Enforcing Ignorance

In the United States, there is a movement -- and it's gaining momentum -- to make students ignorant. Exhibit A is the state of Florida. Jennifer Rubin writes:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who earned two Ivy League degrees, has apparently decided that making Florida schools and universities the laughingstock of the country is good politics. The Republican already went after public school teachers with his “don’t say gay” bill, championed an effort to prevent instruction about history that might upset students (make that White students), and banned Advanced Placement classes in African American studies. Now, he has decided to shred the curriculums of Florida’s public universities, inviting students interested in unapproved subjects to go to California (!) or other states that don’t control what can and cannot be taught.

This week, he signed a bill banning state spending on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in public universities. The Post reported: “These programs often assist colleges in increasing student and faculty diversity, which can apply to race and ethnicity, as well as sexual orientation, religion and socioeconomic status.”

Worse: “The law also forbids public colleges from offering general education courses — which are part of the required curriculum for all college students — that ‘distort significant historical events,’ teach ‘identity politics’ or are ‘based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, or economic inequities.’”

Who decides what “distorts”? How can the state prohibit instruction about, say, the consequences of Jim Crow in a U.S. history survey class? Well, that’s up to the regime DeSantis has installed. We now see the full extent of the governor’s authoritarian impulse to control independent sources of information and to eviscerate professional standards that provide the basis for challenging state action and abuse of power.

Thomas Jefferson believed that no democracy could survive without a well-educated citizenry. Obviously, Desantis is not interested in democracy. And he's put the people in place who share his objectives:

If newly installed University of Florida president and former Nebraska senator Ben Sasse had an ounce of integrity, he would resign in protest of this wholesale annihilation of academic freedom. (The Chronicle of Higher Education, however, reported recently that, a month into his tenure, “Sasse has made few public appearances and declined a number of interview requests from local media.” His obsequiousness to his partisan boss and contempt for academic independence should surprise no one.)

DeSantis is not alone in the assault on academic freedom; he is simply the highest-profile MAGA figure attempting to suppress freedom and dissent. The American Association of University Professors recently documented 57 bills in 23 states aimed at undermining academic freedom. The AAUP explained: “The current round of legislation reinforces a right-wing communication effort to attack public colleges and universities on the grounds that they are ideologically outside the mainstream, hostile to conservative views and focused on indoctrinating students into 'woke’ ideology.” The report added: “These bills are only one piece of a broader campaign to remake public higher education that includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hostile takeover of the New College of Florida.”

Anti-democratic, nationalist movements have historically attacked universities as hotbeds of elite and foreign influence, seeking to bend instruction to the will of the state and turn academics into handmaidens of state propaganda. Right-wing pundits who have whined incessantly about the disfavored status of conservative academics (largely because of peer or student pressure) have had precious little to say about state-driven attacks against academic freedom from a petty autocrat. (Their caterwauling about political correctness on campus is the sort of projection and victimology that seeks to cast oppressors as victims and tyrants as saviors of Western culture.)

And DeSantis is making noises about running for president.

Image: The Washington Post