary America (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 4 2 that they paved the way for Reagan’s election by lending overall intellectual legitimacy to conservative philosophies of government.2 The subject of this dissertation is selected research institutes and foundations - - "think tanks" -- which manifest a neoconservative or New Right ideological orientation, particularly the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Free Congress Foundation, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. These organizations will be discussed with reference to the more traditionally-conceived think tanks such as the Brookings Institution and the RAND Corporation. More specifically, this investigation focuses on those conservative think tanks that publish material related to policy formation for higher education, the content and philosophical values espoused in that published material, the channels of dissemination chosen for these publications, and a comparison of the issues in higher education policy addressed by these institutions, including those addressed in some of the more important national education reports and studies of the past decade. These reports include, but are not limited to, such documents as Three Thousand Futures (1980), A Nation at Risk (1983), and One-Third of a Nation (1988). Some of them, e.g., A Nation at Risk, were issued by the federal government; others were published by prestigious education study groups in organizations like the Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on Education. In addition to the explicit presentation and discussion of information on higher education policy views of selected conservative policy research institutes, the author places these institutions in an organizational and political context intended to illuminate their origins
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