Of course, “diversity” is a big scam. You can be sure that UCLA is not aiming to hire more conservative and libertarian professors! But regardless of how you feel about diversity. isn’t there something deeply offensive about requiring people to make such statements? Isn’t this a form of compulsory speech?

You might object that an employer is free to set any requirement he wishes as a condition of employment. If you don’t want to write a diversity statement, you aren’t being forced to do so. You won’t get a job at UCLA, but you have no right to such a job anyway.

What this objection overlooks, though, is that UCLA is a “public” university. It is not a private employer. By what right does an ostensibly public institution require people to commit themselves to views many people do not share? What is the next step? Requiring that all faculty applicants be members of the Democratic Party?

Of course, the problem isn’t confined to UCLA. Practically all universities in the United States receive federal funding and thus have to conform to the federal government’s “diversity” policies. ………..

In order to solve the problems inherent in compulsory speech, our best approach is to follow the great Murray Rothbard. “Free speech” is not an independent right but derives from our natural rights of self-ownership and property acquisition. In all free speech issues, the key question is: in whose property does the speech take place on? As Rothbard points out in Power and Market, “Take, for example, the ‘human right’ of free speech. Freedom of speech is supposed to mean the right of everyone to say whatever he likes. But the neglected question is: Where? Where does a man have this right? He certainly does not have it on property on which he is trespassing. In short, he has this right only either on his own property or on the property of someone who has agreed, as a gift or in a rental contract, to allow him on the premises. In fact, then, there is no such thing as a separate ‘right to free speech’; there is only a man’s property right: the right to do as he wills with his own or to make voluntary agreements with other property owners.”