J.D. Vance gave a keynote speech to the National Conservatism Conference — a Christian Nationalist event — entitled “The Universities are the Enemy.” In it, Vance said higher education is a “hostile environment” for conservative voices, and, if given the opportunity, he will “aggressively attack the universities in this country.”
Attacking education (public schools, colleges) is familiar grievance from the right, but Vance’s comments are notable for containing “us vs. them” battle-driven undertones. And that combative rhetoric is not lost on our country’s educators. In an L.A. Times op-ed, Benjamin Carter Hett writes:
“This hatred of professors and their universities seems to be a big deal for Vance. On his campaign website, under the heading ‘Protect Conservative Values,’ he complains that ‘hundreds of billions of American tax dollars’ get sent to universities that ‘teach that America is an evil, racist nation.’ These universities ‘then train teachers who bring that indoctrination into our elementary and high schools.’ He doesn’t want any tax dollars going to institutions that teach ‘critical race theory or radical gender ideology.’ Instead, he wants them to deliver ‘an honest, patriotic account of American history.’ Other sections of the website extol the glories of the 2nd Amendment, while ranting about immigrants and COVID-19 regulations.
Carter Hett linked to Vance’s campaign page (JDVance.com/issues), but the entire site redirects to Donald Trump’s Winred fundraising page as we’re posting this in 2024. (A search via Web Archive turned up a series of talking points common among right-wing politicians, with very little about education.)
Also important to note is that American universities do none of the things Vance complains about: Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not taught in any U.S. schools; teachers don’t design curriculum around America being an “evil, racist nation”; nor do universities as educational bodies try to indoctrinate students to a specific ideology.
A few months after the conference, Vance sat for an interview with The European Conservative and made similar accusations against U.S. education. This time, though, Vance went further and called for the “Orbán-ization” of the American uni system: “We need to really go after the university bureaucracy focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion,” he told the publication. “You know, the closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with left-wing domination of universities is Viktor Orbán’s approach in Hungary. I think his way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give the a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching.”
What Vance means here is that educators in America will, if they are elected, be forced to obey his and Donald Trump’s fascist regime in the same way teachers must do, by law, in Orbán’s Hungary. Writing in EU Observer, Katalin Cseh notes Hungarian parliament passed a “revenge law” that aims to intimidate and punish teachers who defy their country’s leader. “This law is a brutally oppressive tool designed to exert control of the education system, leaving students robbed of their future.”
More broadly, attacks on education in the United States is a common project for similarly situated GOP operatives. For example, Betsy DeVos—long a critic of public schooling, appointed to education secretary by Trump—has made it her life’s work boosting for-profit education groups at the expense of public schools while enhancing her family’s wealth.
DeVos connects to Trump and Vance in numerous ways. Per Professor Josh Cohen on Twitter, Trump and Vance had their first rally at Van Andel Arena, built with Amway money. And Vance’s now-defunct charity had direct links to American Enterprise Institute, which itself has ties to DeVos as well as Harlan Crow and the Council for National Policy.
As Eboo Patel writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the best rejoinder to Vance is reminding him of his own educational path. “I believe higher ed’s best response to Vance’s forthcoming fusillade of criticism should leverage that paragraph. When Vance attacks, higher-education professionals should remind him that they excel at facilitating exactly the experience he enjoyed so much at Yale: bringing diverse people around a common table to learn from one another and cooperate together. And that work is led by the DEI department.”
The National Conservatism Conference
The National Conservatism Conference is an event held in several countries to promote a Christian Nationalist agenda. The conference — and the “National Conservatism” movement — are strongly supported by Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and Vance-backer Peter Thiel. According to Byline Times, Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán’s political director, Balzas Orbán (no familial relation), is also involved in the conference.
Like the Hungarian CPAC covered by the Byline Times, the National Conservatism movement seeks to advance an agenda of Christian Nationalism. Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s political director Balzas Orban is involved in the initiative and was a speaker at the previous London conference in 2019.
Speakers at other NCCs include numerous high-profile Republicans such as Florida’s controversial Governor Ron DeSantis, Senator Marco Rubio, former Trump advisor John Bolton, Senator Josh Hawley who led efforts in the Senate to overturn the Electoral College vote in the 2020 presidential election and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.
Chair of the NCC is Christopher DeMuth. DeMuth is a fellow of the Hudson Institute which receives funding from the Koch Foundation and Exxon Mobil. He was also president of the American Enterprise Institute from 1986-2008 which has received $960,000 in funding from Exxon Mobil since 2005 and $2.5 milllion from the Donor’s Capital Fund in 2010 – an organization enabling rich activists to support conservative causes anonymously.
