Is Bud Light Right And I'm Wrong?

[Dill]

(06-14-2023, 11:59 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Quote:And I'm not "admitting the obvious" about suppression of speech on campus while Republicans are actually "reforming" higher ed by cutting whole programs and the people who teach them. 

Ahh, a rather different kettle of fish here.  I assume you're referring to Florida, but since you gave no specific example I'm left to just guess.

Not a "different kettle of fish" if, as you proclaimed above, the issue is suppression of free speech. Not even outside the "exchange of protests" you claim is the real topic, since students frequently protest firing of faculty and cancelation of programs. 

Free speech was never a thing on U.S. college campuses until post-Civil War, when research universities first displaced the old Latin curriculum. Then the issue was academic freedom, followed by student speech. Both have been problems which ebb and flow. Post-WWII there was the McCarthy scare, bring to your state the demand that all college professors sign an anti-communist statement or be fired. Then there were the student protests of the '60s against the VN War. We've seen nothing on that scale since, briefly, the George Floyd protests. 

But now, just as they desire to force their abortion views on the nation, the MAGA right wants to actively intervene in higher ed--remember, one of Limbaugh's four "deceits," along with Government, Science and the Media. We hear a lot of astro turf movements in the public schools orchestrated against transgender and gay students. But much less about their doings in tertiary education. 

It appears that they've gotten the College Board to scale back their AP curricula regarding African-American history (feeder courses to university-level work). They are developing a model for every state, or as many as possible, in which state legislatures defund public universities to get them to conform to New Right/MAGA values. That includes eliminating "social justice" programs, history which is "unfair" to whites, and tenure, along with a push for open carry on campus.

DeSantis Florida model is a big experimental step in this direction--creation of a state college on the model of Michigan's Hillsdale. Discourage the "wrong" kind of student and faculty, provide incentives to the "right" kind (pun intended). But Florida is not the only state seeking doctrinal control of public universities.
Idaho Lawmakers Cut Into Public University Budgets To Scale Back Social Justice Programs
https://www.nwpb.org/2021/03/03/idaho-lawmakers-cut-into-public-university-budgets-to-scale-back-social-justice-programs/

Last year the Georgia Senate managed to strip provisions from a bill that would ban teaching "divisive concepts" in universities in that state, though they kept it for k-12 education. https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/03/08/senate-education-panel-advances-divisive-concepts-bill-stripped-of-college-rules. The battle is not over. A few days before that the Georgia House, blind or indifferent to the irony, passed a bill banning "free speech zones" and hate speech provisions in Georgia higher ed because free speech is how one overcomes bad ideas." https://thecurrentga.org/2022/03/05/georgia-house-passes-3-controversial-education-bills-despite-opposition/

The Alabama Senate has also proposed "divisive concepts" legislation that would apply to college as well K-12. And it would allow for firing of professors who taught CRT. https://www.al.com/news/2022/02/new-divisive-concepts-education-bill-filed-in-alabama-legislature.html

In Utah, legislators pushing for elimination of Diversity Equity Inclusion provisions in higher ed agreed to postpone that in lieu of a study.
https://le.utah.gov/~2023/bills/static/SB0283.html

Texas has banned DEI https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/politics/greg-abbott-texas-dei-office-ban-colleges/index.html, and its Senate is set to ban tenure in 2924. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2023/04/20/ban-future-tenure-texas-senate-bill-18-approved-public-colleges-university-faculty-2024/70116537007/?gnt-cfr=1

I suppose we could go red state by red state doing this. Each functions as a kind of petri dish to see what restrictions on higher ed "work," then these legislative fixes will be disseminated to others. The pattern is similar to bans on Sharia and CRT in the past. The first versions of the bills don't pass. Then with tinkering they do.