Harvard graduate Stefanik becomes face of GOP charge against elite universities

Elise Stefanik, a Harvard-educated Republican congresswoman from upstate New York, has become the face of the Republican Party’s charge against the nation’s elite universities.

In speeches and interviews, Stefanik has criticized what she calls a “monopoly” of the Ivy League and other top schools on education and job opportunities. She has criticized them for what she sees as liberal bias in their policies and curricula.

Stefanik — the youngest woman ever elected to Congress — has met with GOP lawmakers to discuss a bill her office is drafting that would bar colleges and universities from denying access to conservative voices.

Stefanik and her Republican colleagues maintain that conservative groups on campuses are routinely discriminated against and that conservative scholars and pundits are systematically excluded from faculty and student roles.

She has also targeted controversial figures who work or teach at elite universities for what she views as the propagation of left-wing dogma. She specifically referred to the work of New York University professor Lisa Duggan, who has been accused of promoting “anti-white racism” and of “pushing the limits of academic intellectual dishonesty.”

Stefanik has already secured endorsements for her legislation from groups like The Heritage Foundation, and many expect her to be successful in bringing the bill before Congress. Although some have pointed to the bill as a partisan attack on higher education, Stefanik maintains that it is not about ideology, but rather about protecting America’s first amendment rights.