UT launches civics school amid conservative makeover

The big picture: UT's School of Civic Leadership is among a growing number of institutes and initiatives at public universities established in response to demands from Republican governors, lawmakers and donors for more space for conservative thinking on campus.

• The new school will "prepare students for civic responsibility through the study of America's founding principles, economic foundations and history," per a university press release.
• Undergraduates admitted to the program can major in civics honors, where they will study "the intellectual inheritance of Western Civilization and the American constitutional tradition," per the release. Students can also earn a minor in philosophy, politics and economics.

What they're saying: "We don't see our project as being conservative in a partisan sense, but we are interested in topics that are often attractive to conservative scholars and students," Justin Dyer, founding dean of the school, tells Axios.

• "We are interested in having the university be a truth-seeking institution and we orient our academic work in light of that," Dyer said. "There are certain norms that follow — we have to be committed to open inquiry and freedom of thought and speech."

Flashback: In a 2017 op-ed in the Columbia Missourian, Dyer called himself "a conservative, straight out of central casting, a pro-life evangelical who is an unapologetic admirer of the American Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution."

• In his book "Slavery, Abortion, and the Politics of Constitutional Meaning," Dyer, who received a doctorate in government at UT, draws parallels between slavery and abortion, arguing that Roe v. Wade elevated a woman's right to an abortion above the rights of a fetus just as Dred Scott v. Sandford elevated the property interests of slave-owners above the rights of slaves.

Between the lines: One of the school's inaugural faculty members is John Yoo, a University of California-Berkeley law professor best known as the author of George W. Bush administration memos authorizing the use of torture.

• "​​John's a tremendously successful academic," Dyer says." He's been very productive, getting at core constitutional questions that are at the heart of what we're doing at the School of Civic Leadership."

Context: As lawmakers attack universities they perceive to be too liberal, UT has embarked on a rear-guard effort to build institutes and centers that cater to conservatives.

• The School of Civic Leadership will house the Civitas Institute, championed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as a way to promote "intellectual diversity" and teaching on limited government and free markets.
• In 2020, the university launched the Salem Center for Policy, whose mission is to help students, business leaders and policymakers "cut through the noise of public policy," per its website, "... in pursuit of human flourishing and the preservation of a free society." It produced a podcast — "Woke-ademia," about the "shift of universities from academic inquiry to political activism" — and gets funding from prominent conservative donors.

• That same year, the university's law school started a clinic "focused on the free exercise of religion," bankrolled by a board member of the Religious Freedom Institute.

The other side: After the UT System Board of Regents created the new school to house the Civitas Institute last year, Richard Cherwitz, a UT professor emeritus in the communications department, called it a "politically motivated institute" that "violates the core values of academe."

• The institute "clearly caters exclusively to politicians who want UT to establish a conservative think tank rather than proposing programs that reflect genuine academic and intellectual interests and needs," he wrote in the Austin Chronicle.

By the numbers: The Civitas Institute was established with the help of state and system funds totaling $12 million in 2021, per the Texas Tribune.

• Dyer said that basic funding has continued as part of the overall university budget — $6 million per year — and "comprises the majority of funding" for the School of Civic Leadership. As dean of the school, he also fundraises, he said.

What's next: The conservative-minded liberal arts startup University of Austin is welcoming its first class this fall.