…if universities adopt a non-discrimination principle regarding political ideology? Universities obviously cannot agree to the administration’s outrageous demand to hire based on “conservative” political ideology and to shut down programs hostile to “conservative ideas.” But universities could, consistent with academic freedom, endorse a “statement of non-discrimination based on political ideology”:

All candidates for faculty positions must be evaluated based on the quality of their research and teaching by the standards of their scholarly discipline and not on the basis of their political ideology.   Political beliefs – conservative or liberal, Democratic or Republican, democratic socialist or libertarian – are as irrelevant as race, gender or religion as qualifications for appointment to the faculty.

This would still permit, e.g., the biology department to reject the proponent of “Intelligent Design” creationism, but it would also emphasize what should be the governing principle, namely, that disciplinary competence, not political point of view, is the standard for appointment.

I have no doubt that this will not satisfy the Trumpistas, but it would put universities on a firmer footing to resist their politicization of faculty appointments to embrace this principle and actually adhere to it.