Over at Q&O, Dale Franks notes:
From Inside Higher Ed comes this story of a new bill in Arizona. A state Senate Committee has approved a bill that is abhorrent to First Amendment liberties.
The bill, whose chief sponsor is the Republican majority leader in the Senate, would ban professors at public colleges and universities, while working, from:
- Endorsing, supporting or opposing any candidate for local, state or national office.
- Endorsing, supporting or opposing any pending legislation, regulation or rule under consideration by local, state or federal agencies.
- Endorsing, supporting or opposing any litigation in any court.
- Advocating “one side of a social, political, or cultural issue that is a matter of partisan controversy.”
- Hindering military recruiting on campus or endorsing the activities of those who do.
Under the legislation, the Arizona Board of Regents, which governs the state’s public universities, and the individual boards of community colleges would be responsible for setting guidelines for the law and for requiring all faculty members to participate in three hours of training annually on their responsibilities under the law.
Punishments could come in two forms. The governing boards’ guidelines would need to develop procedures, including suspensions and terminations in some cases, according to the bill. In addition, the state attorney general and county prosecutors could sue violators, and state courts could impose fines of up to $500. The legislation would bar colleges or their insurance policies from paying the fines – money would need to be paid directly by the professors found guilty.
I can hardly find the words to express my outrage over this blatantly unconstitutional attempt to muzzle professors, and forbid them from speaking publicly on almost any issue. Becoming a college professor is not an implied consent to surrender your political liberties.
Well, Dale, there’s much we agree on….. but this isn’t one of them. I support the bill as described… though I may disagree with the bill itself, if the wording of it is different than my understanding of it. To understand why I say that you need understand the difference between one professor and another. I replied:
Somebody teaching at a private college, has all the ability of the world to speak their mind on whatever subject. They’re not doing it on the government’s time, or the government’s dime. More, it seems to me, the obvious intent of the legislation is to keep such people from passing off their political movements and paranoia as fact.
Law, it is said, is a necessary evil. Between allowing the indoctrination at government expense to continue, and the law being enforced, I would view this particular law to be the lesser of the two evils.
I disagree, Dale, that this is a matter of free speech. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is preventing these professors from going private, so that they can expound on their views. What’s really going on here, is conditions of their employment. I’m quite sure that there are many bright minds who are willing to work within those parameters. That’s called a free market.
We’re talking, in reality, about the difference between freedom of speech, versus a guaranteed audience, Particularly one that in general doesn’t know enough to challenge the nonsense they’re teaching as fact, all provided by the largess of government. Somehow, that situation does not seem to me a libertarian nirvana.
Let’s consider also, that if there are a large number of parents who object to the type of restrictions being placed on professors, they will be eventually erect non-government schools where such nonsense can be taught freely. There is nothing stopping them from doing precisely that… assuming they have the desire.
Of course, we both know that won’t happen, because they do not so desire.
Now, notice please, then I made no distinction as regards the political persuasion of professors involved. Neither, for that matter, does the law. This is as it should be. Apparently, what Mr. Franks is finding troublesome, is that the law is in his view designed to attack the left… he tries the ‘twist his words back at him’ trick… but in doing so, trips up:
Let’s consider also, that if there are a large number of parents who object to leftist views being taught by professors, they will be eventually erect nongovernment schools where such nonsense can be dispensed with. There is nothing stopping them from doing precisely that… assuming they have the desire.
And I ask, why should political leanings of either direction… left or right… be allowed to be taught as fact, on the government dime?
This is not a freedom of speech issue, folks. To present it as such, is to miscast the argument. That kind of blatantly miscast argument, is usually being driven by something else.. Something that is not out in the open in the argument thus far.
The only clue that we have to what that might be, is the apparent Freudian slip …”of parents who object to leftist views being taught by professors…”
I asked about this, in my reply.
The law makes no such distinction of the sort, which is as it should be. Nor did I, myself.
But I note YOU did. Why?
The question stands unanswered, thus far. Add to that, the obvious attempt to smear the Republican party with the story. (Note the comments)
Now, look; I know better than to suggest that Dale is leaping to the defense of the left, or that he is a leftist at heart himself. I know him at least that well. I have to assume that there is some sort of a rhetorical mash going on here.
The discussion with Franks’ motivations aside, the discussion as a whole does speak rather loudly to the much larger issue of government being involved in education at all. Indeed, I find myself amazed that a libertarian wouldn’t take the opportunity to raise that issue. I’ve been saying for over a decade now in various public forums going all the way back to the old GT network, that it was time for the government to get out of the business of education. And one commenter in that thread, MichaelW, explains a major reason why:
But that also identifies the problem — we may perceive that public employees are impartial, but that doesn’t ensure (or even encourage) impartiality.
Quite correct. That perception has always been there. For example , government climatologists. Government economists. Government union representatives. The FBI. The CIA. The Secret service. The Military. All of these have a longstanding perception that they are impartial on the political front. However it is not so.
The solution Mike offers to this misperception, insofar as teachers goes leaves something to be desired:
Let them support candidates, speak at rallys, march to Washington, or hold vigil in Crawford, and let everyone seem them doing it. The more attention called to it the better. Maybe then more voters would begin to understand just how impartial public employees really are. What have now is just a lemon’s market in government, since the true motivations, biases, preferences, etc. of the employees are not allowed to be known.
No, that’s not going to work toward the stated goal.
Look; If the political activism of college professors hasn’t been directly attached to the left in perception, given their upfront and overly loud activism since the nineteen sixties, that perception, that illusion of impartiality will never be broken by the means described. Given the political activities of the teachers’ unions, that statement can probably just as easily applied to teachers in the grade schools.
And look, if you think any of this is inaccurate, try replacing ‘left’ with ‘NAZI’ and see if the arguments presented still work. Would we even be HAVING this discussion? Would Dale, for example, be so incensed, if there was a bill afoot to limit the government’s paying for the promotion of NAZI propaganda in the college campus, by supposedly nonpartisan college professors? You’ll forgive me; I have my doubts.
Speaking of allusions to Nazis, I wonder what I would find if I dug into the search engines to discover what it was they thought of the firing of Ward Churchill… the of the “little Eichmans” fame…
Tags: BitsBlog, Democrats, Social Issues
