What is at Stake in Florida Higher Ed Reform Bill?

A poorly drafted and conceptually ambitious upending of norms of state university independence

Over in Chronicle of Higher Education, I have a new piece examining HB 999 in the Florida legislature and its implications for the future of Republican politics around higher education.

From the piece:

State universities have never been perfectly independent from political pressure. They are ultimately creatures of the state and dependent on the good graces of political leaders. But American universities have long enjoyed a significant degree of freedom from political meddling in academic affairs, and that insulation from politics has allowed public universities to become intellectual powerhouses.

That long-lived arrangement may be nearing an end in many red states. It is hard to know where this newfound willingness to micromanage state universities will lead, but it would be a radical departure from the past. If conservatives are concerned that the intellectual environment at universities has become too stifling, this program of reform may provide a cure that is at least as bad as the disease.

Read the whole thing here.

Comments

[Frank Drackman]

Just heard Scott Adams appointed Professor of African Amurican Studies at FSU

[OtisAH]

My favorite part is the thing they don’t see coming:

This will affect National Signing Day for football, which is literally the only thing most Floridians truly care about wrt education. Miami and UF in the SEC; FSU in the ACC, and up-and-comers UCF and South Florida will all see their programs hurt by this. And by the time it does it will be far more difficult to unwind DeSantis’s vandalism.

[Michael P]

Turning cancel culture into a cancel cartel? A novel idea, but perhaps not morally or practically defensible.

[OtisAH]

Wut?

[Michael P]

Why don't you explain what mechanism you think would cause this effect, and I'll explain what it has to do with turning cancel culture into a cancel cartel?

[OtisAH]

The higher education “reforms” we are discussing is the mechanism that will cause the effect. If you have any other silly and thoughtless questions please direct them to someone else.

[Life of Brian]

This will affect National Signing Day for football

NOOOOOOO!!!! Not muh bread and circuses!

[Frank Drackman]

Miami's in the ACC dumbass

[OtisAH]

Yep, oops. Now GFY.

[Frank Drackman]

only if you watch

[GreenLanternCorps]

Miami is in the Mid American Conference. Miami (FL) is in the ACC…
(My brother will be a Miami Redskin until his very last breath.)

[Bob from Ohio]

"This will affect National Signing Day for football"

LOL, no it won't.

"I'm getting 800K in NIL money but I'm afraid the governor has too much control over academics" said no one ever.

[OtisAH]

First, the NIL money will go to a small percentage of players, only the best of the best and some who fall just outside that. Second, every school has wealthy benefactors. And third, the five and four star recruits a school needs to thrive in the highest echelons of the sport, where all five of those schools dwell or hope to, have lots of options.

[Bob from Ohio]

We'll see. First, many such athletes live in Florida. Second, they usually don't come from the white liberal households who care about "academic freedom". Third, most of the SEC rival states will enact such laws in the near future.

4 and 5 star recruits in football care about their possible NFL careers, first and foremost. Not details of collegiate governance.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You may misunderstand the context and the players.

Many college football prospects are Black. A number of them might seek to avoid playing in a state, such as Florida, whose government is hostile to Blacks (and was even more hostile to Blacks decades ago) and stridently hospitable to the MAGA segment of society. If the players do not arrive at this position independently with respect to Florida's old-timey policies, plenty of coaches from more inclusive, modern states are likely to illuminate this point for them. Some White players also might choose to avoid Florida for that reason (if they have educated parents, for example).

The NIL benefits are likely to be similar across the board.

This could become a self-feeding cycle, similar to that which has fueled ascents and descents among programs across the years. I had a front-row seat to watch that process build a national championship team; I also have seen a bit of faltering intensify to the point of wrecking a program over a period of years.

If other southern states enact laws to reject "Black studies" and ditch academic freedom to flatter conservative bigotry, backwardness, and superstition, that likely hobble those states, too, and vindicate my view that America should not have enabled the traitors, bigots, and losers of the Civil War to resume statehood. Had those operating in the immediate wake of that war have known the degree to which southern states would remain a drain and stain on our nation for what is approaching two centuries, I believe we might still have a string of unincorporated territories along our southern border.

I can't fault those who were lenient toward the southern states too much, though. They beat the bigots when it counted.

[TwelveInchPianist]

If public universities want to be left alone, all they have to do is convince the public that they are valuable institutions, and not places where students become indoctrinated with bad ideas.

[BikeRider]

I agree. I teach at a public university and they've brought this on themselves. Florida's approach might be "vague and sloppy", but some sort of backlash was predictable.

Even "liberal" faculty are afraid.

https://reason.com/2023/02/28/40-percent-of-liberal-professors-are-afraid-theyll-lose-their-jobs-over-a-misunderstanding/

[Nige]

Most people think they're valuable institutions, that's why they keep sending their kids to them. They might want better access, they might want them run better, but it's only anti-education right-wing extremists who think they're indoctrination camps.

[Frank Drackman]

They've got a monopoly on that piece of paper that says you learned something that you need to get that other piece of paper that says you're a Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief. Even at Auburn in the early 1980's I had a History professor convinced Ronaldus Maximus would start WW3 (she was only 40 years off, and it's Senescent Dooficus Joe) I'd just nod and smile and work my Organic Chemisty problems, and nearly every Science TA were Ear-Ronians, wasn't a good time to be a Moose-lum in Alabama with the Hostage Crisis just ending.

Frank

[Nige]

You said you wanted a woman to be gang raped.

[OtisAH]

And he wants me to watch him masturbate.

[Frank Drackman]

you're the one who told me to

[OtisAH]

And you’re the one who asked me to watch.

[DaveM]

It’s not clear to me what the author’s argument is. For example, here he is trying himself into knots decrying the bill on the one hand while acknowledging that in fact it’s needed, on the other:

HB 999 would ban “any programs or campus activities” that “espouse diversity, equity, and inclusion or critical-race-theory rhetoric.” The rapidly growing DEI bureaucracy on many state-university campuses is already in the crosshairs of Republican politicians, but this legislative blunderbuss would very likely threaten the scholarly activities of the faculty, as well as the workings of student-affairs offices.

Along with DEI bureaucracies, “diversity statement” requirements have similarly proliferated throughout academe. Student admissions, faculty hiring, and even faculty-promotion decisions are now frequently predicated on the demonstration of sufficient commitment to the diversity, equity, and inclusion program. Some academics have started to resist, arguing that such requirements are little better than the McCarthy-era loyalty oaths that professors were once required to sign. Florida’s postsecondary-institutions bill would ban such requirements, but it would do so in a particularly vague and sloppy fashion."

So, the argument against the bill is basically that it’s “vague and sloppy”? DEI proliferates like weeds in academe and the problem is the law is a “blunderbuss”? Well. Ok. So tell me how loyalty oaths aren’t similarly vague, sloppy, and blunderbuss-like? It seems an odd argument to make. Yeah, the overarching thing we don’t like is hereby eliminated in an overarching manner. That’s sorta what one has to do in order to counteract it.

[myself]

The problem with "vague and sloppy" laws is no one knows what they mean.

For a lot of ordinary people there's a chilling effect on fairly inoffensive actions because they have no idea where the line is.

And bad actors now have the opportunity subject their enemies to selective prosecution.

[Nige]

Because the genuine reforms are a trojan horse for an ideologically-driven takeover. To understand why people think this you have to look at, well, pretty much everything DeSantis is actually doing and saying.

[bernard11]

HB 999 would ban “any programs or campus activities” that “espouse diversity, equity, and inclusion or critical-race-theory rhetoric.”

And you think this is OK?

[Currentsitguy]

I’d have a problem with any being prerequisites, but not with them being offered as electives.

I think it's important for students to be exposed to a variety of perspectives and viewpoints.

[bernard11]

I agree they shouldn't be required.

But the wording seems to address much more than courses.

What about a guest speaker?

[Lee Moore]

Didn’t we do this in the earlier thread ? All these shock horror sound bites turn out to be things the university can’t spend money on, not things that students or third parties say for free.

[Kazinski]

It depends on what is in the content, claiming white people are inherently racist is just as bad as saying black people are inherently lazy. After all I'm lazy, and I consider it a good thing,and focused laziness is the source of most human progress. There isn't anything positive about racism.

[Toranth]

We've been through this, and shown it is false, so why do you keep repeating it?

It would ban public funding of such, but privately funded events could go on without restriction.

[Ben_]

There are big problems but we can’t address them because it might cause some small problems for elites.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I challenge the presumption that our public universities are intellectual powerhouses. They once were -- sixty years ago, but that was then and this is now.

Kors & Silverglate put it best nearly 30 years ago -- there is a Shadow Government running these universities, and what DeSantis seeks to do is replace that with the *real* government. There is no way that could possibly be any worse because the real government can be voted out of office...

[Sarcastr0]

Your paranoia butts up against reality and loses.

Our university scientists remain the best in the world, by just about any metric - total papers, impact, patents, businesses formed, jobs created.

China has more papers per $$, but those papers are trash.

[Ed Grinberg]

re: “state university independence”
As the old expression goes, he that pays the piper calls the tune. I don’t see anything wrong with the state legislature controlling what gets taught in state universities.
(Though, as I’ve said before, I’d prefer for the government (at all levels) to just stay out of the higher-ed field altogether. I’d shut down all public colleges & universities.)

[bernard11]

I don’t see anything wrong with the state legislature controlling what gets taught in state universities.

Really??? Just amazing.

[Currentsitguy]

You don't think the funding source, in the case the taxpayers through their elected representatives, should have any say in how their money is spent?

[bernard11]

Of course they should have a say. The issue is how much micro-management politicians should engage in with respect to curriculum content. Should the state government dictate what can and cannot be taught in an American history class, for example? I don't think so. Should politically appointed trustees be making decisions about faculty hiring and tenure? You think that will be just fine? I don't.

But let's not glorify this whole thing by pretending that it's the will of the taxpayers. What about those who didn't vote for DeSantis, or those who did but don't like this legislation? Or corporate taxpayers?

I think the state can reasonably specify the general structure of the school. It can certainly hire university presidents, but when you start banning "unproven theories" you are going way too far.

[Kazinski]

It's not really micromanagement for the states to have a say in something that spends at least 10's of millions of state funds and permeates to every corner of university life.

If DEI, and CRT had kept itself to a scope where it only needed micromanagement then we wouldn't be having this debate.

[Lee Moore]

I am inclined to agree that specifying content in legislation is not a good idea - purely from the point of view of effectiveness.
The essential point is to appoint the people who run the university. So long as they can hire and fire who they want, and the politicos can hire or fire them, the direction of travel is under control.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

And when the other party gains control in Tallahassee, all those people are gone and a new bunch are appointed. What a great way to run universities.

[Lee Moore]

The Dems are well to the right and well to the sane side of the average university administrator. I fear the swing of that political pendulum like the Christian in the arena fears athlete’s foot.

[y81]

In lieu of unproductive carping, the most beneficial activity for Prof. Whittington (and possibly some of the other Conspirators) would be to produce model legislation that would rein in the admitted abuses without the perceived threat to academic free inquiry (e.g., shutting down the tip lines for students to file anonymous complaints against political opponents while permitting professors and students to read Gramsci, or even discuss him in class, if someone thinks that is worthwhile).

I doubt that Prof. Whittington or any of the other Conspirators has the courage and integrity to stand up against the obloquy that would result from such an activity. So any change will have to come from outside, and it is likely to be heavy-handed and occasionally misdirected. That is the inevitable consequence when institutions fail to reform themselves.

[Cheerio]

This.

You don’t get to say things like “this cure is worse than the disease” unless you’re also stressing the need for a better cure.

[bernard11]

You don’t get to say things like “this cure is worse than the disease” unless you’re also stressing the need for a better cure.

Sure you do.

If you suggest cutting off an arm will cure a cold I can quite easily and correctly say your cure is worse than the disease without having any idea how to cure a cold.

[Lee Moore]

Whose arm ? Other folks arms are well worth cutting off to cure my cold.

[Ben_]

Yeah. What if serving the public was a principle goal for Whittington or anyone in academia at government universities? Then their input might seem to intend to serve the public rather than to protect the narrow interests of university insiders from (the representatives of) the public.

[bernard11]

What if education, rather than throwing red meat to their base, was a principal goal of DeSantis and the FL legislature?

[Ben_]

Race hatred training isn’t education.

[Commenter_XY]

Way too much hand-wringing. The bottom line is that state money comes with state strings attached. If you don't want the strings attached, decline the state money.

[bernard11]

So ideas that are unpopular with the politicians in power shouldn't be taught?

[Brett Bellmore]

So, the public should be on the hook for these institutions even if they don't like what they're doing?

[bernard11]

No. The public, through the legislature, is free to cut funding. I suppose it's also free to enact at least some of what DeSantis wants to do.

But that doesn't mean his ideas are not destructive and simple-minded demagoguery.

[Commenter_XY]

State money, state strings attached. If you don't like it, vote out the Legislature. All the hyperventilating and caterwauling about a bill still in committee is amusing.

[Sarcastr0]

Legally you're right. Policy wise, you're wrong.

Hiding behind 'well it's legal' is a weak dodge when criticizing a policy.

It's a bad policy, popular or not. And it's not clear how popular it is, or will be should it come to pass.

[JesseAz]

You want control of state dollars in the hands of your ideological allies. Full stop. That is your only concern.

Problem is voters don’t elect teachers. They do elect legislatures and governors. You actually call for the removal of taxpayer oversight of the money.

[Lee Moore]

Hey ! Great idea !
How’s about we elect College Profs (though not by mail.)

[Kazinski]

Go ahead and teach them as long as they don't create a hostile environment, but don't make them mandatory, don't put them in math and physics class, and don't discriminate on the basis of race or sex.

[M L]

"So ideas that are unpopular with the politicians in power shouldn’t be taught?"

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. - Bastiat

[Sarcastr0]

We disapprove of state education

Your we is what, Reason readers? Because public education is pretty popular, actually.

[JesseAz]

Explained by the growing demand for ESA and charter schools.

Your arguments remain based on utter ignorance in defense of the left.

[M L]

This quote is 173 years old.

It is just as relevant today, as we see illustrated by bernard's repeated false claims conflating a refusal to publicly fund something with banning that thing.

Personally, I think education could be better with less, little, or no government involvement. But that's a different topic.

[Sarcastr0]

Reactionaries are still a thing today. And as full of fervor and wrongess as ever.

[Roger S]

Drastic action is needed, until universities show that they can self-govern better.

[Lee Moore]

I think this is the point. If there’s a problem and reforms 1,2,3,4 and 5 turn out to be “nothing like enough” you need reform 6 to err on the side of “whoa too much”

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

They self-govern just fine. Not perfect, but fine. The real problem is that demagogues in power use fictional versions of them to fool the gullible. Demagogues who are virtue signaling to their base as they reach for higher office.

[Lee Moore]

We understand. It’s YOUR baby. Not only are we happy to cut it in half, we think this baby is surprisingly ugly and surprisingly whiny.
Let’s chop it up and make a new one.

[Tallman]

A different framing is that this bill is saving *public* higher education, as “door #2” is undoubtedly a sharp drop in public support (e.g., funding cuts)

[Bob from Ohio]

Nothing says serious article like choosing an unflattering screenshot of the main subject.

[Brett Bellmore]

"But American universities have long enjoyed a significant degree of freedom from political meddling in academic affairs"

Which was conditioned on their not engaging in academic meddling in political affairs. They broke their side of the deal first, by deciding to engage in political indoctrination of the students, and political vetting of new hires.

[Bob from Ohio]

They are Democrat monocultures They made their choice.

[Nige]

'by deciding to engage in political indoctrination of the students, and political vetting of new hires.'

Blah blah blah how come we're not down with the kids, why are Young Republicans so loathesome, let's show them by destroying the institutions that are supposed to educate them to a high standard.

[bernard11]

Bullshit, Brett.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're just not willing to admit that it's indoctrination if you agree with it. We've been over this before, how drastically the political composition of university faculty has changed over the last couple of decades, from just a bit more left wing than the general population, to a political monoculture. That didn't happen spontaneously.

It happened because the left started a purge by attrition. Politically vetting their hires for agreement with the left.

And the indoctrination level at some of these institutions has gotten so bad even the left wing students are starting to get scared.

[bernard11]

It happened because the left started a purge by attrition.

All a conspiracy.

You’re just not willing to admit that it’s indoctrination if you agree with it.

Are you seriously suggesting that what DeSantis wants is not indoctrination?

[Brett Bellmore]

Bernard, you can look at the numbers for 'elite' faculty political affiliation, now and 20 years ago, and they're basically inexplicable except on the basis of those institutions simply ceasing to hire anybody on the right about 20-25 years ago, and the conservatives already on the faculty aging out.

You don't get ratios like this accidentally.

[Brett Bellmore]

Here's another source, with time series data.

Notice that, while over the decades the proportions of self-reported liberals, moderates, and conservatives in the general population has barely budged, the ideological composition of academia has changed dramatically, at such a pace that many institutions had to have simply stopped hiring conservatives entirely to change the political composition of their faculties this fast.

[Sarcastr0]

Your reasoning remains piss-poor. Yes, you can get ratios like that just by passive, even unconscious, bias.
That doesn't mean they're good, but it does mean you do not have the factual basis to weave this insane conspiracy theory of yours.

Talk to a teacher about their faculty meetings and tell me they can coordinate anything like that. But no, you haven't talked to a teacher or been on a campus in a long time. Just read big numbers and appeal to incredulity to convince yourself of a really unrealistic story.

[JesseAz]

His reasoning has actual evidence and doesn’t rely on bald assertions like your statement.

You literally provide nothing except a retarded appeal to authority without naming the authority.

[Sarcastr0]

He offers no actual evidence, just 'boy not a lot of conservative proffs these days.' CONSPIRACY!

I'm not sure you even read his comment.

[Lee Moore]

Your objection is of course a massive non sequitur. Even if universities had become a lefty monoculture by osmosis rather than by design, that would not stop them being a lefty monoculture.
And as lefty monocultures they can’t be academically free hothouses of intellectual inquiry.
Hence they must be reformed from the outside.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Over the longer term, the marketplace of ideas and the modern American culture war will sift this. Anyone care to predict which side will win?

Spoiler: Conservatives will lose. Again. Deservedly so.

Enjoy the ride, clingers. I know I will. Isn’t progress great?

[Sarcastr0]

Lee, did you read Brett's comment? Or mine?

I don't disagree we could use more ideological diversity in academia (though monoculture is pushing it).

Brett's got this whole coordinated conspiracy thing that's fucking nonsense I'm objecting to.

Did you just skim the comments and assume which sides we were on or what?

[Brett Bellmore]

100% effective passive, unconscious bias? They’re unconsciously hiring precisely nobody to their left, without even being aware of it? Do you realize how stupid you sound?

At this very moment, Reason has up an article, “40 Percent of Liberal Professors Are Afraid They’ll Lose Their Jobs Over a Misunderstanding”; It’s gotten so bad even the left-wingers are scared.

And it’s not unconscious, if you poll people, you find the ‘liberals’ are quite open about wanting hiring and firing to be on the basis of politics! (So are a lesser percentage of conservatives, but they’re not making the hiring decisions at most universities…)

Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share

“Strong liberals stand out, however, as the only political group who feel they can express themselves. Nearly 6 in 10 (58%) of staunch liberals feel they can say what they believe. However, centrist liberals feel differently. A slim majority (52%) of liberals feel they have to self‐​censor, as do 64% of moderates, and 77% of conservatives.”

“The survey found that many Americans think a person’s private political donations should impact their employment. Nearly a quarter (22%) of Americans would support firing a business executive who personally donates to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign. Even more, 31% support firing a business executive who donates to Donald Trump’s re‐​election campaign.

Support rises among political subgroups. Support increases to 50% of strong liberals who support firing executives who personally donate to Trump. And more than a third (36%) of strong conservatives support firing an executive for donating to Biden’s presidential campaign.

Young Americans are also more likely than older Americans to support punishing people at work for personal donations to Trump. Forty‐​four percent (44%) of Americans under 30 support firing executives if they donate to Trump. This share declines to 22% among those over 55 years old—a 20‐​point difference. An age gap also exists for Biden donors, but is less pronounced. Twenty‐​seven percent (27%) of Americans under 30 support firing executives who donate to Biden compared to 20% of those over 55—a 7‑point difference.”

Get that? “Strong liberals” are both the only group who feel free to express their opinions, AND the only group with majority support for making hiring and firing decisions on the basis of politics. Why do they feel free to express their opinions? Because they know they’re the people who will be doing the punishing!

And nowhere are these people who consciously want hiring and firing done on the basis of politics more in control than university faculties.

But, yeah, go on claiming at worst it’s unconscious bias… on the part of people who will openly tell you they want to do it.

[hoppy025]

Aww, poor babies don't like their "norms" being used against them.

[bernard11]

These comments are really something.

Apparently, to some, it's OK to ban unpopular ideas from being taught because, hey, what the governor says goes.

At least we have the self-proclaimed champions of intellectual freedom revealing themselves for what they are.

[Mr. Hook]

As so often happens, I come away reading the comments in these threads thinking they'd have been the loyalest of Bolsheviks a hundred years ago.

[Lee Moore]

The only good thing about the Soviet Union was that in the mid to late 30s they took a short break from murdering regular folk, so as to concentrate on murdering the loyalest of Bolsheviks.

[hoppy025]

No, it's not. But if conservatives can't teach the truth about race, liberals shouldn't be able to peddle their false ideas.

[M L]

"Apparently, to some, it’s OK to ban unpopular ideas from being taught because, hey, what the governor says goes."

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. – Bastiat

[Ben_]

We all care as much about your opinions as you care about ours.

[the questing vole]

I teach a course on contemporary ideologies, and I used to devote a section to critical legal theory/critical race theory, but both are such incoherent and unconvincing bits of brain diarrhea that I dumped them from the course this year. It was like being a psychology professor and teaching phrenology, or a biologist teaching creationism. CRT is worthless twaddle. Of course, it was my decision and not the government's, and I wouldn't be too keen on elected officials telling me what to teach or what to research, so I'm not completely on board with the bill.

One positive effect that the bill has had is that my university yesterday informed us (the faculty) that, henceforth, no one will be required to submit a diversity statement as a part of a job application or promotion application (they did this quite discreetly, of course). So, that's a win.

[bernard11]

I dumped them from the course this year... Of course, it was my decision and not the government’s, and I wouldn’t be too keen on elected officials telling me what to teach or what to research, so I’m not completely on board with the bill.

Good. That's what is supposed to happen. And I suppose you wouldn't like it if a Democratic governor required you to include it.

[the questing vole]

I agree with your comment, and that's why I am not on board with the bill. If it focused on removing funding for all administrative efforts to implement the diversity grift, then I would be completely supportive. But I don't support government telling university professors what to teach or research.

[OtisAH]

This question is me pretending I believe your tale:

Since you quite obviously understand nothing about CRT, what on earth made you think you could teach it?

[swood1000]

For the critical race theorist, objective truth, like merit, does not exist. Do you think that this would be a coherent approach when training and licensing engineers to construct bridges?

[Sarcastr0]

For the critical race theorist, objective truth, like merit, does not exist.

You quite obviously understand nothing about CRT either! You're describing postmodernism.

[the questing vole]

You are correct that there is a difference between CRT and various forms of postmodernism, though the difference tends to get lost in the arguments of proponents of CRT. CRT, unlike pomo, is a set of doctrines promulgated almost solely by the stupidest faculty members on university campuses (e.g., education faculty, grievance studies faculty, affirmative action hires, etc.), and, now, by the most moronic people in public life (e.g., public school teachers, adminstrators at all levels of education, and politicians).

Postmodernism, on the other hand (and, though I think that it is generally, like skepticism, inherently contradictory) is and has been a position taken by intelligent people (e.g, Foucault, Derrida, Rorty, et al.).

[Sarcastr0]

CRT, unlike pomo, is a set of doctrines promulgated almost solely by the stupidest faculty members on university campuses

You're welcome to your opinion, but coming in so hot makes you seem like kind of a judgmental ass. Maybe at your school they suck, but that's not generalizable.

[JesseAz]

You can't be this dumb. Critical theory has its roots in post modernism. It is a subjective philosophy.

[JesseAz]

I will even give you an example given in race theory supplied by James Lindsay.

A store has customers. A minority walks in. The sales clerk moves to help the new customer. Is this racist?

Yes. They are trying to get the minority out as quickly as possible.

The sales clerk continues to help their customer. Is this racist?

Yes. They are ignoring the minority.

Any action the store clerk takes can be deemed as racist based on subjective interpretations of the customer.

It is post modernist bullshit.

[Sarcastr0]

Critical Legal Theory had it's roots in postmodernism, but that doesn't mean it is itself postmodernist - it requires an objective reality for it's precepts.

And Critical Race Theory, sprung up as a rejection of Critical Legal Theory.

Any action the store clerk takes can be deemed as racist based on subjective interpretations of the customer.
Yeah, CRT doesn't teach that.

FFS Someone listen to Will Baude's podcast on CRT!!!
https://www.podparadise.com/Podcast/1562902209/Listen/1649692800/0
Will is joined by UC Berkeley Law professor Khiara M. Bridges to kick off Season 2 of Deep Dive into Critical Race Theory. In the first episode, Will and Khiara discuss: what IS critical race theory? What makes it “critical”? What distinguishes it from other work on race? What unites it as a theory? Will and Khiara further discuss how optimistic or pessimistic we should be about eradicating racism.

Not that you want to learn.

[the questing vole]

Being a decent professor involves being a judgmental ass, insofar as one has to make decisions about what is and what is not worth teaching. I won't bore you with my bona fides, but, after a quarter of a century at this, I'm quite confident that my judgment about the average intelligence of the proponents of both critical legal theory and critical race theory are accurate (with the proponents of the latter being even more moronic than the proponents of the former). Of course, I am a philosophy professor and not a law professor, so it is possible that things are different in law schools.

That said, the least incoherent versions of CLT/CRT are actually not closely connected with postmodernism, but, instead, are variations on the Marxist/Freudian axis which Rorty (an actual postmodernist) calls the hermeneutics of suspicion. The intelligent postmodernists are Nietzschean, in the sense that they tend to deny that there is anything other than mere power at the heart of human relations. Conversely, for CLT/CRT to make any sense, they have to claim that the oppressed group of their choice (blacks, browns, sexual eccentrics, etc.) is intrinsically pure and good, and that the oppressors (white male Christian normies) are evil. That is to say, the CLT/CRT folks ultimately must claim that there is an objective moral reality that they are defending and promoting in their polemics, while the authentic pomo (like Foucault) rejects such moral objectivism as arrant nonsense (see Habermas’ critique of the pomos for this reason).

I usually get paid for this sort of elementary tuition, but this one is on me.

[Sarcastr0]

Hard disagree that being a good professor means condemning an entire academic discipline. And then making it personal that you're the smart one?

That kind of angry, petty, close-mindedness is a very poor attitude to bring to students going out into the world.

I also object to you dividing up and judging different approaches in disciplines *you are not a part of* followed by explaining what CRT is, when you clearly have zero appetite to actually look into it.
Intellectual humility is also part of being a good professor, both on the academic production and pedogeological sides. I know, all the best philosophers were extremely sure their paradigm was correct, but they backed it up. You're no Rawls.
I am also well-read. I could talk Baudrillard or Eco or Foucault and declare those who build on their work the intelligent ones in postmodernist theory. And I might think that! But I would at least realize that's my opinion, not some objective pronouncement. And maybe back it up with more than an appeal to my own intellectual judgement being the bestest.

I mean look at this: 'for CLT/CRT to make any sense, they have to claim that the oppressed group of their choice (blacks, browns, sexual eccentrics, etc.) is intrinsically pure and good, and that the oppressors (white male Christian normies) are evil.' This is utterly ignorant of what CRT is. But you declare it like it's true! You've never actually engaged with the subject, have you? Never talked to a practitioner, never read any books. Doesn't stop you from reifying your baseless understanding, though!

Maybe a bit more hermeneutics in your own life.

[the questing vole]

Education major, perhaps?

[Sarcastr0]

Physics.

[OtisAH]

“…one has to make decisions about what is and what is not worth teaching.”

Hilarious. You, for some undisclosed period of time, allegedly taught “worthless twaddle” and “brain diarrhea” to your alleged students.

[swood1000]

You quite obviously understand nothing about CRT either! You’re describing postmodernism.

From Critical Race Theory – An Introduction by Delgado and Stefanic, page 92:

For the critical race theorist, objective truth, like merit, does not exist, at least in social science and politics. In these realms, truth is a social construct created to suit the purposes of the dominant group.

[Sarcastr0]

Originally published: 1995

[swood1000]

Relevance?

[the questing vole]

Your comment is worthless drivel. Go back to your hovel and sell crack, you moron.

[OtisAH]

Yeah, that pretty much confirms for me that you are not a professor, you’re not an academic, you’re not even a T.A. You’re just another jerk making up stories on the internet for whatever thrill you get out of doing that.

[mydisplayname]

"What is at Stake in Florida Higher Ed Reform Bill?"

Well, primarily, the power of the AFL-CIO, which is the parent organization of the United Faculty of Florida. Big-money labor unions actively control -- and expressly seek to expand, through "passage of progressive legislation," control of -- the agenda of the academy: promotion of academic excellence in teaching and research is ranked as the SIXTH most important objective of the union's membership faculty. The organization seeks to "promote principles and practices of collaborative institutional governance" in which taxpayer funds are under the control of the Noble Faculty rather than elected representatives and appointed trustees.

We should not be surprised that faculty resist ANY form of governance, supervision, or accountability: faculty are our betters, after all, and are due the deference we should give to the papistry and its layers of cardinals, bishops, priests, and deacons. Pope Elizabeth H. Shuler knows what God intends for us all.

[Stephen Lathrop]

As a thought experiment, take the right wingers on their own paranoid terms. Elites are out to get them. Project the educational and social implications.

Throughout the red states, the DeSantis program for Florida becomes the model for state colleges, but with variations here and there. In consequence, elite recipients of graduate degrees nationwide shun not only those state colleges, but also the private colleges in red states. The elites do not want to teach in red states. The elites do not want their own kids to grow up in red states. The best of the elites are at liberty go where they choose to go.

Great! Now red staters get the kind of education they want for their red state kids—without elite interference—in their own state colleges. Maybe a slight downward tendency in educational status also shows up, but at least the state colleges get to teach the curriculum red state governors approve.

Except that when more-promising kids from red staters’ own families decide to reach higher, and look for admission to elite private colleges—as the very best red state graduates have always done—now they usually get rejected. Why? Because evil left-wing elites turn out just as bad as predicted. They march in tacit lock-step. They want to punish red states. And they do.

Plus which, elite admissions committees really do ask themselves whether it is worth it to turn aside better-educated blue state high school graduates (judged better only in elite opinion, mind you), to take on instead red state high schoolers. The committees figure the red state applicants will (in the committees’ elite estimates) be less likely to do as well academically, and get belligerent about it, while their families refuse contributions to the endowment.

It will be at about that time when the red states get and enjoy an unlooked-for side-benefit from their educational policy. Their long-standing dream for a whiter society comes true.

That happens because blacks have emigrated en masse to blue states, to get an education they like better than the education the red state governors forced on them. Blacks do that in well-founded (well-founded only as blacks see it, of course) expectation that they can seize an opportunity to advance themselves professionally and socially at the expense of newly-struggling red state college graduates.

Thus, without academic training to appreciate irony, red state culture warriors won’t notice that when they embraced the DeSantis education program, they also launched a powerful affirmative action program—and reserved it to advance other peoples’ kids ahead of their own.

Too bad. Turns out, not only do elections have consequences. Foolish attacks on actual entrenched elites have consequences too. But it’s only the election consequences that DeSantis cares about. Red state residents would be wise to make that a point to notice.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not sure why you think 'elites' will uniformly desire to stick with institutions that relentlessly indoctrinate them and punish dissent from left-wing orthodoxy. It seems likely at least some percentage of 'elites' would rather not subject themselves to left-wing indoctrination; After all, prior to the institutions beginning their purge of conservative faculty, most fields were only moderately left-wing. The natural skew is quite minor, once you eliminate the indoctrination and ideologically selective hiring.

Further, to the extent that "red" state institutions concentrate on teaching academically relevant content, while 'blue' state institutions double down on ideological indoctrination, the 'red' states should gain a meritocratic advantage: They'll be turning out engineers who design bridges that don't fall down, doctors who don't kill their patients, (Don't even set out to kill them!) lawyers who aren't shocked witness when the Supreme court upholds some part of the Constitution... Because that would be their primary aim, not political indoctrination.

They'll fall behind in the various 'studies', of course. Potentially this could create a shortage of fast food chain employees.

[loki13]

Stephen isn't right, but c'mon Brett, you can't be that gullible.

DeSantis doesn't care what happens to the public schools of Florida now. He's a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law. I'm sure you knew that. And his kids? You think they are going to public schools?

The "elites" as you call them are perfectly happy continuing to hollow out the public institutions that the poor and the middle class enjoy, knowing that they aren't going to have to worry about it.

The sad thing about all of this is that Florida had a fairly well-respected system of public universities prior to this. In other words, he is using these successful programs as nothing more than props in his political exercise. Which is kind of sad, really.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, he's a graduate of Yale and Harvard. In 2001 and 2005, before those institutions had gotten more than a minor start on their purge by attrition. IOW, he graduated from institutions very unlike what they have become. That's why he was able to graduate from them!

There's no evidence I'm aware of that he's an anti-Semite, prejudiced against Asian-Americans, or determined to engage in racial discrimination and promote an ideology of racial supremacy. He's not a modern Harvard man, IOW.

If you think suppressing DIE and CRT is "hollowing out" academic institutions, you've got a really weird idea of what's central to education.

[grb]

Brett’s reply above perfectly illustrates a point I sometimes make : Politics for today’s Right is like watching pro-wrestling. Brett hisses and howls at the evil villain; he screams in rage at the villain’s underhanded moves; he shrieks with joy if the hero wins.

It’s all very cathartic, getting that heart pumping & charging the blood with adrenalin. That it's one-hundred percent phony bullshit is completely irrelevant. Brett just doesn’t care.

Politics is a consumer product to today’s Right, served-up for their viewing entertainment. That’s why their favorite pols are now carnival barkers, reality TV stars, or huckster conmen. They deliver the most entertainment bang for the bucks….

[Brett Bellmore]

I've repeatedly quoted parts of these anti-CRT bills that specify exactly what is being banned: The worst sort of racism. Teaching collective guilt and racial supremacy. This bill is no different, it includes by reference the Florida definition of what is being banned:

" (8)(a) Subjecting any individual, as a condition of employment, membership, certification, licensing, credentialing, or passing an examination, to training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual to believe any of the following concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin under this section:
1. Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally superior to members of another race, color, sex, or national origin.
2. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.
3. An individual’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.
4. Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, sex, or national origin.
5. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin.
6. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.
7. An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.
8. Such virtues as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular race, color, sex, or national origin to oppress members of another race, color, sex, or national origin.
(b) Paragraph (a) may not be construed to prohibit discussion of the concepts listed therein as part of a course of training or instruction, provided such training or instruction is given in an objective manner without endorsement of the concepts."

I think the state SHOULD ban such teaching everywhere its constitutional authority reaches. I make no apology for that, and think anyone who would defend the notion that the above should be taught anywhere has no moral standing to expect anybody to care about their opinions.

[Sarcastr0]

FIRST, this law does a lot more than ban what you wrote here.

SECOND, you cool with banning teaching affirmative action? MLK's teachings? Discussions of systemic racism?

You're really stoked about censorship these days.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, I AM cool with banning teaching advocacy of "affirmative action", in it's current incarnation as a system of racial preferences and quotas. Affirmative action violates the 14th amendment! Doesn't matter that it's currently pointed in the opposite direction from Jim Crow, constitutionally it's indistinguishable.

And note (b): You can discuss fictional concepts like "systematic racism", you just can't advocate them and demand allegiance to them of the students and faculty.

[Brett Bellmore]

To be clear, banning this teaching in the government's own schools, because the government controlling the government's own speech isn't prohibited by the 1st amendment, and the government's own speech IS constrained by the 14th amendment.

Private schools would be, constitutionally, a very different matter. While they shouldn't teach this garbage either, they are properly beyond the government's control.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, are you saying conservatives no longer graduate from Harvard and Yale?

The Harvard Republican Club is just a facade? Elise Stefanik? Tom Cotton? Josh Hawley?

You believe so many things that aren't true.

[Lee Moore]

Stefanik is 38, the other two are in their 40s. As a refutation of Brett’s claim that things have changed in the Ivy League since 2005, I feel your argument needs more work.

[Sarcastr0]

I know a couple of profs moving TO Florida for professional opportunities. They say they don't think it'll amount to much in a practical sense - posturing in the purest sense.

Dunno if I agree with them, but they're making choices.

[swood1000]

HB 999 would ban “any programs or campus activities” that “espouse diversity, equity, and inclusion or critical-race-theory rhetoric.”

Does anyone object to banning “any programs or campus activity that espouses racial discrimination”?

HB 999 also centralizes the power to hire and fire faculty members in politically appointed boards of trustees and in the university presidents that the trustees oversee. A central feature of modern American universities is faculty control over faculty-personnel decisions. The independence of the faculty is meant to insure that professional merit and not political favoritism drives such decisions and that scholarly activity will be insulated from political pressures.

But has faculty independence in hiring resulted in hiring by professional merit uninfluenced by the political stance of the faculty being hired? Did university faculties become overwhelmingly liberal by choosing faculty with a blind eye to their politics? If it is true that politics has played a role in producing this outcome then why should the politics of the faculty have precedence over the politics of the electorate?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Does anyone object to banning “any programs or campus activity that espouses racial discrimination”?"

That's the thing: They're determined to pretend that CRT and DIE aren't espousing racial discrimination. Even when you can point to the actual words, they'll pretend it doesn't.

[Sarcastr0]

It’s been pointed out to you by many on here that the statute has plenty of ways to read them to ban current issues of political debate. You just refuse to listen or even engage, and then pretend everyone else are the willfully blind ones.

When pressed on the content, you say it's actually good to ban talking about affirmative action. Because you left small government behind long ago for a life of pure negative party affiliation, but with a lot more rationalization work than most of the more trollish on here.

[Lee Moore]

Not allowing taxpayers money to be spent on teaching things that are worthless is small government at work in its finest tradition.
Defunding courses about “ current issues of political debate” is by no means an unworthy plan. There’s loads of stuff that could and should be available to learn about in university that has zip to do with “current issues of political debate” so why not stick to that ?
Teaching “current issues of political debate” without bias as an academic discipline is very hard, and even harder in a political monoculture. It’s a perfectly reasonable budgetary stance to say don’t teach any of this studs. Do more math, more engineering and more geology instead.

[Sarcastr0]

Picking and choosing how taxpayer money will be spent is statist as fuck, Lee.

Critical thinking is good, actually, and should be taught. Connecting coursework to the current world is also a good thing.

Teachers will be biased - the best ones I've had explain that going in. Dealing with people being people is also a good thing to learn.

Your view here isn't even coherent. What is a classroom to you? With it's human/inhuman professors teaching biased/unbiased things that have nothing to do with current issues. It's unmoored rationalization.

[Brett Bellmore]

Taxing people is statist in the first place. Picking and choosing how those taxes get spent is just inevitable.

[Lee Moore]

Your first sentence is one for the ages, to be sure. I agree that teaching critical thinking is useful. But it is quite unnecessary to enter the realm of politics to teach it. And yes an excellent teacher might wish occasionally to connect coursework to the current world by encouraging students to think outside the box. eg we might hope for discussions about the benefits of slavery, the value of inequality, the disadvantages of democracy and the dangers of allowing women to pursue careers. But instead we hear of the relentless plugging of orthodoxy and the whacking of anyone who tries moving even a pinkie outside the box. If the current stock of teachers are incapable of alluding to current issues in a way that promotes critical thinking, or are capable but fearful of reprisals from the university administration then it would be better to stay away from current issues altogether.

[Lee Moore]

I might add that one is not likely to make much progress with critical thinking without having previously got the hang of logical thinking.
Perhaps a short module of formal logic might be wise before moving on to a classroom discussion encompassing current issues.

[Lee Moore]

Reading your comment again, I think the penny is beginning to drop for me .
My vision of a university recollects the long centuries in which the universities taught the classics and theology. That is to say the history and thought of people who lived more than a thousand years before, along with the analysis of what a deity required of you. And nothing about “current issues.”
Because I’m something of a modernist I’m perfectly OK with the idea that a university might touch on current issues by way of an amuse bouche.

But the rising tone of panic in Sarcastro’s voice suggests to me that he sees current issues as being the core of a university. That if a university chose to eschew current issues then it would no longer be a university at all.
I don’t know if that is the prevalent opinion in the universities, but if it is that would make me doubt the wisdom of DeSantis’s reform program.
I would be thinking more along the lines of Carthago delenda est.

[Toranth]

Picking and choosing how taxpayer money will be spent is statist as fuck, Lee.

This may be the most... remarkable sentence I've ever seen from you.
Any government expenditure is "picking and choosing how taxpayer money will be spent". Those civil rights lawyers? Statist as fuck! Public defenders? Statist as fuck! Roads? Statist as fuck! Spending money on education programs that include CRT or other 'racial awareness' or 'diversity' sections? Statist as fuck!

If you meant to declare yourself "statist as fuck", please go ahead and confirm that.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's actually good for the government to ban itself from advocacy of racial discrimination. Yes, I say that, and I am proud to say that.

There are two points here you're not engaging with.

The first is that the public schools are arms of the government, their teaching is government speech, which the government is as a constitutional matter entirely entitled to regulate. Unlike teaching at private schools, which the government would NOT be entitled to regulate.

The second is that this bans advocacy of racism. Expressly so! And affirmative action, as constituted for most of its existence, is a racially discriminatory program of racial preferences and quotas. It's just Jim Crow pointed in a different direction.

You can argue that this bans things that aren't odious. I don't find that argument persuasive. It still expressly bans things any respectable person will regard as beyond the pale.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It is telling that Prof. Volokh, who has a stable of high horses with respect to free expression and academic freedom, doesn't want to talk about this.

Or about the Dominion-Fox issues.

Or the censorship of Black studies.

Or the Newsmax whining.

Or a half-dozen or so other prominent stories that seem to involve his ostensible fields of academic interest -- maybe even more than a stream of posts about lesbians, transgender issues, rest rooms, vaccinations, and similar diversionary chaff.

Carry on, clingers.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You sure whine alot my guy

[the questing vole]

This is a topic above your intelligence level. Go back to your catamites.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Our strongest teaching and research institutions -- public and private -- are nearly uniformly part of America's liberal-libertarian mainstream.

Conservatives, however, tend to turn campuses they control into shit-rate (fourth-tier, or unranked) schools that teach nonsense, mock academic freedom, suppress science and warp history to flatter childish superstition and silly dogma, collect loyalty oaths, impose old-timey speech and conduct codes, censor strenuously, and engage in vigorous viewpoint-driven discrimination from hiring and firing to admissions and speakers. (That hiring discrimination governs positions from professor and administrator to basketball coach and landscaper.)

Many people may not pay many attention to these hundreds of yahoo factories -- they have downscale students, shambling faculties, unaccomplished alumni, sketchy accreditation, and poor reputations -- but the hayseed farms vividly demonstrate the incompatibility of conservative preferences with strong education.

Against that background, why would anyone figure most Americans are in the market for pointers from right-wingers on anything involving education?

[the questing vole]

'Many people may not pay many attention'--Is Charlie Chan now writing your copy?

And, by the way, it is your benighted leftist friends who are in favor of destroying academic quality and integrity and replacing it with ideological/quasi-religious conformity. 'We don't care what your SAT score is as long as you pledge allegiance to the holiness of deadbeats, criminals, perverts, and baby-killers.'

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

At which low-ranked, superstition-addled, conservative-controlled school are you a professor? Ouachita Baptist? Franciscan? Wheaton? Liberty? Oral Roberts? South Texas Something Or Other? Do you inform the fledgling bigots and gullible hayseeds on your campus that they are destined to be culture war losers for the rest of their half-educated, disaffected, deplorable lives?

[mydisplayname]

Interesting discussion!

The debate is about the distribution of money, not about teaching or the lofty-sounding concept of "academic freedom." Heck, nobody has demonstrated any meaningful way in which any law will interrupt the delivery of true fact to eager students.

The discussion becomes more rational upon realizing that "faculty" are mere money-grabbers eager for a bully pulpit from which they can espouse their personal positions (factual or otherwise), the fame to which they are "due," and a lifetime appointment to a position insuring lifetime income: teaching, after all, is not the top priority.

[Sarcastr0]

Money, at the very least, implicates speech.

I like the increasingly over-the-top portraits of professors by people long out of school, who seem to hate higher education (now that they've got one).

Fat, rich, greedy, Marxist, egomaniacs. He posts on an academic blog.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

When California reconsiders Eugene Volokh’s tenure in light of his habitual use of vile racial slurs (and several other points), his bigoted, downscale fans may change their position on these issues. They might even exhibit as much hypocrisy as he does.

Carry on, clingers. So far as your betters permit.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I welcome the continuing trajectory of the culture war.