I favor fighting the politicization of academia--from either side.
However...the left completely controls universities and misuses its power to advance its radical ideology at virtually every opportunity. Universities have virtually become progressive-left indoctrination camps.
So perhaps you can understand my skepticism about going after one of the few serious efforts to push back against the left's all-out war on objective, rational inquiry and teaching...
The Stop Woke act is *nothing* compared to the politicization and thought-control being infused into universities, root and branch by the progressive-left.
You write:
"At North Florida College, for instance, the college’s attorney warned that a professor “teaching a class on U.S. History and Jim Crow laws could not tell students the historical fact that ‘white people were responsible for enacting’ Jim Crow laws.” It could violate the seventh concept on the Stop WOKE Act’s blacklist, which prohibits instruction that advances the notion that a person “bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” for past actions committed by people who share their same racial background. "
That is absurd. The argument makes no sense at all. Teaching that past whites were responsible for doing x cannot possibly be construed as teaching that contemporary whites bear personal responsibility (etc.) for x.
I don't necessarily disagree with you in all the particulars. But I'm perhaps irrationally cranky about nit-picking against an overall decent effort to slow the destruction of academia being prosecuted by the left.
Prohibiting the teaching of CRT entirely--insane as that would be--would be *less* insane than the current situation in which its precepts are taught from every lectern as fact. (Note: an exaggeration for rhetorical effect.) CRT is not even an influential view--except on the political left. It's basically a joke, a poorly-thought-out, poorly-defended sub-fad that has gained notoriety because it is leftist, not because it is inherently of interest.
My own university was caught outright indoctrinating student Resident Advisors with CRT/progressive nonsense about e.g. all whites being oppressors. Again: what *could* reasonably be taught as one outre theory was taught as if it were fact. When busted, the university hid the video and only gave it up after a FOIA request.
I agree. Teaching that white people enacted Jim Crow laws would and should not cause guilt. Additionally, CRT is not as basic a building block to teaching administration as carbon, DNA, and gravity. I understand the sentiment and rationale discussed in this substack, but I think California might be addressing the same concept--curtailing ideas--from the opposite ideological spectrum. I'd be just as interested in hearing about free speech issues there.
"Teaching that past whites were responsible for doing x cannot possibly be construed as teaching that contemporary whites bear personal responsibility (etc.) for x."
"Teaching that white people enacted Jim Crow laws would and should not cause guilt."
Personally, I believe teaching these things absolutely could and SHOULD cause a feeling of guilt and anguish. How is it not normal, and OK, to feel terrible about something awful in our past? How is it not normal, and OK, to feel terrible about something that still affects living people today? Students today have grandparents that experienced segregation and redlining. Students today have grandparents that benefited or were harmed by segregation and redlining. If a student learns about these things and connects the dots to how their own family benefited or was harmed you don't think they should, or could, feel some sense of guilt, anguish, or other emotion? Why is it a bad thing to feel guilt, anguish, or emotion!?
At the end of the day this will stifle educational freedom. If a teacher can be disciplined if a student feels "guilt" or "anguish" they will avoid the topic to protect their livelihood.
"Personally, I believe teaching these things absolutely could and SHOULD cause a feeling of guilt and anguish. How is it not normal, and OK, to feel terrible about something awful in our past? "
"the left completely controls universities and misuses its power to advance its radical ideology at virtually every opportunity. Universities have virtually become progressive-left indoctrination camps."
"So perhaps you can understand my skepticism about going after one of the few serious efforts to push back against the left's all-out war on objective, rational inquiry and teaching..."
"But I'm perhaps irrationally cranky about nit-picking against an overall decent effort to slow the destruction of academia being prosecuted by the left."
You may believe these things to be true, but stating these as commonly understood Truths is maddening.
I didn't state them as commonly-understood truths, but merely as truths.
However, they *are,* in fact, commonly recognized.
Certainly most conservatives and many centrists recognize them. The left denies them--but, then, the contemporary left consistently confuses truth with leftist dogma. It's become virtually incapable of even *recognizing a difference* between truth and leftist dogma. As soon as x is declared politically correct, the left will begin treating it as if it were not only true but unquestionable. And, of course, the left's first line of defense is to simply deny its control over institutions, including academia.
And, when faced with the virtually undeniable evidence that the progressive left controls universities, they switch to their fallback position: yes, universities are leftist--because leftism is correct, and academicians are experts and know what is correct. One version of this: "reality has a liberal bias." Though they're not liberals anymore, so that has to be updated.
If you haven't had your finger on the pulse of academia, you might not recognize the extent to which it now dances to the tune of the left.
These are your BELIEFS. Your statements should read;
"IT'S MY BELIEF THAT, the left completely controls universities and misuses its power to advance its radical ideology at virtually every opportunity. IN MY OPIONION, Universities have virtually become progressive-left indoctrination camps."
"So perhaps you can understand my skepticism about going after WHAT I SEE AS one of the few serious efforts to push back against WHAT I BELIEVE IS the left's all-out war on objective, rational inquiry and teaching..."
These things are true. Of course many propositions are both true and believed. But one ordinarily says "I believe that p" if one considers one's evidence to add up to something short of knowledge. That isn't the case here. I know the above propositions to be true. You can know them too, if you will merely look at the evidence. It's virtually impossible to ignore.
The wise and witty SCOTUS Justice Brandeis, to dissent against the opinion of the majority of SCOTUS Justices in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1928), wrote words that many justices have incorporated into many subsequent opinions:
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. . . . The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
Ibram X. Kendi: The only remedy for racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination.
Ron DeSantis: The only remedy for anti-racist speech policing is racist speech policing.
Neither of these two posers seems to have ever learned that two wrongs do not make a right.
I favor fighting the politicization of academia--from either side.
However...the left completely controls universities and misuses its power to advance its radical ideology at virtually every opportunity. Universities have virtually become progressive-left indoctrination camps.
So perhaps you can understand my skepticism about going after one of the few serious efforts to push back against the left's all-out war on objective, rational inquiry and teaching...
The Stop Woke act is *nothing* compared to the politicization and thought-control being infused into universities, root and branch by the progressive-left.
You write:
"At North Florida College, for instance, the college’s attorney warned that a professor “teaching a class on U.S. History and Jim Crow laws could not tell students the historical fact that ‘white people were responsible for enacting’ Jim Crow laws.” It could violate the seventh concept on the Stop WOKE Act’s blacklist, which prohibits instruction that advances the notion that a person “bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” for past actions committed by people who share their same racial background. "
That is absurd. The argument makes no sense at all. Teaching that past whites were responsible for doing x cannot possibly be construed as teaching that contemporary whites bear personal responsibility (etc.) for x.
I don't necessarily disagree with you in all the particulars. But I'm perhaps irrationally cranky about nit-picking against an overall decent effort to slow the destruction of academia being prosecuted by the left.
Prohibiting the teaching of CRT entirely--insane as that would be--would be *less* insane than the current situation in which its precepts are taught from every lectern as fact. (Note: an exaggeration for rhetorical effect.) CRT is not even an influential view--except on the political left. It's basically a joke, a poorly-thought-out, poorly-defended sub-fad that has gained notoriety because it is leftist, not because it is inherently of interest.
My own university was caught outright indoctrinating student Resident Advisors with CRT/progressive nonsense about e.g. all whites being oppressors. Again: what *could* reasonably be taught as one outre theory was taught as if it were fact. When busted, the university hid the video and only gave it up after a FOIA request.
I agree. Teaching that white people enacted Jim Crow laws would and should not cause guilt. Additionally, CRT is not as basic a building block to teaching administration as carbon, DNA, and gravity. I understand the sentiment and rationale discussed in this substack, but I think California might be addressing the same concept--curtailing ideas--from the opposite ideological spectrum. I'd be just as interested in hearing about free speech issues there.
"Teaching that past whites were responsible for doing x cannot possibly be construed as teaching that contemporary whites bear personal responsibility (etc.) for x."
"Teaching that white people enacted Jim Crow laws would and should not cause guilt."
Personally, I believe teaching these things absolutely could and SHOULD cause a feeling of guilt and anguish. How is it not normal, and OK, to feel terrible about something awful in our past? How is it not normal, and OK, to feel terrible about something that still affects living people today? Students today have grandparents that experienced segregation and redlining. Students today have grandparents that benefited or were harmed by segregation and redlining. If a student learns about these things and connects the dots to how their own family benefited or was harmed you don't think they should, or could, feel some sense of guilt, anguish, or other emotion? Why is it a bad thing to feel guilt, anguish, or emotion!?
At the end of the day this will stifle educational freedom. If a teacher can be disciplined if a student feels "guilt" or "anguish" they will avoid the topic to protect their livelihood.
"Personally, I believe teaching these things absolutely could and SHOULD cause a feeling of guilt and anguish. How is it not normal, and OK, to feel terrible about something awful in our past? "
It's normal for people without empathy.
WHAT!?
"the left completely controls universities and misuses its power to advance its radical ideology at virtually every opportunity. Universities have virtually become progressive-left indoctrination camps."
"So perhaps you can understand my skepticism about going after one of the few serious efforts to push back against the left's all-out war on objective, rational inquiry and teaching..."
"But I'm perhaps irrationally cranky about nit-picking against an overall decent effort to slow the destruction of academia being prosecuted by the left."
You may believe these things to be true, but stating these as commonly understood Truths is maddening.
I didn't state them as commonly-understood truths, but merely as truths.
However, they *are,* in fact, commonly recognized.
Certainly most conservatives and many centrists recognize them. The left denies them--but, then, the contemporary left consistently confuses truth with leftist dogma. It's become virtually incapable of even *recognizing a difference* between truth and leftist dogma. As soon as x is declared politically correct, the left will begin treating it as if it were not only true but unquestionable. And, of course, the left's first line of defense is to simply deny its control over institutions, including academia.
And, when faced with the virtually undeniable evidence that the progressive left controls universities, they switch to their fallback position: yes, universities are leftist--because leftism is correct, and academicians are experts and know what is correct. One version of this: "reality has a liberal bias." Though they're not liberals anymore, so that has to be updated.
If you haven't had your finger on the pulse of academia, you might not recognize the extent to which it now dances to the tune of the left.
These are your BELIEFS. Your statements should read;
"IT'S MY BELIEF THAT, the left completely controls universities and misuses its power to advance its radical ideology at virtually every opportunity. IN MY OPIONION, Universities have virtually become progressive-left indoctrination camps."
"So perhaps you can understand my skepticism about going after WHAT I SEE AS one of the few serious efforts to push back against WHAT I BELIEVE IS the left's all-out war on objective, rational inquiry and teaching..."
Negative.
These things are true. Of course many propositions are both true and believed. But one ordinarily says "I believe that p" if one considers one's evidence to add up to something short of knowledge. That isn't the case here. I know the above propositions to be true. You can know them too, if you will merely look at the evidence. It's virtually impossible to ignore.
Well, I guess this is where the conversation ends. Our "truths" are radically different.
That's just a very confused way of saying: you believe false things.
The wise and witty SCOTUS Justice Brandeis, to dissent against the opinion of the majority of SCOTUS Justices in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1928), wrote words that many justices have incorporated into many subsequent opinions:
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. . . . The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
Hey, Amna, what's the status of the litigation? Its been about six months?
Hi Lee. The oral arguments were going to start end Jan but have been pushed out until May.