“In recent years, universities across the US have come under increasing pressure from conservative politicians and donors criticizing them as liberal bastions of ‘wokeness.’”
This is an excerpt from a CNN article on May 11, 2024, about pro-Palestinian campus protests (read it here). The focus of that article is professors’ involvement in the protests — and police manhandling of elderly professors resulting in injuries. But I want to take this quote out of that context and deal with it as a standalone issue.
As such, it’s simple: Do you want politicians deciding what professors teach?
It’s not an idle question. Conservatives across the country are trying to take over school boards, banish certain subjects from public schools (black history and LGBQT subjects preeminent among them), bring their own agenda of “teaching patriotism” into schools, and in the process censor books, purge libraries, and fire or even prosecute teachers who stray from their party line.
As the above quote shows, those camels are trying to get into higher education’s tent, too.
This is concerning by itself, but the dishonesty of those conservative politicians and donors raises further concerns. From news reports, the campus protests appear mostly peaceful and non-disruptive, and their message is antiwar and anti-genocide, not “antisemitic” as they’re being portrayed by conservative politicians and donors with pro-Israel axes to grind.
They’re not interested in honest debate, and they approve of police brutality against pro-Palestinian protesters (video below). Letting such people run higher education is a bad idea.
Universities should be seats of learning, not places for indoctrination. If universities lean liberal, maybe it’s because liberal ideas are right more often than conservative ideas are. About that, I’ll say this: If you’re lying about people on the other side of an issue, and lying about the issue, then chances are you’re on the wrong side of that issue.
Video below: Professor Steve Tamari, 65, suffered broken ribs and a broken hand in this violent arrest at a noisy campus demonstration; his family says all he was doing was using a phone to record the demonstration. Pro-Israel conservatives cheer this kind of police brutality against protesters and bystanders.