Michelle Goldberg compares Florida governor and putative Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’ flurry of laws to prove that he is the leader of the anti-wokies in education to Hungarian president Victor Orban.
Many on the American right admire the way Orban uses the power of the state against cultural liberalism, but few are imitating him as faithfully as the Florida governor and likely Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. Last week, one of DeSantis’s legislative allies filed House Bill 999, which would, as The Tampa Bay Times reported, turn many of DeSantis’s “wide-ranging ideas on higher education into law.” Even by DeSantis’s standards, it is a shocking piece of legislation that takes a sledgehammer to academic freedom.
It’s a flawed analogy for a few reasons. First, Hungary does not have our Constitution. Second, Orban is the president of Hungary, whereas DeSantis is only the governor of a state. Third, our judiciary has already demonstrated its unwillingness to suffer his unconstitutional laws, which District Judge Mark Walker called “positively dystopian.” So naturally, DeSantis doubled down with House Bill 999, which FIRE characterizes as “worse.”
House Bill 999 is laden with unconstitutional provisions hostile to freedom of expression and academic freedom. If passed, it would represent another retreat from the open exchange of ideas that Florida’s leaders embraced just four years ago. Back in 2019, Florida lawmakers understood that faculty and students discussing and debating ideas at odds with majoritarian public opinion is a necessary component of a liberal arts education. Now, they will consider passing into law still more restrictions on what ideas faculty and students may explore on campus.
Assuming, arguendo, that FIRE is right, and that I am right in agreeing with FIRE, that this law is both horrendous as laws go for its incoherence, poor drafting, meaningless rhetoric and absurdly unconstitutional restrictions, not to mention the fact that if DeSantis was able to pull this off, consider what that would mean when the other side pulled off the same sort of academic butchery but as to conservative views because that’s how double-edged swords work, what then?
But perhaps the most vague restriction in HB 999 is its prohibition on the inclusion of “unproven, theoretical, or exploratory content” in general education courses. A broad range of academic content — including quite literally all scientific theories — is contested and theoretical. State officials would have unfettered discretion to determine which views are “theoretical” and banned from general education courses. A bill so vague that it allows officials the discretion to declare that professors cannot discuss new theories and ideas in a particular public university class should be rejected, flat out.
In case the problem here still eludes you, “unproven, theoretical, or exploratory content” pretty much covers nearly the entirety of what higher education exists to consider and teach, and it covers the entire spectrum of academic thought rather than merely the “woke” thought of critical theory or intersectionality. Evolution is a theory too, you know. Want to outlaw it?
For the reasons explained here regularly, laws are made of words. Words are squishy, and often fail to capture what it is that a law is trying to accomplish, often suffering from overbreadth and/or vagueness, putting it into the hands of the folks wielding the bludgeon to decide what ideas are acceptable and what are not. It’s similar to those who desperately want to outlaw hate speech, provided they get to decide what speech is bad.
That DeSantis and his cohorts keep coming up with bad and unconstitutional law doesn’t require each to be parsed ad nauseam. These laws will not survive constitutional scrutiny, as well they shouldn’t and as you, if you thought it through, would want from the courts. Bad laws are bad, whether they provide the outcome you favor or abhor. These are bad law.
If students choose to major in gender studies, what business is that of yours? If it’s your kid, then deal with it at home, but not by shutting down the department. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems in education that need to be confronted, whether it’s indoctrination of students to racist or hateful ideology or promotion of false history that causes them to hate their nation.
If laws are not, and never will be, the solution to a problem that has arisen from academic capture of higher education by an ideologically bound cadre of professors and administrators, what lawful and constitutional means is there to shift education away from radical left extremes to accommodate “unproven, theoretical, or exploratory content” that isn’t crafted to produce the woke flavor of anarcho-syndicalists? DeSantis’ bludgeon is unlawful, unconstitutional and fundamentally wrong. So what’s right?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply, within reason. Don’t test me.
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DeSantis disdain for speech is really unappealing but I have a policy of tuning out “my political opponent is just like this fascist” opinions.
DeSantis is overreacting to 3rd graders being taught about gender fluidity and being taught that white Americans should be flogged in the town square, which is also problematic but I’d guess that Goldberg is fine with that stuff. The stuff that DeSantis is trying to stop is a problem that needs to be addressed, but DeSantis is doing a very poor job of addressing it. Like you say, all he has is a sledgehammer, and he’s swinging it wildly.
To answer your question the answer to the problem is to quit giving power to doctrinaire crazies of any flavor, but the doctrinaire crazies we elect don’t want to stop doing it.
And listening to anyone on the American left complain about suppression of speech in light of Biden’s War on Misinformation Is embarrassing. Being lectured about the evils of censorship by someone who supports censorship is really tiresome.
As one might guess, I’m strongly opposed to the forced removal of books from a library. That said, I had occasion to see the content of a book called “Gender Queer” that has found its way into middle school libraries. What sort of flaming nutjob thought that was an appropriate book for a middleschooler? It forced me to confront my liberal paradox.
I agree with your attitude toward libraries and the right does book removal a lot, particularly targeting things that they think Jesus wouldn’t want us to see.
But having Goldberg lecture us on this when she supports the wildly inappropriate books and Biden’s censorship attempts is just not palatable.
And I can’t answer your question. I can’t comprehend the thinking of someone with a brain so damaged by their ideology that they would consider that book as suitable. It’s incomprehensible.
This entire subject has become so absurd that you’re testing yourself.
Can a math prof in Florida lecture
On Goldbach’s unproven conjecture?
Ron DeSantis says “Nope.
That’s unproven, you dope.
So just lecture on Greek Architecture!”
An interesting experiment would be to pop out to Amazon & buy a couple thousand copies of one of these books (e.g. Genderqueer) & then drive around to various playgrounds & hand them out to random 8 year olds. And then wait on the response from Authority. Would it be…Naaahh, nevermind. Or would you be sitting in jail under various charges? Would the ACLU leap to your defense?
DeSantis disdain for speech is really unappealing but I have a policy of tuning out “my political opponent is just like this fascist” opinions.
– Censorship is bad but I censor bad opinions mentally.
DeSantis is overreacting to 3rd graders being taught about gender fluidity and being taught that white Americans should be flogged in the town square,
– Straw man goes here.
which is also problematic but I’d guess that Goldberg is fine with that stuff.
– Objection. Facts not in evidence.
The stuff that DeSantis is trying to stop is a problem that needs to be addressed, but DeSantis is doing a very poor job of addressing it.
– Fascism is cool when it aligns with my priors.
Like you say, all he has is a sledgehammer, and he’s swinging it wildly.
– I like what he’s swinging at, I just wish the hammer was a little smaller, or maybe that he swung slightly more gently.
To answer your question the answer to the problem is to quit giving power to doctrinaire crazies of any flavor, but the doctrinaire crazies we elect don’t want to stop doing it.
– My ostensibly principled stand would not preclude me from voting for Desantis, wild swinger of sledgehammers.
And listening to anyone on the American left complain about suppression of speech in light of Biden’s War on Misinformation Is embarrassing.
– Orthogonal whataboutism.
Being lectured about the evils of censorship by someone who supports censorship is really tiresome.
– I have feelings about facts, and that’s really important to me.
It’s settled. “Orthogonal whataboutism” is the name of my new garage band.
Declining to listen is censorship? Sure, buddy.
About time they threw out that new-fangled “evolution” business. The new Florida state quarter should have an image of a T-rex, and the motto, “Never had ’em, never will.”
T.Rex was seen in Florida, 9-19-1972 at Dania Beach and 9-20-1972 in St. Petersburg.
There’s also a T-Rex at Dinosaur World on I-4 between Tampa and Orlando.
There are no T. Rex in Florida as all Floridians are required to be armed.
In military parlance, T-Rex could be considered as possessing small arms.
And since T. Rex was not noted for sleeves, he’s definitely “baring” them.
To offer two cents (or one of those Florida quarters!) on the question before the thread went all antediluvian, I would offer up for our host’s scorn and derision:
1. I would agree that “unproven, theoretical, or exploratory content” are largely what schools should be about, just so long as that content isn’t presented as absolute fact which must be believed on pain of pain;
2. Some materials are just not particularly age appropriate. Third graders should not find porn in the library, they should have to search their parents’ bedroom like normal kids; and
3. Let me suggest that the solution to school “speech” is not legislation, but simply allowing parents or students to move out of schools that are run by The Other. This would require parents to take more interest in their kids’ education, so it might not fly. It’s also tough when a school run by The Other nevertheless has good classes that a student really wants/needs – but adversity can build tolerance. Major downside, though, would be yet another brick in the wall of polarization between the two major colors in the nation. Not good for social cohesion, that….
Who knew Florida Republicans would be the undisputed vanguard of cancel culture in 2023?
Attempting to seriously grapple with the final question: maybe loosening credentialing and requiring school librarians to be parents of children who are students in the district, or who graduated within the past 10 years, would result in less ideologically charged nutjobs from library science grad programs thinking books like Gender Queer, Robin DiAngelo, and the like are appropriate for 11 year-olds? If the statements of the American Librarians’ Association mean anything, people holding Master’s or PhDs in Library Science are likely to have decided that “the space on our bookshelves is political” and are thus appropriate battlefronts in evangelizing to benighted middle class neighborhoods and school districts.
So maybe a partial solution is to render their degrees worthless, and let people who have more skin in the game both in raising their kids in the district, and in socializing with the parents of other kids, make the decision as to what is both age-appropriate and reflects community mores. This would avoid constitutional issues.
A lot of the issues seem to be about the requirements of “general education” courses. The scare mongering around this seems to be based around the idea that this is referring to college coursework in general. The bill is much more specific, referring to a set of 5 to 25 “general education core” courses that all public higher ed institutions must offer, 5 of which, in distinct subject areas, are required for graduation. That’s about 1 out of 8 of the coursework that would normally be needed for graduation.
Gender studies, CRT, and intersectionality may still be offered as elective topics, but simply may not be covered within this core set of coursework. I happen to agree that public institutions should not be offering them as undergraduate majors and don’t see a problem with that limitation. The bill does not say anything about graduate programs.
I do agree that the tenure changes are concerning. Of course, it’s not helpful that so many who should know better like FIRE are going at this with their own bludgeon instead of focusing attention where it belongs.
I certainly have my issues with present day academia, and the distortions it causes in downstream professions like K-12 education. But if I had to choose someone to reinvent it, Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature would be pretty far down the list, somewhere below Gary Busey and the cast of the Muppet Show.