It happened quietly; drowned out by the noise of Congressional Chaos, the near-tragedy on the NFL football field, and the day to day beginnings of a New Year.\u00a0\u00a0But while we were distracted, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida moved to create his own \u201cideology\u201d university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are \u201creal\u201d ideology schools in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0Hillsdale College in Michigan is a stand-out.\u00a0\u00a0The privately owned school refuses all government monies, including student loans.\u00a0\u00a0And Hillsdale is open about their beliefs \u2013 in Capitalism, a Christian America, and the \u201cpurity\u201d of the Founding Fathers.\u00a0\u00a0Hillsdale sees itself as a bastion against \u201cwoke\u201d culture.\u00a0\u00a0They refuse to recognize the importance that this Nation was founded, in part, on the backs of those that were imported to perform slave labor.\u00a0\u00a0And they fail to acknowledge the inequities that still exist in American society.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s a free country, and if Hillsdale wants to advocate that view, that\u2019s their right.\u00a0\u00a0If someone chooses to attend Hillsdale, they will be imbued with \u201chistory\u201d as we knew it in the 1950\u2019s. Back then the \u201cIndians\u201d were in the way of Western\/Christian culture, and the South was just exercising their right to \u201cwithdraw\u201d from the Union.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the way, there are colleges that have an opposite view.\u00a0\u00a0Oberlin College in Ohio was founded in the 1840\u2019s, and has been in the fore-front of \u201cliberal\u201d thought ever since.\u00a0\u00a0Oberlin was one of the first colleges to admit women and Blacks, and it remains a place where \u201cfree thought\u201d is treasured.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a \u201cwoke\u201d place, in all the good ways that word can mean.\u00a0\u00a0Oberlin recognizes and honors the differences in people and tries to value all of the diversity in our Nation.\u00a0\u00a0And it\u2019s a private school as well, though not as divorced from Federal funding as Hillsdale.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also attended a private school here in Ohio, Denison University.\u00a0\u00a0Denison did not have an institutional political ideology, but did encourage diversity of thought.\u00a0\u00a0Two of my favorite professors were diametrically opposite in their politics.\u00a0\u00a0Professor Dennis was a conservative in the traditional Republican manner, who would go onto work in the Reagan Administration.\u00a0\u00a0Professor Kirby was a traditional liberal; and the two would challenge their shared students with their teachings.\u00a0\u00a0And as different as their politics were, they were to good friends. They were concerned about their students as well as their ideologies.\u00a0\u00a0I learned from both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The New College started out as a private school near Sarasota, Florida. It eventually merged with the public South Florida University, but remained a separately governed institution (around 700 students). New College gives students different options from the traditional \u201cgraded\u201d programs. Instead of receiving letter grades, students are given written evaluations of their course performance, a pass\/fail\/incomplete \u201ccontract\u201d with the College. The \u201ccontract\u201d might be to get evaluations \u201cpassing\u201d three of the five courses they take in a semester, with the goal of encouraging students to both academically experiment and take academic risks. Failure within the contract is acceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a small school, dedicated to academic experimentation and student governance, it should be little surprise that New College is a \u201cliberal\u201d institution that values the diversity and independence of their students. As their website states:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2026the school community \u201ccelebrates diversity, encourages individual expression, and values openness, kindness and mutual respect,\u201d and that the private college that was its predecessor was \u201cfounded on principles of equality and inclusion.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But that doesn\u2019t fit into the current Florida Governor\u2019s campaign against \u201cfree thought\u201d and \u201cwokeness\u201d. DeSantis has sponsored several laws requiring public education to restrict discussion of racism, under the misguided guise of controlling \u201cCritical Race Theory\u201d. If DeSantis gets his way, the whole idea that race impacts outcomes in governments, schools, economics or life will be \u201coutlawed\u201d in Florida. Inclusion and diversity are \u201cdirty words\u201d in Florida government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And since New College is a state school, the Governor of Florida has the authority to select members of the Board of Trustees, the group that determines the administration and policies of the College. DeSantis, on the January 6th<\/sup> anniversary of the 2021 Insurrection, appointed six new trustees to the Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of those appointees is Chris Rufo, a Georgetown University graduate and a fellow at two conservative \u201cthink tanks\u201d(Heritage Institute and Claremont College). Rufo is best known for taking the arcane legal study of institutional racism called \u201cCritical Race Theory\u201d, and rebranding it into a label for the right to attack including many of the inclusion and diversity efforts in the United States. While that isn\u2019t what Critical Race Theory was about, Rufo managed to find a \u201ccatchy\u201d name to include many of the grievances of the right against public education.<\/p>\n\n\n\nStop Celebrating<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Not Critical<\/h3>\n\n\n\n