University of Austin weeds out DEI, replaces it with merit-based initiatives: VP

"They talk about safe spaces. We want to create an environment that's safe for ideas to be explored and where there's not risks to the student for taking positions as they explore," UATX Vice President Michael Shires told Fox News Digital. 

The university, which is currently unaccredited, was founded in 2021 by a group of academics and public figures, including former New York Times reporter Bari Weiss, who were concerned about the decline of free speech across college campuses.

While its inaugural students are not eligible for federal financial aid, the university has had significant support from private donors, including billionaire Bill Ackman and activist Harlan Crow, allowing it to offer free tuition to its first cohort. 

"As we look ahead, obviously this is a time when people are trying to figure out how to foster free speech on campus," Shires said. "Oct. 7 was a critical juncture in the last year and a half that really showed some of the holes in the environment we're in."

The threat of what constitutes hate speech has been a major concern for many public universities in recent years - leading to the rise of what critics call censorship and cancel culture - but Shires said defining the term depends "what are the value systems you're applying to those." 

"And you know, for us, that's our goal, is to create an environment where there's civil discourse and where, basically, respect for the other person, and you're debating and maybe even disagreeing on ideas," he said.

UATX employs the Chatham House Rule to encourage open classroom discussions. Under the rule, students can share ideas or information they hear in class but cannot attribute them to specific individuals.

At institutions like Harvard, only 3% of faculty identify as conservative, while more than 75% identify as liberal, undergirding the ideological gap that UATX founders aim to address.

According to Shires, while the school has an admissions constitution that accepts students based on a variety of merit measures, he said UATX's "students are all over the place, ideologically, politically, philosophically."

"We are an institute, so we don't believe the institution should have a position or an orthodoxy or an ideology," he said.