DeSantis to colleges think like me or get defunded

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State university faculty, students to be surveyed on beliefs

Whart could possibly go wrong?  Only . . .

• require public universities and colleges to survey students, faculty and staff about their beliefs and viewpoints -- to be kept on-record for future reference in determining further education, employment, and economic opportunities."

• discern the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented in public universities and colleges -- [i]to weed out those same competing ideas and perspectives and the people who hold them.

• find whether students, faculty, and staff feel free to express beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom -- with special emphasis on those whose beliefs are in line with the white male supremacist movement.

• budget cuts if universities and colleges are found to be "indoctrinating" students -- this "indoctrination" occurring by allowing and encouraging students to study history that has not been whitewashed by the white male supremacist movement.

• allow politicians to meddle in, monitor, and regulate speech on campus in the future -- to suit the agenda of the white male supremacist movement.

. . . that is all.

Dictators do this sort of thing.

He unleashes pure evil on Florida, and hopes to unleash it nationwide--if Trump doesn't.

He isn't called DeSatan for nothing.

Ah yes, "intellectual diversity", the only kind of diversity the Right likes.

The idea is supposedly that students should learn a wide variety of perspectives in college and??? They do?? College is where many people hear the perspectives of non-Americans, people of color, religious minorities, and leftists (who are ruthlessly scrutinized in red parts of the country) for the first time. Just about every college student grew up hearing conservative ideology (social, nationalist, or economic) from one source or another--family members, teachers, classmates, conservative media, etc.

Unless they're from San Francisco or Seattle or similar, they undoubtedly knew outspoken conservative adults (of one kind of another) growing up. White kids growing up in anywhere but major cities likely did not hear socialist/left ideology until college and were mostly taught it was straight-up evil.

Conservatism is rejected by most on college campuses not because those students are closed-minded, but because they are open-minded. They were greeted with non-American, non-Christian, or non-white perspectives, and when one considers those perspectives conservatism (in one form or another) becomes increasingly indefensible.

Conservative perspectives in college are the same you hear at a bar in red America or on Fox News--just with fancier vocabulary and better citation skills (throw in an "inculcated" here, a "telos" there, and some Burke and Buckley quotes).

Conservative parents: "Go to college and learn new perspectives!"
Kid who grew up conservative: "So I heard a lot of non-Christian, non-American, non-capitalist perspectives and have concluded that Christianity and America are no better than any other country or religion, and that capitalism is not as infallible as I was raised to believe."
Conservative parents: "No, not like that! You're supposed to hear the perspectives but still come out with the same politics you went in with that we taught you."

I'd be wary about these surveys.

I feel concern that the survey results could affect which college classes a student is required to take.

The lower the score, the more intensive the “Remedial Citizenship Class” would be, with the lowest scores resulting in immediate expulsion from college instead.

The higher the score, the more likely the student would be invited to teach the classes and/or proctor the exams.

"DeSantis is your friend. DeSantis wants you to be happy. Happiness is mandatory. Failure to be happy is treason. Treason is punishable by summary expulsion. Are you happy, citizen?"

Apologies to Steve Jackson Games.

Having actually read the article, I agree wholeheartedly with DeSantis. Why is ANY state funding ANY form of indoctrination in ANY state college??? You go there to get a degree to get a J-O-B to earn your income. You don't need indoctrination to do that. I could write pages and pages on this.

Indoctrination in what, exactly? Critical thinking? Equality of all people, regardless of race, sex, gender, religion, et cetera? History that has not been “white-washed”?

“Stale subjects” is too broad to define anything specific.

First of all we are talking about adults not young impressionable children.

Communism and such have always been taught at colleges/universities. Outside of religious and Business schools acedemia has always been "left".

Critical Race Theory did start in academia and the racist "anti-racist" curriculums and its associated revolutionary alternative history evolved there.

Despite attempts to deny it the "woke" agenda and its attendant conformity and intimidation is real. A lot of it is centered at elite universities where students and their families have a lot to lose if they do not conform. That is hugely important as the future leaders of the country are educated there. The target of the law, the Florida State University system is not that. These state university systems are comprised of mostly middle class and lower-class students. I am a product of one. While I have no knowledge about how "woke" the Florida State System is my guess is somewhat because their market is much more progressive than their parents. Just because a school or a business which is what universities are promote "Diversity and Inclusion" does not mean they are "woke". It might mean they are trying to brand themselves as with the times.

At first glance this law seems like frightening intimidation. Upon further thought, it is either dumb or virtue signaling and DeSantis is not dumb. If it is meant to intimidate it should not work. All students need to do is return the "correct" answer. The wokes tactic of finding old "inappropriate" tweets is a much more effective intimidation tactic. Even so, this could be one of those slippery slope deals if allowed to stand. The government surveying political preferences goes against everything this country had been trying to build.

I have had a number of Liberals express to me that as much as they hate DeSantis, he would be a much lesser evil than Trump. After seven years of Trump dominating everything, I understand the sentiment. I disagree. I think a smarter, more stable version of Trump is more dangerous than the original.

Now is an appropriate time to relink to a commentary by David French a religious and not only a fierce critic of woke but has been doing something about it since the 90s.
Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee The American right has lost the plot on free speech.

Let me be clear. Even in so-called Liberal Arts colleges and universities, the discussion of topics like socialism are banned.

They're certainly not banned in political science courses......

I can accept being educated on socialism----as long as my paper on the virtues of capitalism is not subject to grading bias.

Overall, colleges and universities tend to be "left-leaning." Certainly, though, not every professor is "left-leaning." I went to college for 8 years---from 1997-2005, and I only had a couple of professors out of quite a few who actively proselytized in a political sense.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2022/07/01/conservative-hillsdale-college-is-helping-desantis-reshape-florida-education/

Looks like there is more behind the scenes on this issue.

Tampa Bay Times article on Desantis and Michigan's Hilldale College