For all their talk of wanting to return to educating students, it seems that Republicans have sent my alma mater straight back to the 1950s.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was featured in The New York Times in a March 30 story about its School of Civic Life and Leadership, a 2023 creation focused on “fostering a free-speech culture,” according to the school’s dean. While that may be the intent of the school, it’s unclear that the school is accomplishing this goal.

In one of the previous courses, titled “Men and Women,” students performed the rigorous academic activities of going on a date and planning a ball as a group project. You know, the type of activities that really challenge the mind and encourage free speech.

I’m furious that the activities I was already doing as a vice president in my sorority are now being graded – I know I would have gotten a good grade! I would have loved the opportunity to go on a date with a frat star for an easy A – and my GPA would have been grateful.

In all seriousness, I fear that UNC-Chapel Hill is one of many universities that would rather travel back in time than admit that free speech was a non-issue on the campus.

Trump's new era of not-so-free speech on campus

The debate over free speech at universities is always en vogue, and it seems like Republicans are finally getting their way under President Donald Trump after years of complaining that they are being stifled on college campuses.

Faculty members have been punished for teaching Plato and for failing students who don’t do their assignments correctly. Students who protested for the Palestinian cause are still fighting court cases.

All of this sure seems like a win for those Republicans who would rather students be taught to be docile and compliant, instead of challenging what they learned in their hometowns.

According to The Times, the school at UNC is one of more than 40 similar academic programs that have sprouted at colleges and universities across the country. Soon, your college student can also learn to perform basic gender roles for thousands of dollars.

Do conservatives want free speech or cotillion on campus?

As a graduate of the university, I can’t say I’m surprised. UNC-Chapel Hill has been dealing with a Republican takeover for years.

During my time at the school, there was the debate over the Confederate monument known as “Silent Sam” – complete with the university giving millions to a neo-Confederate group to keep the statue safe.

In the years I was reporting on the university, there was the botched return to Chapel Hill in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic; a year later, it was the refusal to tenure Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones at the journalism school. In the years since I left North Carolina, a new chancellor who was a blatant mouthpiece for the conservative Board of Trustees was put in place.

I am privileged to have attended one of the best universities in the South. It is considered a “Public Ivy,” or “New Ivy,” and has been credited with giving its graduates a stellar education.

I’m all for free speech and open debate on college campuses. I’m sad that these classes weren’t available for me to take when I was an undergrad, and not just because of the easy A. I would have relished spending a semester arguing with conservative classmates and putting the stuff I learned in my feminist political theory class to good use.

Conservatives need to be honest about what they’re offering the students they serve – and if it’s a class that’s more cotillion than classics, I wonder how prepared these students will be for the world beyond campus grounds.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on Bluesky: @sarapequeno.bsky.social

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