Curmie had a post underway, then postponed it because something else came along, and now he’s putting that project on the back burner because of this. I first read about this story on Salon.com, but that’s an extremely left-leaning site, so I looked for other sources, because it couldn’t be this bad, right? Right?
Well, Business Insider, that bastion of Commie propaganda, says pretty much the same thing in their story. Florida is once again making its pitch to be the principal laughingstock of the nation. I wish they’d stop, not because their idiocy affects me directly, but the Texas legislature really resents being out-stupided, and they’ll develop a scheme even more hare-brained (and repressive) than this.
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| Governor Ron DeSantis Censorious Asshat |
Well, our “real history” includes slavery; lies and broken promises to First Nations people; internment camps for Japanese-Americans; discrimination against Jews, Catholics, Muslims, women, homosexuals; the use of atomic weapons on civilians… the list goes on. That’s not all our history is about, of course. There were, and are, ways in which this truly is the greatest country in the world. But we’re talking about university students here: they’re old enough and mature enough to know that George Washington didn’t admit to chopping down the cherry tree with his little hatchet.
A nation that can recognize and confront its failures to
deliver the “liberty and justice for all” its rhetoric promises is inherently
stronger than one which hides away its darker moments like crazy Uncle Elmo
whom we never let out of the attic. Sometimes
the only way to disinfect the wound is to rip off the scab. By the way, apparently Sprowls (and DeSantis, and
most of the rest of the Florida GOP) believes that “loving America” is
ideology-free. Uh… no.
Of course, the entire idea of threatening to withhold
funding from universities which might have disproportionately large numbers of
(gasp!) Democrats is both sinister and doomed to failure. Let’s face it, people will lie if their
livelihood is on the line. (There is, by
the way, no guarantee of anonymity for those answering the survey.)
And it is certainly true that universities (in certain
departments at certain schools, at least) are indeed primarily staffed by folks
who are more likely to be liberal. The average university professor (if Curmie
does say so himself) tends to be well above average in intellect and possessed
of a good work ethic. Such a person
could make more money developing a new marketing campaign for Amalgamated
WidgetCorp. Crude but not altogether inaccurate
generalization: capitalists tend to prefer money; socialists are more likely to
seek to benefit the society at large. Curiously, the former like their government-funded infrastructure and the latter would willingly be paid more.
More to the point, my politics are none of the state’s
damned business. That’s why we have
secret ballots, after all. If, and
only if, my political stance shuts off legitimate debate, then that’s a
problem. But the presumption must be that
I am operating in good faith until it is proved conclusively that I am
not. Forces on both sides of the
political divide would rather make us prove innocence. That is un-American.
Ah, but Governor DeSantis has heard fears from “a lot of parents” that their offspring are being “indoctrinated.” 1). That’s because DeSantis and his cronies are screaming such nonsense from the rooftops. 2). What’s happening more likely than not is that the indoctrination happened when little Johnny or Suzy was growing up, and that what happens in the college classroom is in fact a challenge to that pre-existing indoctrination.
This is not to suggest, of course, that all faculty are
blameless, or indeed that there aren’t threats to freedom of expression
emanating from the left. Of course,
there are. They’re real, and no one who’s
been paying attention thinks otherwise. But
this bill is using an assault rifle to kill a guppy. It can only lead to an increasingly high
stakes battle with both sides moving away from the real issue for the sake of
winning the argument rather than improving education.
It is also true that on Curmie’s campus, there are some
faculty far further to the right than Curmie’s most liberal colleague is to the
left. One professor at this state
university gave students extra credit for memorizing Bible verses (needless to say, this
wasn’t a course in comparative religion).
The administration loved him.
Moreover, this effort demonstrates a profound lack of
understanding of the way universities work.
Diversity of perspective doesn’t require hiring both liberals and
conservatives; it requires faculty who know what the hell they’re doing. Curmie has taught plays that are very
Catholic, very Jewish, very Buddhist, very Hindu, very atheist; he’s taught
plays that advocate for monarchy, for democracy, for socialism, for capitalism,
for anarchy. Do I really need to tell
you, Gentle Reader, that I’m not an adherent to all of these philosophies?
The same is true for the history part of my courses: I
suppose that Curmie’s dislike for blowing up innocent people, or slaughtering
them, or starving them to death… this could be taken as a political stance, but
it would be kind of a stretch to call that a comprehensive philosophy, wouldn’t
it?
And whereas, as noted in a piece I wrote a month or so ago,
students will know something of my politics when I refer to them by their
preferred pronouns or suggest that part of choosing a theatre season is
ensuring that there are qualitatively good and quantitatively enough roles for
actors of different demographic profiles, that doesn’t mean they know where I
stand on any particular issue except in the most general terms (cops killing
civilians is sometimes but not always justified; what about this particular
case?). To the best of my knowledge, no
current student even knows of the existence of this blog.
There’s also the matter of academic freedom. Especially but not exclusively tenured faculty
are, and should be, granted the ability to determine the content and structure
of their courses. The Florida GOP
stratagem, of course, represents the first step toward subjecting higher education
to the censorial powers of whoever happens to have the political advantage at a
given moment. Given the splintering of
the American electorate and the intransigent extremism of both sides, that’s a
terrifying prospect in the short term, and it won’t get any better if the blues
instead of the reds are in power.
Finally, one is tempted to wonder at the rationale for requiring students to acquiesce to this violation of their privacy. At least the desire to suppress the rights of
faculty makes sense in amoral, utilitarian terms. But the only possibility for studying the
student body is to track changes over time, looking for the “gotcha” moment
when the senior class is marginally more liberal than they were as freshmen.
Well, duh. At least
in certain ways, of course they are. The
classroom isn’t the only place that learning takes place. Curmie had a couple of gay friends in high school,
but they weren’t out to him at the time.
In college, I “knowingly knew” gay friends. And there were more people of different races,
religions, and, yes, political philosophies.
In the classroom, I learned some facts that challenged my beliefs and
some that bolstered them. That is what
is supposed to happen.
Curmie emerged from college more liberal in some ways, more
conservative in others, and certainly more skeptical of all pronouncements from
either side. This, too, is what is supposed
to happen.
It is only a matter of time before Governor DeSantis, Representative Sprowls, or one of their cohort declares the imminent arrival of Shari’a Law on American shores. Newsflash: such enforced orthodoxy is already here; it’s manifested in this legislation.
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