Miami University trustees approved the appointment of Flagg Taylor as the executive director of the school's new state-mandated "intellectual diversity" center Thursday. He also will serve as a tenured professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Studies.
Known as the Miami University Center for Civics, Culture, and Society, the center on Miami's Oxford campus is one of five such centers at public universities in Ohio required under House Bill 33, which was passed in 2023. The other centers are located at Ohio State, Wright State, Cleveland State, and the University of Toledo. Ohio lawmakers established them to combat what they says is "liberal bias" on campus by boosting different viewpoints at each public institution.
Taylor previously was an associate professor of political science at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. He earned a BA at Kenyon College and a Ph.D. in political science from Fordham University.
Taylor's website says he serves as chair of the Academic Council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. The foundation was authorized by Congress in 1993 and describes itself as a nonprofit organization "devoted to commemorating the more than 100 million people killed by communism around the world."
Some have criticized the foundation, calling it a "relic of Cold War-era propaganda" that unfairly attributes many deaths around the world to the actions of foreign communist governments while ignoring violence dealt out by Western capitalist nations through imperialism.
Miami University says the new director will be responsible for developing courses for the center and hiring its faculty.
Ohio law requires Miami to have 10 tenure-tracked faculty allotted to teach at the center. The Center for Civics, Culture, and Society will be an independent academic unit within Miami's College of Arts and Sciences. State law says no faculty outside the center can have the authority to block any of its faculty hires.
An online job listing for Flagg's current role lists the maximum salary at just over $213,000 a year.
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