The Florida statehouse launched another strike in Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “anti-woke” war with a new bill this week aiming to hand more control of school administration over to the governor and his political appointees.
Is it only a matter of time before people figure it out and start abandoning Florida as just too much nonsense?
Since the Right isn’t all that much interested in education, once university enrollments drop, what will happen next?
I know InSantis doesn’t care, but surely the few remaining logical or reasonable people in FL would care.
999 is 666 upside down.
Performative bullshit aside and promoting DeSantis’s political ambitions aside, that’s the main point isn’t it; the authoritarians’ wet dream.
If DeSantis is successful on this front, the academic reputation of Florida’s colleges and universities, among academics (including graduate and professional programs) and employers, will sharply decline. New College, a wonderful institution, already seems a lost cause. Thing is, people project the contemporary reputation of a college or university onto its past. DeSantis’ assault on higher education will affect past as well as future graduates.
“It’s all seemingly part of the Republican governor’s ongoing effort to use his Republican-dominated state legislature to pass laws in the state to address non-existent issues”
FALSE. This is a giant mistake and incorrect. He IS addressing an issue THAT HE AND THE GQP KKKULT PERCEIVE and treating as if he is not assists his endeavor by whitewashing it instead of exposing it. We all know the “issue” he’s trying to address is that demographic shifts have made the GQP KKKult a shrinking minority and lost the white supremacist Christian dominionists the stranglehold over government and culture to which they believe they are entitled by decree of an invisible sky wizard. Speak truth to that. Name it. Call it out. Nopbody is actually fooled that it’s anything else. You are correct to point out that his rhetoric and the false pretexts and fabricated dogwhistle pretenses used to pass these bills are non-issues, but hat only begs the question is what IS the issue he’s REALLY trying to “address”. As such, you go too far (by not going far enough) when you say there’s NO issue that he’s addressing and stop there. He’s most certainly doing it for a reason. NAME. IT. They are who we think they are.
NMNQ
The title is a bit confusing, suggesting as it does that DeSantis is staking out a position near the outer limits permitted by academic freedom, rather than aiming to shut academic freedom down.
Well people can’t afford to live in the state with home insurance prices going up, bit at least colleges will have a bunch of political wackjobs interfering with them.
CNN —
"A new bill overhauling Florida universities to match Gov. Ron DeSantis’ vision for higher education would shift power at state schools into the hands of the Republican leader’s political appointees and ban gender studies as a field of study.
The legislation, filed this week, would also require that general education courses at state colleges and universities “promote the values necessary to preserve the constitutional republic” and cannot define American history “as contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.” It would prohibit general courses “with a curriculum based on unproven, theoretical or exploratory content.”"
… … … … … … … …
Welp so much for teaching theoretical physics or math or any sort of theoretical cancer biology. Nice move DeSantis. Ya otta look at the language of your bill ya know.
I suspect that NASA will not be recruiting from any Florida schools for their rocket science projects.
Science is dead in Florida. The scientific method is based on theory that is tested. No theory… no science.
This is profoundly stupid.
“Some fellows get credit for being conservative when they are only stupid.”
Blockquote
general education courses must not “suppress or distort” historical events, reference identity politics like critical race theory, or define U.S. history in ways that contradict “universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.
So they can’t suppress historical events and they also have to suppress historical events… sounds workable.
Would teaching about slavery be allowed?
Excellent point. Put this one back in the oven, TPM…it aint ready yet.
ETA: Also…WELCOME!!!
Which is really nothing more than a fuck you letter to Mad King George, not a document with any legal or tangible “founding” significance whatsoever.
Heh. I thought back in 2016 it was only a matter of time before most people could see what a piece of toxic divisive shit Trump was.
I was so wrong. So many gullible, hateful people.
Seems to me that DeSantis and his lap dog legislature have not the first clue about which documents are the foundation of our Republic and which are as you say … a fuck you letter.
Meatball Ron™️ will stop at nothing to be president. He’ll sacrifice academic freedom, destroy the quality of Florida’s state universities and colleges, and censor instruction at all levels of schools. He will bully and suppress all dissent and squash all freedom.
The man is an open fascist.
Not if it’s based on theory apparently. Seems the Florida legislature and DeSantis hate theory.
That is what bothers me as well.
They have an indoctrination narrative that doesn’t jibe with reality, so they have to abuse power to turn it into “reality” by simply making it what everyone is taught to believe. They’re essentially trying to add their own tailor-made shadowpuppets to the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave.
Go go conservative amygdala…
ETA:
Cough cough…AHEM…“EVOLUTION IS JUST A THEORY!!!”
Ya think?
It was DeSatan who done put the “duh” in Floriduh…