Holding Educrats’ Feet to the Fire

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CounterCurrent: Week of 3/29
Holding Educrats’ Feet to the Fire

CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, bringing you the biggest issues in academia and our responses to them.
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Category: Intellectual Diversity; Reading Time: ~2 minutes
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** Featured Article - It’s Time to Afflict the Comfortable in Higher Ed by David Randall ([link removed][UNIQID])
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If you’re anything like me, you’ve grown somewhat weary of hearing about the COVID-19 pandemic everywhere you look. At this point, we all know that it has affected everything, everywhere. And yet, the world has not stopped spinning. Other things continue to happen. That’s why I’ve decided to focus elsewhere for these next few weeks, barring some extra-breaking corona-news within higher education. If you are so inclined, you can find all of our pandemic-related coverage here ([link removed][UNIQID]) ; otherwise on to this week’s topic:

Last year, the South Dakota legislature passed H.B. 1087, a bill designed to promote free speech and intellectual diversity within the state’s public colleges and universities. The governor quickly followed suit and signed the bill into law—now it’s up to the South Dakota Board of Regents to implement the law into the schools under its jurisdiction.

The response to this legislation has been fairly predictable: progressives line up on one side to insist that the bill isn’t necessary, while centrists and conservatives line up on the other side in support, arguing that it’s needed to create a healthy balance of viewpoints within a overwhelmingly left-leaning system. Intellectual diversity should not be a partisan issue, but it almost invariably becomes one thanks to the political motives of academia’s progressive rulers who don’t like to have their power questioned.

One such response from a “reporter” in the former category comes from Jack Stripling of The Chronicle of Higher Education in his piece “How Far Will Higher Ed’s Culture Wars Go? South Dakota Is Running Previews ([link removed][UNIQID]) ” (“Reporter” is in scare quotes because Stripling does very little reporting and a whole lot of editorializing.) In his piece, Stripling provides some context surrounding the genesis of H.B. 1087, briefly describes the bill itself, and then interviews several members of South Dakota’s education establishment regarding their views on the bill. Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyone he interviews is against the bill and is doing what they can to temper its effects in their schools.

In this week’s featured article ([link removed][UNIQID]) , NAS Director of Research David Randall uses Stripling’s article as a case study of how not to do journalism. Invoking Mr. Dooley’s famous adage “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” Randall argues that we ought to hold educrats’ feet to the fire if and when they resist intellectual diversity, not stroke their egos through biased journalism. By “afflicting the comfortable,” true reform in higher education is possible. As Randall puts it: “A law encouraging intellectual diversity provides the smallest candle to illuminate the closed and musty minds of South Dakota’s education establishment.” Here’s hoping it does just that.

Until next week.

John David
Communications Associate
National Association of Scholars
Read More ([link removed][UNIQID])
For more on intellectual diversity in higher education:
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November 05, 2019


** The Road to Implementing a Free Speech Bill in South Dakota ([link removed][UNIQID])
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Peter Wood

H.B. 1807 passed the South Dakota legislature earlier this year, and now the Board of Regents must implement the free speech bill. Peter Wood offers his recommendations in this letter to the Board.

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March 02, 2020


** Arizona House Passes Intellectual Diversity Legislation ([link removed][UNIQID])
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NAS

H.B. 2238 passed in the Arizona House of Representatives after being introduced just three weeks prior. It is now the first campus intellectual diversity bill to advance in a state legislature.

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February 28, 2020


** Episode #50: The Partisan Professoriate with Mitchell Langbert ([link removed][UNIQID])
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Peter Wood

Peter Wood and Mitchell Langbert explore recent research on the political affiliations of university professors and also the internal contradictions of John Dewey's progressive education.

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February 21, 2020


** An Invitation Renewed ([link removed][UNIQID])
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NAS

The Army War College canceled Raymond Ibrahim's talk last year after protest from CAIR and others, the speech is now back on.


** About the NAS
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The National Association of Scholars, founded in 1987, emboldens reasoned scholarship and propels civil debate. We’re the leading organization of scholars and citizens committed to higher education as the catalyst of American freedom.

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