The Rudder Association
2026 Annual Essay &
Selfless Service Award Winners
This essay contest was open to all current students at Texas A&M University.
Essay Award Winners Pictured (L-R), Justino Russell ’26, 1stPlace, Ushara De Silva ’24, 2nd Place, and Audrey Delgado ’27, 3rd Place.
2026 Rudder Association Annual Essay Contest
The Rudder Association offered current Aggie students the opportunity to compete in its annual essay competition with prize money awards for the top 3 essays chosen at $1,000 for first, $600 for second, and $400 for third
This year's essay contest prompt -
"Surveys show that college faculty are not very politically or ideologically diverse. Given this, how can universities promote a marketplace of ideas and ensure that students are challenged by a variety of valid perspectives on important issues?"
Justino Russell '26, 1st Place:
The American university, once a diverse marketplace of ideas, has become a leftist monopoly. While this shift has been statistically undeniable for more than two decades, the most recent and largest faculty survey ever conducted, by the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) in 2024, further proves the depth of the crisis. It revealed that 60% of university faculty identify as liberal, while only 16% identify as conservative. This completely flips when we look at self-censorship: 55% of conservative faculty report hiding their political beliefs to keep their jobs, compared to only 17% of liberal faculty. Furthermore, when asked if a liberal would be a "positive fit" for their department, 71% of faculty said yes, while only 20% said the same of a conservative. There is systemic discrimination and underrepresentation toward right-leaning faculty.
Texas A&M University, despite its strengths, has also been deeply affected by this national trend. Not too long ago, in 2022, Scott Yenor’s investigative report for the Claremont Institute found that Texas A&M had a DEI office employing forty-six DEI administrators and had an entire Pride Center for one of the tiniest student populations. Modest estimates show that A&M had spent more than $5 million taxpayer dollars on salaries for diversity officers and over $11 million on diversity programming as a whole. Even more, the Diversity Operations Committee financially rewarded departments for meeting DEI benchmarks. The university’s own 2020 State of Diversity Report condemned words like "meritocracy," "color-blindness," and "best-qualified," for being tools of "systemic racism." Thankfully, these radical policies were removed by SB 17,18 and 37, but the swamp that created them is still in place. This same swamp caused our more recent political scandals, driven by progressive faculty who seem unable to follow one of the most basic rules of professionalism: keeping politics out of the workplace.
After all these decades of unchecked monopoly, diminished public trust, and leadership failures, the university is finally taking the first small steps toward balance, accountability, and responsibility. Just as Texas A&M has repeatedly stated that it desires its student body to reflect the population of Texas, its faculty and curriculum should also reflect the intellectual beliefs of Texas. To remove the progressive bias and restore a true marketplace of ideas, Texas A&M could consider the following three reforms: adopting the Kalven Report for institutional neutrality, institutionalizing sanctioned debates, and implementing viewpoint diversity reviews for each department.
The first step toward balance is adopting the Kalven Report. Back in the “Summer of Love” of 2020, a total of 16 high-ranking university officials put out public statements on the politically weaponized death of George Floyd. Most notably, the president of the Bush School, Mark Welsh, put out a seven-paragraph essay stating that “Black Lives Matter... I stand firmly in defense of that message. I hope that everyone associated with the Bush School will do the same” and that there is “no question in his mind” that white privilege exists. Put yourself in the shoes of a Bush School student, or worse, a faculty member, hearing your boss say he nicely “hopes” everyone associated with the school does the same in defending BLM. This sort of pressure to conform to progressive orthodoxy would be solved by adopting the famous Kalven Report, which states that “the university itself is the home and sponsor of critics but never the critic itself.” When the leader of an academic unit uses his position to pressure faculty and students in this way, the marketplace of ideas is effectively closed. Adopting the Kalven Report would reopen it, freeing the Aggie community to exercise its constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment rights.
Secondly, Texas A&M could direct its new School of Civic Leadership and the new Aggie Lyceum, which currently just have moderate or left-leaning faculty give lectures, to instead be tasked with hosting sanctioned, civil debates on controversial yet crucially important topics like climate policy, border security, or affirmative action. A lecture hall for progressives is not a true marketplace of ideas. If you only expose students to the liberal worldviews of the 60% liberal faculty, you’re not teaching them how to think, but what to think. This measure would ensure that the Aggie experience is defined by critical thinking and a firm commitment to seeking the truth, over political correctness and social justice dogmas.
Thirdly, to counter systemic underrepresentation and self-censorship of viewpoints, I propose implementing Viewpoint Diversity Scores (VDS). Since Texas A&M departments currently submit annual reports to the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, it would be easy to expand them to include an audit of the scholarly perspectives represented in faculty research, syllabi, and guest speaker selections. A department that consistently presents only one point of view on complex issues, or only presents a straw-man version of the worldview they disagree with, is not providing a world-class education.
To restore the marketplace of ideas and ensure students are challenged by a variety of valid perspectives, Texas A&M could adopt the Kalven Report, encourage controversial debates, and add Viewpoint Diversity Scores to departmental reviews. The university exists to educate, not to serve as a taxpayer-funded platform for political indoctrination. By enforcing these standards of accountability and responsibility, Texas A&M can ensure that the Aggie spirit remains a beacon of leadership, meritocracy, and the unyielding pursuit of truth.
Ushara De Silva ’24, 2nd Place:
"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." - Thomas Jefferson
As an international student, I noticed something that surprised me. It wasn’t just the academics. It was the culture. In some environments, people treat disagreement like danger. In others, people treat it like normal life. In Aggieland, when the culture is built around respect, integrity, and serving others, it becomes easier to talk honestly without feeling like you are starting a war.
This year’s prompt says surveys show college faculty are not very politically or ideologically diverse, and asks how universities can still promote a marketplace of ideas so students are challenged by a variety of valid perspectives. A 2025 Forbes survey of nearly 1,000 faculty echoed this, with 50.5% identifying as liberal and just 11.4% as conservative. But at Texas A&M, I believe there's pretty good diversity of viewpoints overall, thanks to the Aggie Spirit and how well-protected the culture has been.
By “marketplace of ideas,” I mean a campus where ideas compete through reason, evidence, and honest conversation; not through intimidation, social punishment, or forced conformity. And by “valid perspectives,” I don’t mean every opinion is equally true. I mean viewpoints that are argued in good faith, with reasons, with evidence when possible, and with a willingness to engage counterarguments instead of just labeling people.
The reason this matters is simple. If students only hear one dominant framework, they can become fragile thinkers. They might learn what to say, but not how to think. It also hurts effective citizenship, because democracy requires adults who can argue without hating each other. The goal is to create adults who can face strong arguments and still remain respectful and grounded.
This is where Texas A&M already has an advantage. Aggie culture is built around core habits like respect, loyalty, integrity, and selfless service. Those values create trust. As a Christian and conservative, I also believe every person has dignity and should be treated as more than a political label. That belief fits naturally with an environment that teaches you to respect the person even when you strongly disagree with the opinion.
Faculty hiring and evaluation should prioritize truth-seeking habits over ideological conformity. That does not mean hiring by political quota. It means valuing professors who can fairly present multiple sides, grade students by reasoning, and model intellectual humility. A 2024 FIRE survey (including over 165 Texas A&M faculty) found self-censorship common across ideologies, but far higher among conservatives nationally (55% hide views to keep jobs vs. 17% liberals).
This connects directly to students. Students are learning and can share their views personally. But like faculty, students must take individual responsibility: as Aggies, we exhibit respect and tolerance daily, with clear limits on inciting violence or shutting down speech. We spread openness by attraction, not force. A 2024 Knight Foundation survey found that two-thirds of students report self-censoring during classroom discussions, and the same share say it limits educationally valuable conversations.
But culture alone is not enough. Universities also need specific practices that teach how to handle disagreement. Professors can require students to “steelman” opposing views, which means you must explain the strongest version of a view you disagree with before you critique it. This is fair and viewpoint-neutral because everyone has to do it, regardless of ideology.
Universities should also protect and encourage student-led, voluntary debate outside the classroom. This is important: voluntary. A university should not mandate political debates like a required box-checking event. But universities can protect the space for student-led forums, tabling events that pose honest questions, and open Q&As where students talk to people who disagree with them. Grassroots debate works because it’s real. The university’s job is to keep the playing field open.
Another problem to address is self-censorship. In classes that involve controversial topics, professors can use anonymous feedback tools, structured turn-taking, and clear ground rules. Professors can also use blind grading for certain assignments so students don’t feel like they will be punished for their conclusions.
That leads to a key policy point: rules should be viewpoint-neutral and enforced consistently. A campus should not tolerate threats, harassment, or disruption, no matter which “side” it comes from. At the same time, campus rules should not treat ordinary disagreement as “harm.”
Universities also need transparency, especially when money or institutional pressure can distort the mission. Transparency is a neutral good. It protects the university from capture and protects students from hidden agendas.
My experience across the world, in two very different cultures, taught me that freedom of thought is not just a slogan. It is a habit sustained by our shared Aggie culture. The strongest universities won't force agreement. They'll rely on protected culture + individual responsibility: we exhibit respect, tolerate disagreement (within limits), and attract others by living it out. Texas A&M points this way, only if we guard our Spirit and hold everyone to objectivity, students will be genuinely challenged by valid perspectives and grow into thoughtful leaders.
Audrey Delgado ’27, 3rd Place:
Preserving a Marketplace of Ideas on College Campuses
After college, graduates venture into hundreds of different disciplines. From rocket science to pediatric care to soil science to philosophical research, students apply what they learn in college to their daily lives. This fact is scary to consider when considering the uniform ideology that has permeated every discipline at our universities. This may not be true everywhere, but it has recently become apparent at A&M, where students were being taught a biased interpretation of history designed to sway their thinking toward a specific conclusion.
This is becoming increasingly concerning for our future society because diverse perspectives are what make our schools, companies, and country so great. Differing perspectives breed innovation in every way, shape, and form. We are not meant to be told what to think.
So, how do we prevent this dystopia from being realized and ensure our universities remain a marketplace of ideas that challenges students on the issues that matter most? By strengthening norms of viewpoint neutrality, increasing collaboration with industry and other universities, and upholding the Chicago Principles of Free Expression, universities can foster genuine intellectual diversity rather than ideological conformity.
What does it mean to have a “marketplace of ideas” in higher education? It does not mean to have a certain number of conservatives and a certain number of liberals concreted in their beliefs and constantly bickering but not ever listening. In today's world, this is what the so-called “debate” has come to be. To truly foster robust and effective debate, you need exposure to competing viewpoints that strengthen your critical thinking and allow you to either strengthen your beliefs or become open to change. I can personally say that discussing the issues most important to me with my peers has helped me consider other perspectives, which has strengthened my own beliefs. To create an environment where ideas and thoughts can flow and change, we must emphasize the three points at the faculty level.
It may seem obvious, but professors must be able to set aside personal beliefs and present multiple viewpoints fairly. This is hard to come by because of the stark division we see in society today. Nevertheless, the objective of higher education has always been to teach students to
analyze and think through an issue independently, rather than to tell them what to think. This is usually applied to liberal arts and humanities degrees, but can even be applied on the STEM side, for example, in math. If professors proposed practice questions and then immediately provided
the answers, there would not be much, if any, critical thinking involved. Later, when the student is working on their own, they will feel lost and sit waiting for someone to give them the answer. This works the same way with our freedom of thought. If we become so used to being told what to think, we will never think for ourselves. This is why, at the foundational level of our education, it is so important for professors to be impartial in the subject matter they teach, so they can influence students to think critically.
One thing that makes university feel useless is the lack of collaboration with industry in your field, as well as with professors and students at other universities. Many departments have professors who have been there for 10 or more years, leaving little room for improvement or change in response to societal advances. This faculty lacks the real-world experience students will have on day one of their jobs after graduation, leaving them either unprepared or prepared for the wrong topics, which stems from the professor's narrow view of current industry and workplace standards. Through direct collaboration with industry and other universities, professors can keep up with current societal changes and advances and continue to teach the next generation of thinkers and innovators effectively. Just as on campus, collaboration amongst real-world fields is key to fostering the “marketplace of ideas” in the classroom.
Free Expression is the cornerstone of all of this. From biblical values to the Bill of Rights to the basic definition of freedom, the ability to freely express and state your opinion is integral to the theme of diversifying ideologies on campus. Every student comes from diverse backgrounds, heritages, hometowns, and experiences, which, on campus, creates a huge melting pot of perspectives on several issues. Having the fundamental right and ability to express these viewpoints to one another is the most important aspect of our society's function. Beyond the classroom, it is the university's role to protect and regulate a productive and civil exchange of these diverse ideas. Having a strong culture of free inquiry teaches students to approach issues with greater emotional regularity and critical thinking, creating an informed response that is respectful of themselves and others. By protecting this ability to contribute to the melting pot of diverse ideologies, the university is securing a better and more diverse future for its students.
I want to note, before closing, that it is quite easy for any action a university takes to be politicized, causing further division and less room for the free exchange of ideas, so it is certainly a slippery slope to encourage the inclusion of diverse perspectives at university. Even so, division is not always bad. As long as universities can still foster serious debate and rigorous challenge within belief systems, they can encourage intellectual pluralism rather than remain isolated ideologies.
Overall, the ideological uniformity of professors at a university does not have to undermine the intellectual diversity that is alive and well throughout the student body. By strengthening norms of viewpoint neutrality, increasing collaboration with industry and other universities, and upholding the Chicago Principles of Free Expression, we can encourage not merely ideological balance but diversity of thought. Higher Education is ground zero for reintegrating our divided society, and through these practices, we can keep the conversation going and reignite our human capacity for free thought.
Michael R. Beggs '68 Selfless Service Award
Submission essays were evaluated anonymously on their logical development of ideas, persuasiveness, true representation of the subject’s service to the community and utilization of facts and background information.
To be eligible for the Michael R Beggs '68 Selfless Service award, an Aggie student must:
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Have displayed a high degree of the core value of Selfless Service.
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Have no academic, honor, or conduct violations.
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Have performed service to improve the quality of life and promote the welfare of others (i.e., humanitarian/charitable causes) during the nominee’s enrollment at Texas A&M University. Service is to be considered based on the nominee’s efforts—not the overall effort of the organization associated with the service.
The 2026 Michael R. Beggs '68 Selfless Service Award Recipient:
Robert Becker '26
The Texas A&M core value of Selfless Service is the willingness to give one’s time and energy for the good of others without seeking personal benefit. Robert Becker, President of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) at Texas A&M, lives out this value through his advocacy for student safety. Together with his YAL team, he worked to address a real humanitarian concern on campus, the physical security of the more than 70,000 students who live and study here, by pushing for policy changes allowing non-lethal self-defense tools throughout campus, including our residence halls.
Robert’s work began with a sobering reality. The College Station 2025 Annual Security Report documented 239 cases of domestic violence and 257 cases of stalking in on-campus housing between 2022 and 2024. To Robert, these were not just statistics but a clear sign that university policies left students vulnerable.
He also listened carefully to the personal experiences of fellow students, including freshman Sandra Thompson, who described frightening incidents of random individuals entering her dorm room without permission. Hearing stories like this convinced Robert that students should never feel defenseless in their private places where they sleep and study.
Although Robert already leads an organization, his commitment goes far beyond administrative duties. His chapter gathered almost 2,000 student signatures on a petition, a major achievement in itself, and he then personally brought the issue directly to university leadership.
Robert coordinated and met with the University Chief of Police, representatives from Student Life, and the Office of the President. In this meeting, he presented thoughtful and well-reasoned arguments explaining the importance of student safety and the right to self-defense as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment.
Because of his persistence, the university amended Student Rule 24.4.14. Thanks to him, students will feel safer and have peace of mind for years to come. Robert’s initiative, professionalism, and respectful engagement with the administration ensured that student voices were heard.
Robert Becker demonstrates exceptional integrity, maintaining a clean academic, honor, and conduct record. His work has been entirely voluntary and motivated by genuine concern for others. Through careful research, thoughtful dialogue, and sincere empathy, he has advocated for a safer campus community.
For his dedication to protecting fellow students and his clear embodiment of the selfless service represented by Michael R. Beggs ’68, I am proud to nominate Robert Becker for this award.
Robert was nominated by Justino Russell '26 who is the founder of the Aggie Standard, the first conservative newspaper on campus to present the opposite side of view of the Battalion.
Above Pictured (L-R): Michael Beggs '96 and Robert Becker '26