The Right's Mission: Putting Jesus Back into Public Education


The mission to force conservative politics into publicly-funded universities has been unrelenting for 100 years of more. I took some graduate classes at the Un. of Puerto Rico in the early 1960's. My favorite professor had been on the Rutgers University faculty in the mid 1950's. This was during the McCarthy anti-communist era. During that period, various "suspicious" professors were singled out by the right as "communist sympathizers." Prominent conservative senators told university presidents to fire these professors. Some Presidents told the anti-communists cranks to butt out. Others, such as the President of Rutgers at the time, caved and disciplined or fired faculty. 

Various waves of this went through academia while I was a professor--so many I've forgotten some of them. One was "socialism vs capitalism." Some state lawmakers in North Dakota wanted to know which professors were teaching the merits of capitalism and which were not. Then there was the Viet Nam war that cranked up some issues. An English professor in my neighborhood read his poetry at antiwar rallies. The FBI interviewed his neighbors. I guess they asked if any suspicious looking people came to his house. 

Now in 2023 the same song and dance continues. Governor DeSantis in Florida replaced most of the Board of a small state run university , New College, with his own political cronies. He fired a President that was making two or three hundred thousand and replaced him with a $900,000 person. The school is so small the President's salary is more than $1,000 per student per year. Now he is in the process of seeing to it only the point of views he favors are taught there. Out with Black Lives Matter or history about civil rights for minorities. I expect there will be a lot of Christian content coming. 

According to the link the buildings and campus facilities are in a sad condition. Since the campus is in an urban area, some think the Governor wants buildings to crumble then merge New College with some other state school and sell the land for real estate development.

Florida has its share of whacko higher education. The Catholic founder of Dominos Pizza started a university and town called Ava Maria where only proper Catholic teaching would prevail. Neither the town nor the school is doing very well.

New College in Florida does not need a Trump-type Govenor running it. It needs faculty and students addressing today's problems. 

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