Editor’s Note: David M. Perry: A Senior Advisor in the History Department at Harvard University and his Views on the Mediated Ages
Editor’s Note: David M. Perry is a journalist, historian and co-author of “The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe.” He is a senior adviser in the history department. You can follow him on social media. The views he has expressed are of his own. View more opinion on CNN.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/opinions/sasse-president-university-florida-perry/index.html
The Future of College Presidents: The Case Against Trumpism and the Exclusion of Same-Sex Marriage in the U.S.
American public universities are some of the best in the world. They are profoundly democratic, as long as they can offer a high-quality and low-cost education to the citizens of their state. But the more they become politicized, a practice led by Republicans like DeSantis, the less they are able to fulfill their mission as a common good for all. The appointment of Sasse threatens to turn the University of Florida into a partisan place. Now that’s regressive action.
What Sasse has going for him is political clout and a reputation as a man of integrity, for his principled criticism of former President Donald Trump over the lies about the 2020 election and his vote to impeach the former president for setting the stage for the January 6, 2021, insurrection. But if he has such integrity, why is he potentially aligning himself with DeSantis – who is busy positioning himself as the next generation of Trumpism – by taking this job?
Of course politicians have been named college presidents previously, but only 2% were elected or appointed, and they have almost always been controversial. Things were very bad in 2015, but we are more divided today than we were a year ago.
I have a PhD in history so I’ve been interested in him since he became a senator. He is one of the two most prominent history PhDs in American politics. He received his doctorate from Yale in 2004 with a thesis on the rise of the Christian religious right in the US, worked for former President George W. Bush’s administration and then, after a short period teaching and consulting, became president of then-tiny Midland Lutheran College in Nebraska (now Midland University, with 1,600 students enrolled) for a few years before running for the Senate.
The Supreme Court decision requiring all states to recognize same-sex marriage was brought up by Sasse in 2015. What does that mean for LGBTQ students (and faculty and staff) at Florida to have a boss who has taken that position? Students are worried.
It wasn’t long after that the Supreme Court nominees used reassuring rhetoric in relation to abortion, because there was no need to worry.
Over the course of his career, he has denounced abortion multiple times. Sasse is putting aside politics to return to being a professor to lead the way in this exciting new era according to the chair of the search committee. Students at Florida, already organizing protests, don’t believe you can just erase a long history of hostile political acts by taking on a new job title.
The Supreme Court is poised to rule that race can’t be taken into account in college admissions, a decision that could hurt the number of African American and Hispanic students in higher education.
During a marathon session lasting almost five hours, the justices heard from a total of five lawyers. Three argued on behalf of Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Two former clerks to Justice Clarence Thomas worked for Students for Fair Admissions in the challenge.
The conservative justices were troubled by the idea that race could be a factor in future decisions. Fumbling for her reading glasses, Barrett read directly from Grutter: “using racial classifications are so potentially dangerous, however compelling their goals, they can be employed no more broadly.”
Patrick Strawbridge said it would be permissible because the preference is not being based upon race but on cultural experiences.
The exchanged caused a skeptical Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, to exclaim, “The race is part of the culture and the culture is part of the race, isn’t it? I mean, that’s slicing the baloney awfully thin,” she said.
“Grutter says this is dangerous and it has to have an end point,” Barrett stressed on Monday. She wondered if Grutter was “grossly optimistic” and that in reality, schools would never stop taking race into consideration. She noted that Grutter characterized race classifications as potentially poisonous.
When Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said that “eventually” there would be an end point when society changed, Roberts seized an opportunity to highlight that Grutter had promised 25 years.
“Your position is that race matters because it’s necessary for diversity, which is necessary for the sort of education you want,” Roberts said. Race is always going to be an area that will have to be looked at when you say race matters to give us the necessary diversity.
She declined and then Justice Brett Kavanaugh piled on. I understand why it is difficult if you don’t have a number. but if you don’t have something measurable, it’s going to be very hard for this court,” he said.
Takeaway-supreme-court-harvard-north-carolina affirmative action: Does diversity matter?
Two of the attorneys who are representing the challengers are also once clerks to Justice Thomas, a long time critic of affirmative action.
His comments Monday suggested nothing had changed in his thinking. He went further than other conservatives questioning whether diversity is even a compelling goal for schools in the first place.
He does not know what “diversity” means but he has heard it a few times. “It seems to mean everything for everyone.”
She pressed Strawbridge about whether his group was even able to bring the challenge because race was only one of many factors considered.
“Why is it that race is doing anything different” than the over 40 other factors the school considers, she asked during the UNC arguments. There are no targets or quota, according to her.
She said that people need to hide their identities when they get in contact with the admissions office.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/politics/takeaways-supreme-court-harvard-north-carolina-affirmative-action/index.html
The State of the Civil Rights: In the Interest of Diversity and Inclusion of Blacks, Blacks and Latinos, Attorney General C.R. Kagan and Attorney General A.P. Jackson
She also pursued a line of questioning that she deployed earlier in the term when the court considered Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. She made an appeal to her conservative colleagues who favor a judicial philosophy called “originalism.” It requires the Constitution to be interpreted in a way that makes sense to the founding fathers. She argued in the case that the 14th amendment should have used race conscious measures to ensure equality and freedom because the constitution rejected language that would have insisted on a colorblind society.
On Monday Jackson continued along the same lines of questioning. She said that the court should not overturn precedent if there were any ambiguity in history.
Kagan was very passionate about why diversity is so important. She told Strawbridge that it appeared his view was that “it just doesn’t matter if our institutions look like America.” She noted that the schools are the “pipelines” to leadership and if they are not racially diverse, other areas in business or the military would also lack diversity.
Our institutions are indicative of who we are, as people in all of our variety, so I think that’s part of what it means to be an American.
He has long been a critic of racial classifications. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” he wrote once.
It comes as a high cost to the states and to the nation as a whole that our society is not color blind in its effects.
At one point, she raised those trends to push back on conservatives’ invocation of the 25-year timeline the Supreme Court set, in its 2003 ruling sanctioning the use of race in admissions, for affirmative action programs to no longer be necessary.
“What we know, we have nine states who have tried it and in each of them, as I mentioned earlier, whites have either, white admissions have either, remained the same or increased. And clearly, in some institutions, the numbers for underrepresented groups has fallen dramatically, correct?”
While litigation continues, the various provisions of “Stop WOKE” and now the rejection of A.P. African American history could have devastating and far-reaching effects on the quality of education for Florida’s 2.8 million students in its public K-12 schools. The same reasons that the “Stop WOKE” law is blocked from enforcement in university settings hold for elementary and secondary schools. As a federal judge ruled in November, the law strikes “at the heart of ‘open-mindedness and critical inquiry,’” such that “the State of Florida has taken over the ‘marketplace of ideas’ to suppress disfavored viewpoints.”
In a press release about the announced legislation, the governor’s office called diversity, equity and inclusion programs “discriminatory” and vowed to prohibit universities from funding them, even if the source of the money isn’t coming from the state.
DEI programs are meant to promote multiculturalism and to encourage students of all races and background to feel comfortable in a campus setting. The state’s flagship school, the University of Florida, has a “chief diversity officer,” a “Center for Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement” and an “Office for Accessibility and Gender Equity.”
Tuesday’s announcement was foreshadowed in December when the governor’s office asked all state universities to account for all of their spending on programs and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion or critical race theory.
The governor of the state said the college’s mission has been more in line with the gender ideology than it is with a liberal arts education.
In a post on his website, Eddie Speir stated that he would be introducing a proposal at the meeting to Terminate all contracts for faculty and staff at the school and immediately rehir those who fit in the new financial situation.
DeSantis’ announcement follows a commitment earlier this month from the presidents of the state’s two-year community colleges to not teach critical race theory in a vacuum and to “not fund or support any institutional practice, policy, or academic requirement that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality, or the idea that systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon.”
Black Lives Matter and other topics are no longer subjects to be taught in the framework made public on Wednesday. They are included only on a list of topics that states and school systems could suggest to students for end-of-the-year projects.
The course is currently being tested at 60 schools around the U.S., and is expected to be extended to hundreds of additional high schools in the next academic year. Several historically Black universities were consulted by the developers of AP courses, according to the College Board.
The College Board has been getting feedback from the teachers running the pilot classes as they go through several revisions to the draft curriculum.
African american studies black history florida desantis: a conversation with Emmitt Glynn and Matthew Ouyang
“To wake up on the first day of Black History Month to news of white men in positions of privilege horse trading essential and inextricably linked parts of Black History, which is American history, is infuriating,” said David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition. “The lives, contributions, and stories of Black trans, queer, and non-binary/non-conforming people matter and should not be diminished or erased.”
The course has been popular among students in schools where it has been introduced. There are so many students interested in the class, Emmitt Glynn is teaching it to two classes instead of one.
Earlier this week, his students read selections of “The Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon, which deals with the violence inherent in colonial societies. In a lively discussion, students connected the text to what they had learned about the conflict between colonizers and Native Americans, to the war in Ukraine and to police violence in Memphis, Tennessee.
“We’ve been covering the gamut from the shores of Africa to where we are now in the 1930s, and we will continue on through history,” Glynn said. He said he was proud to see the connections his students were making between the past and now.
For Malina Ouyang, 17, taking the class helped fill gaps in what she has been taught. “Taking this class,” she said, “I realized how much is not said in other classes.”
Matthew Evans, 16, said the class has educated him on a multitude of perspectives on Black history. He said the political debate is nothing more than a distraction.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153364556/ap-african-american-studies-black-history-florida-desantis
The New College: Making History and Celebrating the Civil Rights Movements on a Quiet Campus. A Letter to the Administrator of New College CEO David Coleman
AP courses include mathematics, science, social studies, foreign languages, and fine arts. The courses are optional. Students who score well on the final exam get course credit, which is usually earned at their university.
In a written statement Wednesday, College Board CEO David Coleman said the course is “an unflinching encounter with the facts and evidence of African American history and culture.”
“No one is excluded from this course: the Black artists and inventors whose achievements have come to light; the Black women and men, including gay Americans, who played pivotal roles in the Civil Rights movements; and people of faith from all backgrounds who contributed to the antislavery and Civil Rights causes. Everyone is seen,” he said.
The African American studies course is divided into four units: origins of the African diaspora; freedom, enslavement and resistance; the practice of freedom; and movements and debates.
Malcolm Reed tries to be aware of how his material can affect his students in his classroom at St. Amant High School in Louisiana.
“I give them the information and I’ve seen light bulbs go off. I ask them, ‘How does it affect you? How do you feel about learning this?’ ” he said. “It’s also new for me, and I’m just taking it in stride. We’re making history, and we’re learning history.
The denizens of the quiet campus are feeling a pervasive sense of uncertainty. They should stay or go somewhere else. Will the type of student drawn to New College fundamentally change? Junior faculty members are up for tenure, but will they get it? Will the new board or president fire the staff en masse, as one of the new trustees suggested should happen?
“Everything that’s been happening has been very disruptive,” said Elizabeth C. Leininger, an associate biology professor, noting that the spring semester began the day before the Jan. 31 board meeting. “It’s kind of like when we get a hurricane here in Florida, and everyone’s preoccupied.”
The New College Experience: A Demonstration of What’s Happening in Florida and What We Can Learn About It, What We Learn, and Where We Are Going
The college performs poorly in state metrics — such as the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in high-demand fields and the percentage of graduates making at least $30,000 a year after graduation — designed for huge universities with economies of scale that the school just does not have.
Students, faculty, parents and alumni feel misrepresented due to Mr. DeSantis and his allies claims that the students at New College are being taught by far- left professors. Many said that the school required them to be driven, since they welcomed young people who might not fit elsewhere: intensely bookish kids, bullied kids, kids with disabilities, and queer kids.
Many of the young adults that are self-selecting feel drawn to the existing student body and want to stay, said students, parents, alumni and faculty. But that does not mean what is taught in classes necessarily aligns with students’ views, they added.
Joshua has finished his classes at New College and is on schedule to graduate next year, but he thinks he’s become more conservative there. He pointed out how professors teach a lot of different points of view to their students. He switched his major from political science to quantitative economics and hoped to become a corporate lawyer or an investment banker.
Hundreds of people, led by the Reverend Al Sharpton, held a rally outside the Florida Capitol on Wednesday to protest the state’s rejection of a new African American studies class.
Sharpton said historical inflections points on racism and bigotry in the US always involved education, from slavery through Jim Crow to the Civil Rights Movement.
It’s important that our children understand the whole story to know how strong they are. They come from a people that fought from the back of the bus to the front of the White House.”
“Make note that we are all marching together,” said Sharpton, noting that the crowd included members of the LGBTQ, Native American and Latinx communities. “You should have left us alone. Now you have brought us all together.”
The marchers chanted slogans like, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Ron DeSantis has got to go!” and “I’m Black and I’m proud!” Some carried signs with slogans such as “Save our history”.
Shaia Simmons, who taught the new course at the march, said that the state’s rejection of the course was a gross injustice.
The College Board also admitted it “made mistakes in the rollout” of the course framework “that are being exploited,” according to a lengthy statement published Saturday. The board disagreed with the way Florida officials have characterized their dialogue and influence with the testing non-profit.
The state Education Department was accused of spreading misinformation by the testing organization behind the new course.
The official framework of the new course on African American studies was released earlier this month by the College Board, with many of the topics that were objected to removed.
In January, DeSantis replaced six of the 13 members on the college’s board of trustees with conservative allies, including Christopher Rufo, who has fueled the fight against critical race theory.
The new board forced out the college’s president, and appointed Richard Corcoran as interim president. Corcoran will serve on the job from February 27 to September 1, 2024, and will earn a base salary of $699,000.
The overhaul of the college’s leadership has Sharf and other students questioning their future at the school, prompting student protests accusing the governor, who is expected to run for president in 2024, of impeding their educational freedom for political gain.
With mounting attacks on diversity and inclusion, students and activists fear that marginalized people will not have a safe place to get a college education in Florida.
Some critics also worry the state might influence other Republican-led states to adopt similar measures, dwindling their options even further. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that state agencies stop using diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in hiring in order to stop the practice from being illegal.
DEI policies and programs are created to promote representation for people who have historically faced discrimination because of their race, ethnicity, disability, gender, religion or sexual orientation.
New College of Florida: The tragedy of anti-deI in education and what it tells students about the past, the present, and future
Mulvey said that Florida colleges could struggle to retain students and recruit faculty. People pursuing graduate degrees might opt for schools in other states that support academic freedom, she said.
The consequences are huge for students. Students are denied the opportunity to listen to important perspectives and learn from their mistakes. That’s the real tragedy.”
David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, said policies that reject diversity and inclusion will only push people away from higher education in Florida.
“So much of what the policies are designed to do and the language more specifically … is to tell people that they don’t matter,” he said. “That their contributions, their history, their ways of attempting to strengthen democracy do not matter and should not have a place in the version of America that they are now naming as classical.”
The risks of anti-deI measures were compared to anti- abortion legislation adopted by several states after Georgia passed the heartbeat bill. He thinks New College of Florida is a litmus test for conservatism in schools across the nation.
Some students at New College of Florida are already considering other options for their education. The school has 700 students and 100 full-time faculty members according to its website.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/15/us/desantis-new-college-inclusion-reaj/index.html
Why DeSantis? Embarrassing a White Student: The New College of Florida isn’t a Classical College
Sharf said she is worried that the new board will change the culture on campus to make the college more attractive to White students.
The New College of Florida was supposed to be Florida’s classical college, like a South Carolina college, according to the statement from the Commissioner. In southern Michigan, there’s a private conservative Christian college.
“I would not want to attend a school that is ‘Hillsdale of the South,’” Sharf said. “It would be too hostile to trans students and I would probably have to leave.”
Alex Obraud, a third-year anthropology student, said DeSantis’ overhaul feels like backlash against the nation’s progress on LGBTQ rights and racial justice.
Obraud also views it as an attack on educational freedom and on the safe space that New College and other universities across the country offer for students.
“That’s part of making education accessible to everyone and making sure that people feel safe is a huge part of making sure they are in a good position to learn,” Obraud said.
Chris Kottke, a math professor at the New College of Florida, denied that the school was a place of liberal indoctrination.
Kottke said instructors have always taught students how to think not what to think. Kottke said while most of the diverse clubs on campus don’t rely on state funding, he worries about whether they will be able to continue to safely operate.
An English professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University is under review after he received a complaint about indoctrinating students, and the university cannot comment on personnel matters
An English professor at Florida’s Palm Beach Atlantic University says his job is under review after his employer told him they received a complaint that he is “indoctrinating” students.
Joeckel said he has been teaching a unit on racial justice in classes for many years without complaints until his provost and dean said Wednesday they needed to talk to him “privately” at the end of a class.
They said that they had concerns about me indoctrating students. That was the exact word they used: indoctrinating,” Joeckel said. I had no idea it was coming.
CNN asked Palm Beach Atlantic University for a comment, but did not hear back. A university spokesperson on Friday told CNN affiliate WPBF, “I’m advised we can not comment on a personnel matter.”
Discontinuance of employment may occur at any time without cause at the discretion of the university according to the handbook. The institution does not offer tenure, the review process for employment decisions regarding senior faculty that is meant to safeguard academic freedom.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/18/us/palm-beach-atlantic-university-professor-racial-justice-unit/index.html
The Education, Science, and Politics of the State: Joeckel’s On-campus Campus Support for Open-Surveys of Free Speech and Discrimination
A number of students came to Joeckel’s defense online. Lauren didn’t feel that she was being pressure to think a certain way when she took two of Joeckel’s classes.
“He is open-minded, and never wants to push his agenda on students; he pushes students to be critical thinkers and open-minded. That was my experience,” she said.
The review of Joeckel’s employment comes as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has proposed plans to defund all diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state colleges and universities in Florida. And his administration rejected a proposed Advanced Placement African American studies course in high schools.
“Of course I can’t say with certainty the connection, but things like this do not happen in a vacuum. What happened to me is definitely influenced by a toxic political culture, and it’s my opinion that the university is playing a role,” Joeckel said.
He styled himself as a First amendment defender last year. He vowed to defend First Amendment speech rights against those who try to silence conservatives during his first run for governor.
To escape this escalating tit-for-tat battle of assaults on speech will demand leadership. University presidents need to ensure that all viewpoints are heard on campus. They also need to resist intrusive legislation that micromanages curriculum and undercuts academic freedom.
DeSantis and his supporters are not wrong to call out the quest for a more inclusive and equitable society when it veers into the outright suppression of speech and ideas. The free speech protections that Progressives depend on to guarantee the space for dissent and to also apply equally to speech which they disagree with, is something Progressives forget. Some fail to acknowledge that solutions can emerge from outside their own ideological spheres.
Indeed, in pushing back against what he decries as wokeness run amok, DeSantis has embraced the very tactics he once decried, putting the weight of government power behind efforts to repress viewpoints that offend him and his supporters.
In Florida, the tactics of the candidate are winning supporters and giving rise to a national campaign. To blunt their appeal, it is essential to understand what the governor and his supporters are mobilizing against. The fear of progressives taking control of schools and universities has been fanned by DeSantis, who believes they are out of touch with the values of most Floridians.
The new visibility and appreciation of transgender and non-binary identities and rights has raised important questions about pronouns, bathrooms, sports and the autonomy of adolescents. The 2020 murder of George Floyd spurred schools, colleges and companies to take new steps aimed to root out the entrenched, stubborn legacy of racism in their institutions. These are positive developments that are needed to bring about a more equal society.
In some cases, though, efforts to promote equity cross over into censoriousness. Just last week Roald Dahl’s publisher announced plans to scrub beloved works like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda” of references that could be construed as offensive to the overweight, wig-wearers or people with horse-like features. In 2015, a student performance of “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler (now known as V) was cancelled on the basis that the play itself was transphobic because the script failed to acknowledge that not all women have vaginas.
Some programs and curricula offer simplistic, emasculating or flat- out illiberal views about racial issues, dismissing questions or alternative perspectives as being outside the bounds of reality.
In a highly publicized incident at the University of Central Florida in 2020, Professor Charles Negy was fired after his tweets about “Black privilege” prompted campus protests. While the university claimed he was guilty of misconduct, an arbitrator found no just cause for his determination and ordered him reinstated. The incident was part of a pattern at the University.
Last year a federal appeals court struck down the campus’ discriminatory harassment policy, citing its “astonishing breadth—and slipperiness.” The court found it “clear that a reasonable student could fear that his speech would get him crossways with the university and that he’d be better off just keeping his mouth shut.”
The bill would shift power at state schools to the political appointees of the governor, and it would ban gender studies from being a field of study.
General education courses at state colleges will have to promote values necessary to preserve a constitutional republic and cannot define American history as contrary to the creation of a new nation, if the legislation is enacted this week. General courses with a curriculum could not be based on speculative, theoretical or exploratory content.
The bill would give power to each university to choose the trustees that make the hiring decisions, with input from the school’s president. Trustee members can call for the review of any faculty member’s tenure.