A new bill introduced in the Arizona state legislature would require public universities and colleges in the state to provide ideologically diverse programming to their students.
According to a report by the College Fix, a new bill written by Republican State Rep. Anthony Kern is designed to ensure that students receive a balanced education. If the bill passes, public universities and campuses would be required to host events featuring speakers from across the political spectrum.
The bill aims to “prioritize inviting speakers from outside the university who hold perspectives on widely debated public policy issues that are otherwise poorly represented on campus.”
Kern said that he drafted the bill in response to growing concerns that students are being indoctrinated by leftist professors. “The bill is necessary because we want to educate our students,” Kern said in a short interview. “We want to give them a well-rounded education, not a one-sided one, whatever that side may be.”
“If we’re going to educate young minds, and get them ready for the real world, we need balanced views,” Kern added. “Students need civil discourse and thought.”
Kern said that students need a comprehensive education before they graduate and go out into the world. Instead, universities and colleges ostracizing conservative ideas so that they can focus on leftist ideas.
“We need to educate students and give them a balanced view and prepare them for the real world,” Kern continued. “… A lot of these college campuses, with social justice programs and all that, there’s one view being elevated and one view being put down.”
The Arizona bill is just the most recent in a series of pieces of legislation that is designed to protect intellectual freedom on campus. Breitbart News reported in March 2019 that Kentucky lawmakers passed a bill that outlawed “free speech zones,” which restricted a student’s freedom to express himself to certain predetermined locations on campus.
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.