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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33045 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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lean on the side of thinking that legislation ought not to interfere with the operations of even public universities to the extent of banning it.

Public universities are creatures of the state. Why should the legislature not supervise them?

Part of what makes a University a University and not something else is a degree of self-government. An institution that teaches a 13-16th grade curriculum determined by the politicians and/or bureaucrats in the sponsoring Education Ministry may be doing something valuable, but it isn't continuing the tradition that began with those communities of scholars in Paris, Bologna, Oxford and Cambridge in the High Middle Ages.

FWIW, I don't think that the legislature abolishing tenure (something that happened long ago in the UK without causing serious problems) or regulating non-classroom DEI initiatives gets close to the point where it turns a public University into a Even Higher School. But (for example) a law prohibiting the teaching of books by paedophiles would be pushing the boundary.

SB16 seems different, in that if it is enforced as written, it prevents the University teaching that correct social, political or religious beliefs are superior to incorrect ones. An organisation where the curriculum is subject to government sanitisation to remove controversial topics is not a University.

SB16 seems different, in that if it is enforced as written, it prevents the University teaching that correct social, political or religious beliefs are superior to incorrect ones.

Surely "teaching that correct social, political or religious beliefs are superior to incorrect ones" is antithetical to a modern university? Is a university a church now?

What's "correct social, political or religious beliefs"?

Anyway, let's imagine a fantastical situation. A group of Nazi scientists (and I mean hardcore Nazis with all accompanying beliefs) from parallel universe gets into today's America and by some means (e.g. by temporarily hiding their beliefs) manages to take over a small Higher Education institution (still bearing the title of University because it's good for PR) in some state. They proceed with a program to find smart youth of proper Aryan background and indoctrinate them and educate them in sciences (let's assume they are really good scientists) and thus make sure only devoted Aryan scientists fully on board with Nazi ideology can be professors in this establishment. They teach all the usual scientific stuff, but with a Nazi bent, and also have a variety of more specific courses, like how Jews are evil, how homosexuality is ruinous for civilization, how to scientifically figure out people's worth depending on their genetics, which genetical defects can be cured and which should be exterminated, maybe the history of Aryan races and Aryan culture, maybe even a course on Nitzche and Wagner (with some appropriate bent of course), etc.

Now, let's say they are not particularly hiding it, and the citizens of the state discover they have a full blown Nazi University in the middle of the state, supported by their tax dollars, participating in career fairs, inviting their schoolchildren to campus tours, publishing their own newspaper (with appropriate graphics of course), holding their big celebration on April 20 each year, and so on, you get the picture. Do you think the good people of this state would say "well, it's a University, and they are technically not doing anything against the law - sure, the stuff they are teaching sounds vile to us, but we can't subject them to governmental sanitization, that wouldn't be University anymore!" Or, do you think they'd grab torches and pitchforks and would demand to raze it all to the ground, and would destroy any politician that would object to that? Or would they do something in between - like find any legal means, however tortured and far-reaching, to destroy this outlet without technically violating the law and committing outright violence, maybe?

And if you think people would not tolerate a Nazi University - what set of principles would you propose that would be consistent with that, but also with your ideal of a University as something completely and utterly independent and subject to no outside control whatsoever?

Part of what makes a University a University and not something else is a degree of self-government. An institution that teaches a 13-16th grade curriculum determined by the politicians and/or bureaucrats in the sponsoring Education Ministry may be doing something valuable, but it isn't continuing the tradition that began with those communities of scholars in Paris, Bologna, Oxford and Cambridge in the High Middle Ages.

Isn't that essentially what it is at this point? It's not like there's much room for dissent, or that 90% of the people going aren't just there to get a degree to get A Good Job. The tradition is already pretty much dead.

SB16 seems different, in that if it is enforced as written, it prevents the University teaching that correct social, political or religious beliefs are superior to incorrect ones. An organisation where the curriculum is subject to government sanitisation to remove controversial topics is not a University.

Then we definitely shouldn't have state-funded universities in the US, because it is not the job of any organ of the state to teach its citizens correct religious or political beliefs.

SB16 seems different, in that if it is enforced as written, it prevents the University teaching that correct social, political or religious beliefs are superior to incorrect ones.

And what are the "correct social, political or religious beliefs" that the University should be teaching are superior?

An organization where the curriculum is subject to government sanitization to remove controversial topics is not a University.

By this definition Universities have not existed for some time, since they are already subject to a variety of restrictions and mandates from the government explicitly intended to shape their attitude and expression of "controversial topics". It is already well-established that "controversial" expressions cause harm to the vulnerable, and so must be carefully cordoned off if not suppressed entirely. It is already well-established that specific words make people unsafe; now we are simply picking which words those are. How is this remotely objectionable to anyone who supports the Universities as they currently exist?

So the public must fund these institutions but have no say so that they can continue in the tradition of historic universities? That’s an incomplete argument especially given that we have numerous private universities.

They should, and they 100% have the legal power to, AFAIK. But not all supervision is reasonable, and at some point it can go into micromanagement territory that does more harm than good. E.g. legislators could theoretically explicitly mandate by law that the trash collector must wear shoes that have 8 shoelace holes on odd-numbered days and 10 shoelace holes on even-numbered days, since trash collectors are employees of the state, but that would be a ridiculous level of micromanagement, and most people would agree that legislators drafting laws to that effect and specificity would do more harm than good. I lean towards believing that the legislature having specific mandates about tenure in public universities is micromanagement rather than reasonable supervision, though I'm not strong in this belief.

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