You knew this was going to happen. A few days ago, Florida Governor DeSantis persuaded the presidents of the state’s 28 colleges and community colleges to pledge not to “compel belief in critical race theory” or to violate the state’s ban on WOKE thought. Now, his lieutenant governor says, the administration will stamp out diversity, equity, and inclusion in the state’s public universities. Forget about academic freedom. The state belongs to this tin hat dictator. You are free to believe what he believes and free to think what he wants you to think.
Florida will be looking to “curb” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the state’s colleges and universities, Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez said Tuesday, offering a preview of what higher education leaders can expect from lawmakers during the upcoming legislative session.
Her statements, delivered at state Board of Governors meeting in Miami, marked the first time the DeSantis administration has explained why its budget office this month requested a detailed accounting of how much colleges and universities spend on such efforts.
Nuñez began, saying “I can give you a few insights as to what we’re working on coming this session,” then referenced a recent statement from the presidents of Florida’s 28 state colleges. It pledged to root out any policy or practice that “compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts.” The lieutenant governor suggested that effort would soon extend to the 12 schools in the university system.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article271590247.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can tell that conservative forces are getting desperate because they understand that the winds of the modern times are against them, so they try to use the oldest tool: control the population from above. My feeling is that they will get more and more blatant and aggressive before the modern winds will eventually blow them away.
To hell with the winds, we need a strong citizenry who will beat them back to under the rock (‘the church’) from whence they come.
Absolutely! Instead of ongoing pop psychology over valuing a poor understanding of leadership, we should be developing discriminating followers who can discern reality from fantasy. It’s why we should focus on inquiry and discovery in young children over process and achievement.
It is now obvious to all rational people: Diane Ravitch supports coercing everyone in academia to conform to far Left ideas. That’s what the DEI mantra is all about. Anyone hoping to be hired, retained, or to achieve tenure must never say that merit is important; that academic standards should not be lowered to achieve racial quotas; that professors – conservative, moderate, mainstream liberal – should be able to disagree with the absurd dogmas that are pushed by the loudest voices on campus.
A few months ago I discussed this issue with a professor of Social Work at a large public university in a blue state. She is quite liberal, votes straight Democratic, detests Trump, etc. She said that no one in her department – faculty or student – would dare to disagree with the “woke dogmas” (her term)- for fear of being ostracized and having their career advancement harmed. She specifically mentioned the “abolish police and prisons” belief that is now the norm in her field. She said that her experience as a social worker tells her that doing that would be beyond crazy, very destructive to public safety. But she can’t say that openly, and she can’t say that having over 100 DEI bureaucrats at her university is incredibly wasteful – lots of people doing nothing worthwhile.
Diane Ravitch supports the First Amendment and academic freedom. She vigorously opposes censorship and state laws telling teachers what they are NOT allowed to teach.
Do you support professors who dissent from the prevailing dogmas even when they disagree with you? If a state passed a law saying that no teacher in public schools can use materials that glorify the KKK and Hitler, would you oppose that law? There are always limits to what teachers are allowed to teach in taxpayer funded schools.
I support the right of others to disagree with me. But there are limits. I do not support the right of professors to teach lies, e.g. the Holocaust never happened, Hitler should have killed all the Jews, the U.S. is to blame for everything bad thing that ever happened, Stalin was an enlightened leader, slavery was a benign institution. All lies (I was taught the last one when I was in school). I don’t think there is any definition of academic freedom that includes the right to teach lies or to promote hatred towards others.
Please tell us what is wrong with Diversity, Equity, or Inclusion in higher education.
By Friday. . .
. . . gone!
The rational people you speak of need to stop conflating democrats, liberals, and leftists. That would be a good first step.
Second, those who find police and prison abolition compelling understand that kind of measure goes beyond a flip of a switch. Poverty is what is most destructive to public safety. By no coincidence it is also what keeps our prisons full.
Third, allowing our children, young adults, and prospective college grads to progress through education systems without learning to play nice with others, or develop some empathy for those outside of their circle of friends and family will drastically limit their earning power in the job market.
Although Duane is correct, I’ll still focus on one part because it points out clearly how they distort, lie, and try to reset valid experience and rhetoric into something that is not even close to what they claim. For example, “abolish police and prisons” is a flat out lie and he knows it. No one is arguing for an abolishment. We are arguing for reform based on a variety of principles including: violators of law should be appropriately punished, the vast majority of those sentenced to do time should be focused on rehabilitation and since they have violated public law, they should be in humane, secure facilities paid for by public money and without a profit motive attached. We think laws that punish people for who they are, absolutely if they are doing no harm or impeding others. We know historically that enforcement, non-enforcement, and violation of laws in the U.S. has created a culture of “suspicious-first” law enforcement. And there are a myriad of other concerns that we would like debated in order to make ours a true criminal justice system, emphasis on justice, fairness, equality, and opportunity.
But “abolish police and prisons” is much easier to sell if your audience is as or more gullible and bigoted than one who would claim a) to have actually had such a conversation (conservative anecdotes have a way of supporting a preconceived notion) and b) thinks it is actually real. And that’s assuming he can read this far and actually comprehend it.
GregB writes: “For example, “abolish police and prisons” is a flat out lie and he knows it. No one is arguing for an abolishment.”
He is one of the regular commenters here who obviously rarely if ever ventures outside the far Left bubble. It’s true that full abolition of police and prisons is supported by only a small percentage of the population, but there are people like that among the far Left – see the linked NYT piece below. There are others like it that are easily found with an Internet search. Several years ago I attended an evening seminar at a liberal arts college where all three presenters explicitly advocated for the total abolition of police and prisons – right now. The Social Work professor I referred to in my first comment said that is the majority opinion in her department and in the profession at large. So it’s hardly a lie to say that some people support that nutty idea.
I hope that GregB can read this far and actually comprehend what I wrote – doubtful.
I think that you both have valid points but are both talking past each other…. however that is for the two of you to realize. I am not going to jump into this debate further.
There are people on the Far Right who are openly Nazis. They would kill Jews, Blacks, and anyone who disagrees with them. They say so. They are Proud Boys, White nationalists, KKK, and more.
I support the police. I am a Democrat. Joe Biden supports the police. We need them to protect us from theNazis.
Pete Theberath is one of those commenters here who obviously rarely if ever venture outside the far Right bubble. It’s true that full annihilation of non-white non-Christians is supported by only a small percentage of the population, but there are people like that among the far Right.
Zero House Republicans supported a bill to investigate white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity in the uniformed services and law enforcement agencies. Zero. I guess that the Republican party wants to make sure that neo-Nazi activity in police forces can continue?
The parallels to Nazi Germany are growing as this comment from Pete Theberath demonstrates. I am sure that in the early days of the rise of the Nazis, there were folks like Pete demonizing the few Jews who said “we need to abolish the stormtroopers” and folks like Pete complaining that those Jews were scaring everyone else into silence. Of course, it was the far right that was scaring everyone else into silence.
It’s hardly a lie to say that some people in the Republican party support these nutty far right ideas, nor is it a lie that they stormed the Capitol and tried to overturn an election with violence in order to have their way.
We never had an open insurrection before Jan 6, 2021. We never had thousands of people storm the US Capitol and desecrate it while threatening the lives of elected officials. But the GOP says it was a normal day. A few rowdy tourists. No big deal. Why were the Republicans go into hiding instead of greeting the insurrectionists?
Once again Pete proves my point. He cites an article as proof of his lying thesis, but fails to understand the point of it. It is theoretical, the argument clearly states that they have given up on reform, therefore support the abolition of the police. Implied in the argument–I know anything outside of taking literal things out of context is your thing–is that effective reform would keep policing. If we had humane, responsive policing, no one would call for its abolition. But that’s not our history. Pete wants to bring back a kinder, gentler slave patrol.
And David, have some intellectual guts, explain yourself. Your implied wisdom says nothing.
The article you cite to prove we are all just a bunch of in-our-bubble leftist hippies was written by “Ms. Kaba is an organizer against criminalization.” Apparently she’s an organizer with some strong opinions, I expect she doesn’t mean literally get rid of police – she’s like, you know, trying to make point. So…
To the dissenters… how about you stop generalizing every statement and assuming “liberals” have the same opinion made by anyone no matter how extreme their position and we won’t align you all with George Wallace, David Duke, Lester Maddux, and the exPresident all wrapped into one.
No, we’re not card carrying members of that organization, Mr. McCarthy.
GregB writes: “Pete wants to bring back a kinder, gentler slave patrol.” That’s the intellectual level of this blog: zero nuance, no sense of proportion, adolescent caricaturing of any dissenters. Sad to say, Diane Ravitch is either part of this mindset or she won’t disagree with her groupies here..
Pete,
Insults don’t persuade anyone.
Let’s discuss, Pete. Did the author of the piece you posted not state that she gave up on reform and therefore proposed an idea of how we, as a society, might live without having a police force and took responsibility for our own decency? Was it not theoretical? Would the same have been written in a world with humane policing that actually does something about actual problems? Just what exactly is “that mindset” in your view?
You want to impose your world. I want your ideas debated among an educated electorate because, in a rational world, they would have absolutely no chance. That’s why everything is based on a lie or disingenuous exaggeration.
One more thing, Pete: where’s the nuance in claiming that anyone who disagrees with you is for eliminating policing? Citing a piece by an admitted leftist activist expressing her frustration as speaking for all you don’t agree with you? Nuance? Proportion? Caricaturing? As John McEnroe famously said many times, are you serious?
The NYT author who favors abolishing police and prisons is not theoretical about her opinion. She wants it done RIGHT NOW. GregB doesn’t want to believe that fact so he denies it. Read a sampling of the reader comments following that op-ed. A survey found that 91% of NYT subscribers vote Democratic, and the tone of almost all comments is transparently left-of-center. Thousands of NYT liberal readers don’t agree with GregB, so this isn’t some right-wing craziness. Just admit that you were wrong – it happens to everyone.
Pete,
This is a ridiculous accusation.
I don’t support”defunding the police.”
Neither does Greg B.
Why should he defend what someone wrote as an opinion piece in the NYTimes?
He didn’t write it.
I don’t know anyone who wants to defund the police.
You create a straw man, then you write comment after comment knocking him down.
There may be someone who wants to defund the police. I don’t know them.
Why don’t you write to the NYT author. I don’t know her. She doesn’t read this blog or comment here.
“It is now obvious to all rational people: Diane Ravitch supports coercing everyone in academia to conform to far Left ideas.”
Does this mean that everybody who cares more about the 99% than the 1%, who opposes politicians who take money away from public institutions that support the 99% and sooner than later gives it to the 1% is on the far left?
What should tax money, collected from the 99%, be spent on if not on institutions serving the interest of the 99%? Did DeSantis specify what he is going to do with the hundreds of millions of $ he will take away from public colleges?
We experience budget cuts to public institutions all the time but it’s never shared with us what the huge sums of confiscated taxpayer money eventually is spent on.
Pete: the article Diane posted was about DeSantis attacking academic freedom. You responded by attacking and belittling those of us who post here. How about telling us why DeSantis should be placing restrictions on what can be taught. That was the subject, you know.
I agree, Roy.
What we have learned over the past 7 years is that if a politician can convince those who put him and her in office to fear that politician, the law doesn’t matter. There are frequent rulings by the Supreme Court that attach Academic Freedom to the First Amendment where it involves higher education. Where does the law say that a governor has the power to shut down intellectual inquiry? It seems to me organizations like the ACLU should be knocking down the court house door and put Mr. Desantis in his place.
An article of interest from Inside Higher Education about Bakersfield College. Apparently people against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion don’t just live in Florida.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/01/23/political-tensions-erupt-bakersfield-college
To be clear, free speech and diversity of opinions should be encouraged in higher education. Listening and talking to people we disagree with has become less and less possible in our divided culture. It is too sad.
I’m not so sure that “Listening and talking to people we disagree with has become less and less possible” is the right way to put it.
If anything it has been siloed (for you country folk) or ghettoized (for you city folk) through various social media so that the city mouse and the country mouse don’t communicate with each other any longer nor go and visit each other.
The only difference between Bakersfield and Florida is geography.
“Listening and talking to people we disagree with has become less and less possible in our divided culture. It is too sad.”
Yeah, sad. But this is not the culture in colleges. What DeSantis and friends claim about public higher ed is pure fiction they heard on Fox News.
President DeSantis
Or as Trump says: DeSanctimonious
Or as others say:
DeSanitized
Or:
DeSatan
I know nothing about the administration of these Florida campuses. Are they all in DeSantis’ camp or just cowed by the fear of losing funding? Do they have no course for appeal???
The Miami Herald article says that the state government wants to give more hiring power to the university presidents and take it away from faculty committees. Are the university presidents political appointees in Florida?
I don’t know whether presidents of state universities are political appointees, but the boards that hire them are.
Good point, Diane. Hopefully one of your Florida readers can provide further details (Bob??).
When the Governor appoints the board, ad the board appoints the president of the university, it seems clear that the governor pulls the strings.
Recall that DeSantis just appointed a bunch of extreme conservatives to the board of Florida’s NewCollege, the only progressive public college. Keep watching to see what happens next.
I agree, but has DeSantis already been able to stack the deck on these various state systems’ Boards?? Can he immediately remove sitting Board members and replace them with cronies? I don’t follow Florida shenanigans closely.
All 28 of the college presidents kneeled before his demands.
Let’s see what the 8 university presidents do.
“Do they have no course for appeal???”
I doubt, they can do anything.
Florida.
The F is for Fascism.
Why does every conservative think every liberal is a far-left, socialist, close down the prisons and get rid of the police individual?
Seriously, guys, you hear one phrase and turn it into some outrageous conspiracy to indoctrinate children, raise taxes, and whatever else you can make up.
One legislator uses the phrase “defund the police” and suddenly it’s in every campaign rally with your definition of what is intended. Stop making this up.
You hear the expression “woke” and turn it into some leftist conspiracy to — well, actually, what is the deal. Are missionaries or people passing out Bibles at football games any different than “woke” and wanting wake-up others?
The GOP likes to keep people tied up in knots over make-believe issues. I know many Democrats but I don’t know any who want to defund the police.
Meanwhile, the GOP wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. That’s real.
“Why does every conservative think every liberal is a far-left, socialist,”
They aren’t ‘conservatives’ is why. They are regressive xtian fundie reich wing reactionaries who wish to take America back to a time and place that never was nor ever will be.
To call them conservative is to say that horse manure is Crème Brûlée.
Since all this is rather I’ll-defined, the college professors can give their word and keep it by doing things as usual. Meanwhile DeSatantis can call them out whenever he needs a whipping boy. If he gets serious enough, he can call them Leftists. This is all crap.
Colleges are always diverse places. When people learn to think rationally, the only thing that falls away is superstition. Disagreement continues, as is evidenced by the difference between the economics departments at UC Davis and U of Chicago. It is horribly reductive to put all institutions in the same pot.
Florida universities state the following (I didn’t check them all)
… is committed to ensuring equity and fairness for all University employees, students, visitors, vendors, contractors, and other third parties. Our commitment to these principles is essential to fostering a campus community that values diversity and inclusion. As such, the University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion, age, disability, sex, gender identity/expression, marital status, sexual orientation, veteran status, or genetic predisposition with regard to admissions, employment programs, or other activities operated by the University. which sadly is in violation of Florida state law that prohibits diversity training and a whole lot more.
Too bad these statements violate Florida state law which prohibits teaching anyone what it means!
Great point about the mission of Florida universities supporting equity, diversity, and inclusion.
That is funny! And not a word about their true intent. Football.
DeSantis’ latest big idea for K-12 is called “teacher empowerment.” He wants teachers to report on their school board and administration, if they deviate from DeSantis’ anti-woke agenda. This is another example of the governor trying to impose absolute authority on public schools. A big problem is that his anti-woke agenda is so vague almost anything can interpreted as anti-woke. This latest plan is an open invitation to fuel more “witch hunts” and put public schools continuously on the defensive.
DeSantis would be well-qualified to run the Stasi in East Germany or the neighborhood spy networks in Cuba.
“He wants teachers to report on their school board and administration, if they deviate from DeSantis’ anti-woke agenda.”
That’s what Communist leaders did back then: “asked” people to report on others (friends, family, coworkers, bosses) who seem to deviate from the Communist ideal. This is how they created a global spy network and I suspect most citizen were part of it one way or another. You couldn’t trust anybody.
When I came to the US to grad school with 10 other people, we were summoned to the education ministry and were invited in, one by one, and were told not to get into any political discourse with anybody, and report back on anybody who broke this rule. We were given a detailed info whom and how to contact in case we had something to report. Even minor things should be reported, they said, since you never know what may be behind it.
Fighting the same battles in the red states.
Missouri has proposed legislation with a laundry (money and white-washing) “divisive terms” not allowed in schools.
Missouri also takes the high honor of leading the nation in anti-LGBTQ bills proposed this session. Kansas City Star headline: ‘Most dangerous session we’ve seen.’ Missouri leads nation in anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Some of the language is boiler plate taken right out of Florida state law and others.
A few observations and questions for y’all legislators.
How are we supposed to teach the Preamble of the Constitution without fear of being arrested?
How are school districts supposed to hold New Employee Orientation sessions and explain their non-discrimination policy?
You think Covid had an effect on teacher shortage. You ain’t seen nothing yet. The red wave will scare anyone from teaching because they might, like, talk about history, literature, poetry, art, and worse… they might listen to kids!
Frightening. Witch-hunts, and the witches are anyone who speaks kindly about their gay family or friends or anyone who wants to teach African American history.
Off topic, but I haven’t seen this horrific shooting discussed here—it’s now headed to court.
https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/newport-news/lawyer-for-newport-news-teacher-shot-by-6-year-old-to-issue-statement/
There is so much that is so wrong with the way the day went down from no parent with the child as required by his IEP/501 to the adminimals doing nothing to the parents excusing themselves of responsibility for the weapon.
My question is “Just who are the parents and why have they been treated with kid gloves?
FLERP!,
That case is really an indictment of gun laws that allow any horrible parent to own a gun where their 6 year old – who they claim is very troubled – can get their hands on it.
When gun owners are responsible for the damage done by their guns, things will change.
An inept, publicity hungry prosecutor believes that actors who are handed guns by certified professional gun handlers specifically hired to make sure the weapons used on sets are safe have always been expected to check each weapon themselves because the professional armorer might not notice that a gun has been sabotaged and it’s the actor’s responsibility to know that. But somehow parents are almost never arrested when the guns they fail to secure are used by their own children to murder.
Agree with you! Parents should be held accountable, certainly for gun safety. Locked in a safe. Secure key.
I considered posting about this horrible event but figured everyone read about or saw it on the news. I read today that three people-including a child-warned administrators that the child had a gun. Someone checked backpack but not his pickets. The teacher’s lawyer reported this so she is probably going to sue the district for negligence.
This made me think about the call to arm teachers. Imagine that you are an armed teacher. You walk down the hall and see this 6 year old student about to shoot a teacher. Could you pull the trigger and kill this 6 year old? Could you deal with the all the consequences of that (emotional, legal, etc.)? Even if you are an armed and trained school resource officer, could you shoot a 6 year old? It seems to me you might have to do so. When you carry a gun, you must be prepared to use it -even against a 6 year old. So it’s a complex question not to be taken lightly.
Speaking of Florida- criminal charges have been filed in an alleged scheme that involved selling nursing degrees. Two of the three institutions named in the charges are Sacred Heart International Institute and Siena. It seems possible that the motivations for the schools’ name selections might be that there are two Catholic universities operating in other states with similar names. Presumably there is no connection among the schools.
Whether those hiring students felt that a school’s religious origin made it more credible (or, schemers thought so) …
Christian themed education is popular as a selling point in states like Ohio.