I admire former NC Gov. Martin, but he doesn’t see what I see on college campuses | Opinion

I greatly respect James Martin, a Republican former governor of North Carolina. I hope that doesn’t get him in more trouble in the state’s conservative circles — having someone like me express admiration for him – where some have begun questioning his Republican bona fides in the age of Donald Trump. Maybe this will keep him in good standing: I passionately disagree with Martin about higher education.

I don’t respect him because we have a shared loved of Davidson College, our alma mater, though that doesn’t hurt. I respect him because in our interactions, including when we helped craft what would become the first commitment to free expression statement by a private college in North Carolina, he’s been kind and determined to build consensus across ideological lines.

During an earlier time, such interactions would have made me reconsider my decision to stop voting for Republicans. I have voted for the likes of Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley during the primary of her first run for South Carolina governor, and George W. Bush for president in 2000. Unfortunately, that time is no more. Today’s GOP is full of people more eager to make Fox News happy than building coalitions to solve problems. They’d rather complain about “the crisis” at our southern border than agree to the kind of compromise that received 68 votes in the U.S. Senate in 2013. And the party is poised to choose Trump as its standard bearer for a third consecutive time — unless Haley can pull off the upset - despite his trying to overturn an election and his inciting a violent attack on our Capitol.

Martin strongly disagrees with a position I recently took. I criticized the decision by University of North Carolina System President Peter Hans to appoint Lee Roberts as interim chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill despite Roberts having “no previous professional administrative experience in higher education.” Martin believes the appointment was a good one. And he and I have a long-standing disagreement about how conservatives are treated on college campuses today.

I have no doubt he is making good-faith arguments. It’s just that he doesn’t know what I know, can’t see what I see. To those not politically connected, the UNC appointment looks like more evidence of a good ole boy system. It’s a system its adherents are happy to defend even as they criticize the hiring of highly qualified Black people.

I know that I recently had to co-moderate a public discussion at Davidson about media and Israel because some of my colleagues would have been attacked and found it more difficult to find work in the future had they done so. I know that Republican legislators in North Carolina and South Carolina have effectively put a target on the backs of Black and brown professors if we dare teach honestly about this country’s racial history. I know and will soon be writing about Black professors at Coastal Carolina University near Myrtle Beach, S.C., have had to endure racist attacks from the parents of white students who question their qualifications. I know I’ve heard from Muslim students I taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism utterly terrified of saying anything that might be misinterpreted as an unfair attack on Israel.

I get that conservatives are outnumbered and often outshouted on a growing number of college campuses, including Davidson, and that their voices matter, too. On that, Martin and I agree. And I know he, too, wants the best for all students and faculty. It’s just that we don’t agree on what’s standing in the way of our making that a reality.

This story was originally published January 6, 2024 at 6:00 AM.