The president of Ohio State University on Sunday vowed to hire staff from across the political spectrum as the Trump Administration continues cracking down on universities across the nation.
Speaking to CBS’ Margaret Brennan, Ted Carter said his staff has heard concerns about the political cultures on university campuses, including worries of “indoctrination.”
“I will tell you that as we hire the future, we’re looking across the entire political spectrum for who we hire,” Carter said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Carter’s comments come shortly after the Trump administration announced the school — of which Vice President JD Vance is an alum — is one of 60 universities it has deemed may have antisemitic practices and policies on campus.
Still, Carter said he is “not feeling a lot of pressure.”
“We know how we acted during the time of the protests. We never had an encampment here at Ohio State,” he said, adding that some students did try to occupy tents in campus but were dispersed.
“I’m confident that as this plays out forward, that we’re going to be just fine,” he said.
Carter also appeared to agree with Vance’s assertions that higher education has started to build a “reputation” of being “controlled by left wing foundations.”
“There was this conversation about the potential indoctrination of students, or that institutions were leaning very liberal,” Carter said. “We as administrators of higher education maybe ought to listen to the American public and say, maybe we haven’t always gotten it right. So I’m here to say, here at the Ohio State University, we have paid attention to that.”
The Trump administration has been embroiled in battles with universities over hiring and admissions practices for several months. mixed in with complaints about general “wokeness.” Most notably, the administration threatened to withhold federal funding from Ivy League schools including Harvard and Columbia.
Columbia announced this month it had reached a settlement in which it would pay $200 million to the federal government, though it did not admit to fault or does not agree that it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. As part of the deal, the vast majority of its federal grants were to be restored.
Carter said he knows Columbia’s president, Claire Shipman. He said that though he can’t speak for other institutions, Carter opined that other Ivy League presidents are “in survival mode.”
“We’re a public institution, so that means we’re going to be transparent and put out everything that we do so the state of Ohio, the people and the entire country can see it,” Carter said.