Some Unbelievable Higher Ed News

Back in December, I wrote a post titled “What Are We Even Doing Here?” in which I discussed some of the head-scratching moves among some higher ed institutions, moves that seemed so at odds with the purported mission of higher ed that you couldn’t help but wonder if these schools were just planning on punting on the mission altogether.

I didn’t plan on this being a series, but in perusing Inside Higher Ed’s news stories on a daily basis—as I do—my frequent reaction to some of these stories is, “That’s nuts!”

“Nuts” as in cuckoo, bonkers, batshit, the kind of thing that if we pause and think for even a moment is entirely inconsistent with colleges and universities doing the work most of us believe they’re meant to do.

The sheer number of these insults to common sense has the potential to numb us to how nuts these things are, but I’m here to say, this stuff is nuts!

Let’s not lose sight of this fact.

“Florida Introduces ‘Sanitized’ Sociology Textbook,” by Kathryn Palmer

As part of Ron DeSantis’s war on diversity, faculty at Florida International University are required to adopt an open-source textbook that “now makes only cursory mentions of important sociological concepts regarding race, gender, sexuality and other topics that have drawn Republican ire.”

The textbook is the by-product of a process that involved faculty from across different public institutions in Florida as part of a “working group” tasked to create a textbook that would pass political muster and prevent the deletion of sociology as a core general education requirement. I understand why faculty may have thought this was a needle they could thread, but the end result is disastrous and shows how accommodating fanatics means you’re never going to run out of inches (or feet or miles) that they insist you have to give.

How nuts is this? Extremely, extremely nuts. This is often framed as part of a culture war battle—e.g., DeSantis’s “war on woke”—but that is not what is happening here. A partisan project to direct the course materials that are allowed to be used is not just a violation of academic freedom rights, but an assault on core democratic values.

“Tenure Eliminated at Oklahoma Colleges,” by Emma Whitford

Via executive order, Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt “decreed the end of tenure” for faculty at regional public and community colleges.

This is a kind of kill strike for what was previously a slow death through increased adjunctification over time. It’s a declaration that precariously employed, vulnerable faculty are meant to be controlled, rather than being given the freedom to do their jobs to the best of their ability. It is a dark vision for how education works and how people are incentivized to do their best work.

It’s pretty darn nuts, but it’s a kind of nuttiness that we’ve almost become inured to because it’s so pervasive.

To fully appreciate how nuts this is, I’ll point you to the work of my Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom colleague Isaac Kamola, who did an annotation of Governor Stitt’s executive order, identifying the doublespeak at work.

“‘A Barrage of Bills’ Would Overhaul Higher Ed in Iowa—If They Actually Pass,” by Ryan Quinn

The degree of bonkersness is contingent on whether or not these bills pass, but if they do, whoa, nelly … totally nuts!

I encourage you to read the article to appreciate the full scope of what’s happening here, but in essence it is an attempt to reorder higher education in the state through legislative fiat by taking wild swings at adopting pet initiatives that will be both unworkable, and, if implemented, will hamstring institutions in ways that will ultimately punish students.

Perhaps this is the goal, but consider just one bill from the long list: “Make universities liable for 10 percent of students’ defaulted loans.” This so-called accountability measure is, in reality, a short route to ceasing to admit low-income students who are at much higher financial risk over all.

State legislatures have an important role to play in creating the conditions that allow public institutions to thrive. Iowa’s Legislature is taking that responsibility and substituting half-baked YOLO schemes for what needs to be thoughtful oversight.

Nuts!

“Texas A&M Closes Women’s and Gender Studies Programs,” by Kathryn Palmer, and “Plato Censored as Texas A&M Carries Out Course Review,” by Emma Whitford

These are just the latest incidents at Texas A&M, following last semester’s firing of instructor Melissa McCoul for the sin of doing her job, an incident that also took out the university president. Texas A&M has become something other than a university as we traditionally consider the category.

The people in charge there, including the state’s politicians who are hell-bent on destroying the prestige of their existing universities, have gone completely nuts.

“UNC Administrators Can Now Secretly Record Faculty,” by Emma Whitford

I can’t think of a more conducive atmosphere for intellectual exchange than knowing that at any time your administration can be taping you without your knowledge or permission, can you?

The guideline that this can be done for “any lawful purpose” essentially allows any surveillance outside of the campus bathrooms.

This is part of a larger program of signaling that professors are to mind their p’s and q’s, as a previous decision declared that course syllabi will be considered public records and a revision to UNC’s own guidelines for academic freedom now says that material “clearly unrelated to the course description” is prohibited.

My guess is that many will resign themselves to this new reality and try to keep their heads down so they can continue to do some semblance of their work, but we should not lose sight of how nuts this is.

These events, as well as the ones I rounded up in the previous post, point to a reality I think we’re going to have to deal with—that there is no past version of public higher education to go back to should we break the fever of Trump and the state-level versions like Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida.

In truth, that past some believe we should return to never existed, or if it did, it’s been hollowed out for many years. These folks have just come around to raze the empty structures.

Fortunately, there are groups forming that are starting to organize around the challenges we’re facing. I like to think one I’m involved with as a fellow, the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, is operating in this spirit. If you’re interested in this work, CDAF is currently soliciting applications for its next group of fellows.

There’s additional good news on this front following the announcement of the launch for the Alliance for Higher Education, a national coalition organized to protect essential freedoms from government interference.

We don’t have to let the bonkers stuff keep happening. There is a future where we have the freedoms and support we need for higher ed institutions, and the people who intersect with them, to thrive.

Part of securing that future is maintaining the ability to say loudly and clearly when something is nuts.