A trio of education policy organizations is urging state legislatures and university systems to consider reforms that they say could restore the original purpose of colleges and universities and reduce costs.
Faculty members at public higher education institutions in non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs should be required to teach a minimum of three courses per semester and reprioritize student instruction over scholarly research, according to the Higher Education Restoration Act model policy released by the Goldwater Institute, Defending Education, and the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal on Dec. 2.
“Are these [scholarly journal articles] worth it to the taxpayers?” Timothy Minella, Goldwater Institute fellow, told The Epoch Times. “This kind of paper chase doesn’t benefit students.”
The policy pertains to future higher education faculty members, not current tenured professors.
Minella said the document will be shared with public higher learning institutions with hopes that some would consider implementing it voluntarily, but it’s also written as a bill that could be adopted by university system boards of regents or trustees or state legislatures.
Minella said this measure doesn’t imply that all college and faculty members, including those at community colleges and four-year schools, teach fewer than three courses per semester; professors who spend the most time writing academic papers typically work at the more competitive research institutions. He cited an April report from the Manhattan Institute that notes professors at some of the most reputable schools teach between two and four three-credit courses (three hours per week) per academic year.
In such instances, colleges and universities either appoint part-time adjunct instructors or students in advanced degree programs to teach undergraduate courses, or they maintain a large staff of full-time professors who also teach a minimal number of courses. Schools could save millions of dollars over time by doubling or tripling faculty course loads, according to Minella.
The policy includes a report, “Peer Review Gone Wild: Flagship Political Science Journal Shows How Academic Gatekeepers Promote Ideology Over Scholarship,” which Minella wrote after summarizing 549 articles published in the American Political Science Review (APSR) between August 2020 and May 2025.
A quarter (132) of the articles contained the terms “race or ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, colonialism, post-colonialism, decolonization, systemic oppression, structural injustice, or equity.” Only three contained the words “Constitution or constitutional,” and only two referred to “federalism.”
“Despite many of these pieces being indistinguishable from left-wing policy activism, the APSR nonetheless published them as prestigious scholarship,” the report reads.
Titles of the 132 articles noted in the report include “The Effect of Protesters’ Gender on Public Reactions to Protests and Protest Repression”; “Gender, Race, and Interruptions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings”; “Willing but Unable: Reassessing the Relationship Between Racial Group Consciousness and Black Political Participation”; and “Feminist Demands and the Problem of Housework.”
One article notes that major court cases involving gay marriage resulted in increased media coverage of gay marriage. Another one notes that depressed people are less likely to participate in politics. Another notes that President Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” reality television show helped “increase Trump’s electoral performance in the 2016 primary.”
“APSR articles make stunningly obvious and trivial claims, raising further doubts about the value of scholarship in the journal,” the report reads.
Universities rely on such academic journals to judge the quality of their faculty.
Professors go through a peer review process before their writings go to print, and a long list of peer-approved and published articles is factored into decisions about tenure, which all but guarantees that person has a job until retirement, according to the report.
These articles, Minella added, also provide a way to advocate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices under the radar at a time when universities have scrubbed references to DEI from their websites to preserve federal funding.
Trump issued an executive order earlier this year prohibiting DEI practices, such as race-based employee hiring and student admissions, campus affinity groups by race, and required diversity training. Several universities have been investigated and sanctioned for DEI violations, which are illegal under existing Civil Rights laws and previous U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
Minella said there is currently a university “arms race” where lighter course loads are used to entice top professor candidates. While his report uses the political science major as an example, the minimum teaching requirement could easily apply to any program within the humanities, he said.
For political science, history, social studies, and various other programs within the humanities areas, the core focus should be educating students on American institutions, Western civilization, and the pillars of a constitutional republic, Minella said, noting that tenure decisions should be based on the quality and quantity of a professor’s instruction, not their resume of publications.
“These reforms would eliminate the incentive for academics to pump out politicized and parochial publications that, after all, have very little reach outside of professional circles,” he said. “Education would be restored to the center of the mission of universities.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the American Political Science Association, which publishes the American Political Science Review and the American Association of University Professors.
