One of the first things any authoritarian regime tries to do is get higher education under its strict control. Usually this is done with some narrative about professors being elitist and subversive. And I certainly hope professors are subversive. Let me explain.
It is a professor’s job to subvert the equation of authority with Truth. A professor is tasked with getting students to think, to get evidence, to doubt, and if necessary to reject the party line. To get rid of “capital-T” Truth. If you think about it (pun intended) this is how all progress is made. Not by some strongman or beloved leader twirling their finger in the air and saying; “I alone can solve.”
In the Soviet Union, official Truth elevated a single party functionary, Trofim Lysenko, to the level of Truth in the understanding of genetics, and it hurt Soviet agriculture so badly that it fell behind Western agriculture.
In Nazi Germany, relativity was opposed as representing a “foreign spirit” and to be rejected as such. I suppose we should be grateful for whatever extent it delayed their creation of an atomic bomb, but they did pay a strategic price for that politicization.
China’s Cultural Revolution insisted that university professors go harvest grain. Their economy suffered and thousands starved.
Republicans have been loud in rejecting Michael Mann’s climate warnings as “politicized science”. We are just beginning to pay what will be a staggering cost for that denialism.
And now the new Secretary of Education , Betsy DeVoss, says college professors are indoctrinating students. Telling them what to think. A college professor (I have preserved their anonymity) responds:
The Trump administration has now just directly addressed me. Betsy DeVos, the current Secretary of Education, included in her speech at CPAC on Thursday:
“The fight against the education establishment extends to you too [college students]. The faculty, from adjunct professors to deans, tell you what to do, what to say, and more ominously, what to think. They say that if you voted for Donald Trump, you’re a threat to the university community. But the real threat is silencing the First Amendment rights of people with whom you disagree.”
Like most of what the Trump administration says, this is a ridiculous lie. Having taught for over 20 years now, the single political thing I have ever uttered in the classroom is to understand BOTH SIDES of the Affordable Care Act – to actually consider the other side’s argument for or against Obamacare (which Republicans are finally starting to realize).
The goal of every college professor is to get people to actually think rather than just accept what is said. Which might help shed light on why our president at one time proudly exclaimed that he “loves the poorly educated.” But I digress…
More importantly, the ridiculous statement by DeVos, like the cries of fake news by this incompetent group of liars, is a direct attempt to slander me and my colleagues. This administration has a short history, but already an unblemished and sustained record of hostility toward many groups of Americans (e.g., immigrants, women, minorities, LGBT, the press, etc.). They taunt and disparage our own people. I find it completely offensive and unacceptable. And now they add educators to the list of people to blame? Emphatically: No.
It’s just become personal.
georgewiman 