Gov. Kay Ivey speaks with supporters at a watch party after Alabama's midterm election vote, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)
Thanks to the so-called culture wars, debates about events on college campuses are being used as a useful weapon to attack the gradual democratization that has taken place in higher education since the 1950s.
Those of us who are academics and who believe that education is important are not immune to partisan attacks, not to mention flashy and outlandish headlines that negatively impact many people who are trying to understand and understand their lives. We should be wary of fear.
Academic freedom is a term developed in the mid-20th century by the American Association of University Professors to provide freedom and protection for the pursuit of knowledge by faculty, which is the primary purpose of teaching, knowledge acquisition, and research within the university. The purpose is And outside of academia too. This is consistent with the constitutional protection of free speech and affirms the need for academic freedom and the institutional independence of higher education institutions for the right to education.
Nevertheless, attacks on free speech have steadily increased across the country. Over the past few years, right-wing groups opposed to the teaching of critical race theory have attempted to undermine such important concepts by attempting to limit discussion of history, literature, and other fields within the humanities. did.
This intense paranoia against supposedly “woke” campuses has materialized in actual laws from Florida to Alabama, with Gov. Kay Ivey trying to “destroy divisions” at the state's universities. He signed a bill that is said to restrict education on “inviting” topics. The bill is similar to the ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at public universities that Florida signed into law last May. Both measures are blatant attacks on learning that seek to remove liberal and progressive beliefs and ideas from the classroom.
The conservative right is on a warpath to suppress academic freedom. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Republican lawmakers have proposed 81 anti-DEI bills in 28 states.
That's why a recent report from the Lumina Foundation and Gallup on how policies and laws affect college admissions caught my attention. This report was part of a comprehensive study of students' higher education experiences.
After reading this report, I came to one major conclusion. That said, the highly historical and dramatized discussions about so-called woke campuses that dominate higher education do not correlate with the feelings and concerns of many, or perhaps most, college students. The report's key findings reveal how deeply distorted the national debate over higher education is, and how out of touch the Republican-led public higher education system is with the majority of college students.
What about the supposedly “divisive” concepts that the right routinely denounces? It turns out that students are interested in such ideas. Most of these students do not want to be limited in what they can discuss in class, the report said. What is also remarkable is that the students' opinions do not align with the hyper-political partisanship that makes headlines and rages on.
If you interview students concerned about this issue, you might expect political disagreements. But students are not as politically stratified as a combination of external factors would lead one to believe. In fact, more than 60% of Republicans who care about this issue when choosing a college want their state to not restrict education on topics related to race and gender (83% of Democrats, independents) (compared to 78% of
University campuses are considered citadels for rational consideration and the exchange of ideas. These are centers where students have access to specific information shaping current social debates, public knowledge, even when faculty espouse unpopular discourses that expose harsh realities about the past and present. It must be a center where we are encouraged to engage in our human mission.
I make it clear to my students in the first class of each semester that they are no longer in high school and that life is not a multiple choice system, but that may be true or false. (The latter comment always makes me laugh a little). I also tell my students that no one is completely comfortable with everything they encounter or hear, and that as humans we should be expected to adapt to different situations and environments. . The fact that people are taken out of their comfort zone from time to time can be a positive thing.
Campuses must make valiant efforts to protect free speech and advocate for mutually respectful dialogue. Administrators must make serious and dedicated efforts to protect the rights of faculty, staff, and students who are targeted for expressing controversial or unpopular views. These efforts are critical given the current political and social climate.
Elwood Watson's columns are distributed by the Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
