In my years of teaching, I have occasionally had students with conservative views, and that’s fine. They’re a minority, but tolerance is one of the default principles of liberal arts education, so they get to express their position, everyone else shares their ideas, we all learn.
The problem isn’t conservatism, it’s authoritarianism. We are living in a country with a rising authoritarian minority that wants to shut everyone else down, and that is a problem. And that’s why Ohio is a problem — authoritarians want to dictate the content of a college education.
Ohio universities’ new centers to combat “liberal bias” aren’t popular with students, so a Republican leader wants to require attendance.
Bringing in America’s 250th anniversary, the Republican supermajority in Ohio’s legislature wants to expand civics education at colleges and universities. That hasn’t been getting the warmest of welcomes on campuses.
This puckered prune of a beancounter doesn’t like free speech
So this Republican, Jerry Cirino, has passed a new law.
S.B. 1 focuses on what Cirino calls “free speech,” banning public universities in Ohio from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, having “bias” in the classroom and limiting how “controversial topics” can and can’t be taught. “Controversial” under Ohio law includes “belief policy that is the subject of political controversy, including issues such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion.”
I appreciate how the report mentions that Cirino is a “free speech” advocate, and the next word is “banning”. It goes on to say that he opposes “controversial” ideas, in which he gets to categorize what ideas are to be policed. “Climate policies”? Climate change is real and has serious consequences (witness the heat wave we’re experiencing now), but Cirino wants to control discussion of what to do about it.
“electoral politics, foreign policy”…do Ohio universities lack political science and history departments?
I know Republicans hate DEI, but Ohio is a diverse state, and universities tend to hire from an international pool of academic candidates.
Ohioans can’t even discuss immigration policy? Are we just supposed to accept a conservative white man’s opinions without recourse to evidence, or the consequences, or the literature?
The primary consumers of college education are 18-22 year olds. Lord forbid that marriage and abortion be a topic of interest and concern among that group.
Jerry Cirino is a retired medical device company executive. Don’t assume that he therefore has experience in medicine or engineering, though — he has a BS in business and an MBA, and has completely foregone the kind of breadth of knowledge a typical liberal arts graduate gets, and instead has been narrowly focused on making money.
Yet he thinks he has the qualifications to overhaul higher education in Ohio? Jesus. This really is the age when incompetence rules.
You can’t run a government the same way you run a business. All the people that vote for business moguls think that because they make a lot of money they know how to run a gov’t. That’s a non sequitur. Politicians need to know how to use money, not make money. See the whole DOGE disaster as one example of how running a gov’t like a business doesn’t work.
What makes something the subject of political controversy? When someone decides to make it the subject of political controversy. Take vaccines as an example. Is there any reason that politics should be involved in an aspect of medical care which is backed by much scientific evidence? No! But some people believe that it is controversial, and some of those people got themselves into political power, ergo it is politically controversial.
And of course, I think someone should be using these new centers to combat “liberal bias” to promote Flat-Earthism, my favorite well-poisoning example. Imagine Ohio students being required to attend a course on Flat-Earthism.
I’m glad you exposed the glaring irony if not outright contradiction in following a claim to be in favor free speech there is a whole list of topics that should not be discussed freely, But then we are discussing he incompetence of business people turned politicians of which the prime examples are Trump and Musk followed by lesser examples like Linda McMahon.
The problem is that businesses, particularly private ones, are run like autocracies, They don’t want and positively discourage worker participation such as unions, Democracies are messy and argumentative. Much quicker and more efficient for the boss to call the shots, Musk used to crow about instantly firing people who had the temerity to disagree with him, We’re seeing the same thing happen all over our government. You either tow the MAGA line or you’re out. Laws and court orders? Just ignore them, Legal precedents? Just get a compliant conservative Supreme Court to overturn them. Settled law, my ass!