February 25, 2023

Gov. Ron DeSantis is poised to seize authoritarian control over Florida’s public colleges and universities.

CNN downplays the horror of what it should be denouncing:

A new bill overhauling Florida universities to match Gov. Ron DeSantis’ vision for higher education would shift power at state schools into the hands of the Republican leader’s political appointees and ban gender studies as a field of study.

Translation: Republicans want DeSantis to appoint political toadies to take over university education and remake it into the kind of right-wing indoctrination system Tucker Carlson could previously only dream about.

More from CNN:

The legislation, filed this week, would also require that general education courses at state colleges and universities “promote the values necessary to preserve the constitutional republic” and cannot define American history “as contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.” It would prohibit general courses “with a curriculum based on unproven, theoretical or exploratory content.”

...

The bill would put all hiring decisions in the hands of each universities’ board of trustees, a body selected entirely by the governor and his appointees, with input from the school’s president. A board of trustee member could also call for the review of any faculty member’s tenure.

In other words, courses and instructors will "promote the values" and teachings that DeSantis and his right-wing appointees say should be promoted.

Jeremy C. Young, senior manager of free expression and education for PEN America, has a good Twitter thread on what this really means. Some excerpts:

Thursday, college and high school students across Florida walked out of classrooms in protest of DeSantis’ education policies, ABC News reported.

We need more of this, please.

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