Every session has a handful of catchphrases. This year, that includes "land-grant." And lawmakers are swinging it around like it gives them control of every classroom in Laramie.
In a budget hearing this month of the legislative Joint Appropriations Committee, lawmakers grilled University of Wyoming leaders about course offerings, including an elective titled "Ecofeminism," and then implied UW's land-grant status means the Legislature should steer curriculum through budgets, footnotes, or legislation.
Taxpayers absolutely have standing to ask hard questions. We fund UW. We should expect competence, transparency, results.
But "land-grant" isn't a magic word that turns the appropriation process into something it's not: a remote control for the classroom.
Here's what happened, in plain terms. Legislators listed a string of course titles tied to an undergraduate sustainability minor.
UW's Haub School associate dean responded that at least one of the listed courses had already been canceled, and that the rest weren't Haub School courses at all. They were options students could choose to satisfy an elective component.
In other words: this wasn't mandatory curriculum imposed on every student. It was on an elective menu.
That distinction matters, but the bigger issue is governance.
A legislature can set budgets and demand accountability. It can't, without damaging the institution, turn academic decisions into political trophies.
Land-grant universities exist because Congress wanted practical education for the working classes: agriculture, engineering (the "mechanic arts"), and military tactics, "without excluding other scientific and classical studies." The land-grant model was designed to expand education, not narrow it.
Over time, federal law added the agricultural experiment station system (research) and cooperative extension (taking research-based education into communities). That means extension offices in every county helping ranchers with drought strategy, engineers working on carbon capture and wind technology, researchers developing solutions for Wyoming's water challenges, and graduates who stay to build businesses and strengthen communities here.
The land-grant deal is mission-based: teach, research, extend.
It's not course-by-course ideological policing.
If lawmakers want to use land-grant status as their North Star, they should focus on whether UW is delivering on that mission: extension reach in every county, research that helps Wyoming producers and industries, workforce pipelines that keep more graduates here, and transparency about outcomes.
What isn't legitimate is trying to control what gets taught by picking off course titles in a budget hearing and signaling punishment. That's where accreditation and constitutional instincts come in.
Accreditation is what makes a UW degree credible, transferable, and eligible for federal student aid. Accreditors also expect sound governance and academic independence from political pressure, especially in curriculum and faculty matters. When elected officials use money as leverage to dictate content or viewpoints, they invite scrutiny that carries real costs: recruitment and retention problems, reputational damage, reduced competitiveness, and a slow erosion of academic quality.
Here's the thing: the First Amendment isn't only about street-corner speech. It's also about protecting debate and disagreement, and public universities sit right in the center of that messy, productive space. The state can fund higher education. The state can demand outcomes.
But the state can't use its checkbook to pick winners and losers (another current catchphrase) in the classroom.
And here's a Wyoming-friendly way to think about it: the Fourth Amendment exists because we don't let government rummage through your house just because. There must be limits. When legislators treat a university's course catalog like a place to go fishing for forbidden ideas, they're claiming ownership.
The legislature doesn't own UW. The public funds the institution for public purposes, and that requires restraint, not intrusion.
None of this is an argument for "do whatever you want, no questions asked." It's an argument for asking the right questions, in the right lane.
But here's a better lane. If lawmakers are concerned about the cost of electives, ask the fiscal question directly: what's the actual cost of offering the course, who pays it, and what's the enrollment? If the course is an occasional elective taught by existing faculty with eight students, the "cost scandal" may be mostly theater.
If the concern is broader, ask for measurable outcomes: graduation rates, job placement in Wyoming, student retention, and whether land-grant functions are being strengthened or neglected.
Oversight isn't the enemy. Micromanagement is. Wyoming needs a Legislature that can tell the difference.
A land-grant university is one of the state's most important tools, not a political punching bag. Fund it based on outcomes. Audit it when necessary. Demand transparency. Then let UW's board, administration, and faculty do the academic work that keeps the institution credible, competitive, and useful to Wyoming for the long haul.
That's what a land-grant university does when we let it work.
Gail Symons can be reached at GailSymons@mac.com
