Texas is poised to become the latest GOP state to exert control over university curriculum
'Political operatives have basically used their positions of power — political power, economic power — to demand that the institutions conform to their ideas,' said Isaac Kamola, director of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom at the American Association of University Professors.
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'It's an existential attack on higher education that we're facing,' added Kamola, a political science professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
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Governing boards also will gain greater power over faculty councils, the employment of academic administrators, and decisions to eliminate minor degree or certificate programs that have low enrollment. The bill also creates a state ombudsman's office to investigate complaints against institutions, including alleged violations of restrictions against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
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'The objective of this legislation is to provide consistency with respect to our curriculum and the degrees we're offering our students,' Republican state Representative Matt Shaheen, cosponsor of the legislation, said during House floor debate.
Ray Bonilla, an attorney for the Texas A&M University System, one of the state's largest higher education institutions, said the legislation formalizes decisions already being made at the university and wouldn't create an 'undue workload.'
But Democratic state Representative Donna Howard said during a May committee hearing that the legislation 'appears to be extreme micromanagement on the part of the Legislature.'
'The bill is not about improving education, it is about increasing control,' Howard said during the debate.
In Ohio,
The law also places restrictions on the handling of 'controversial beliefs or policies,' defined to include climate, immigration or foreign policy, electoral politics, DEI programs, marriage, and abortion.
While testifying for his bill, Republican state Senator Jerry Cirino of Ohio, cited John Dewey — one of the fathers of progressive education — to condemn what he believes to be a hard tack in the other direction at colleges and universities.
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'He believed that all theories should be examined and debated,' Cirino told fellow lawmakers. 'He would certainly have been against the woke conformity we see on so many campuses and the clearly demonstrated liberal leanings of faculty and staff who will not tolerate alternative views.'
Christopher McKnight Nichols, an Ohio State University history professor, said the law has already driven some faculty members to sanitize their websites of 'controversial' content, alter course descriptions, and, in some cases, cancel courses altogether. He said it's never been proven that faculty members are systematically punishing students who don't share their political beliefs.
Nichols is among a coalition of Ohio educators, students, and administrators fighting back against the new law. Opponents face a late June deadline to collect enough signatures to place a referendum overturning it on the November ballot.
In some ways, the efforts to exert greater state control over college faculty and curriculums are moving higher education closer to a governing model generally seen in K-12 education, said Alec Thomson, president of the National Council for Higher Education at the National Education Association.
'It's a concerning change in the sense that you would expect the institutions to have a fair amount of autonomy to make these decisions about curriculum,' added Thomson, a professor of political science and history at Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Mich.
During his first term in 2020, Trump
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Similar prohibitions on divisive concepts soon appeared in model bills backed by conservative think tanks and in state higher education laws, including in Florida in 2022. The next year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis initiated a makeover of
Governors and lawmakers this year have taken about twice as many
Among those is a new Idaho law that not only bans DEI offices and programs in higher education, but also addresses what's taught in the classroom. It prohibits colleges and universities from requiring students to take DEI-related courses to meet graduation requirements, unless they're pursuing degrees in race or gender studies.
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