The Era of Narks Is Upon Us

Today, I'm coming to you with another paywalled piece. This one looks at what I'm dubbing "the era of narks" as states add new and interested ways to get educators fired. Recounting a Campus Story As you travel through life, the people around you come and go. For example, since graduating high school, there's only a handful of people I still talk to. The same is true since finishing my graduate program. Fortunately, one of my friends from my graduate program has been working really hard to spend time with my family. Recently, her and her partner decided to come out to a farmer's market with us where she told me a pretty disturbing story. Apparently, according to her, she was running a training on how to recruit students to graduate programs. As a part of that training, they mentioned the land-grant mission. If you're not aware of that mission or what a land-grant is, here's how it's spelled out on Wikipedia: A land-grant university (also called land-grant college or land-grant institution) is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a U.S. state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, or a beneficiary under the Equity in Educational Land-Grant Status Act of 1994. There are 106 institutions in all: 57 which fall under the 1862 act, 19 under the 1890 act, and 35 under the 1994 act. [...] The Morrill Act of 1862 provided land in the western parts of North America that states sold to fund new or existing colleges and universities. The law specified the mission of these institutions: to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, science, military science, and engineering—although "without excluding other scientific and classical studies". Land-grant University, Wikipedia (25/11/10) Now, I'll be honest. I don't know what else could have possibly been said about the mission. It seems pretty straightforward. A bunch of colleges were made to ensure teaching and research were conducted in agriculture and engineering. With that said, the later Morrill Act in 1890 did spell out that states must not use race as an admissions criteria—obviously as a direct jab to the confederacy. Of course, it fell a bit short in that it let states create segregated institutions, many of which are today's HBCUs (all of which is explained in the Wiki article as well). In any case, apparently even citing the land-grant mission is off limits now because my friend's training was reported by a staff member. Yes, you heard that correctly. Trainings can, and now are, being reported for being "woke" or whatever the fuck. The Effects of SB1 I work in Ohio, and the state legislature has been rapidly pushing through laws under Trump to try to make day-to-day existence as unbearable as possible. One of those major bills that affects higher education is SB1, a bill I wrote about earlier this year in an article affectionately titled "SB1 Is the Death of Higher Education in Ohio." While SB1 is only just now being enacted, its effects are disturbing. For example, our campus now has to institute a required "American government or history course," which can only be assumed to be blatant right-wing propaganda. After all, the second element of the code states: "the course shall include a study of the American economic system and capitalism." Indoctrinate me, daddy (aside from the obvious cringe you must feel from this sentence, it gains a whole new meaning after you've read this piece). In addition, students are forced to read all of the following documents. Documents of which I am certain none of our lawmakers have read: The Constitution The Declaration of Independence Five essays from the Federalist Papers The Emancipation Proclamation The Gettysburg Address The Letter from Birmingham Jail The Wealth of Nations Honestly, having looked over this list, I'm almost excited this course exists because it might radicalize students even more. What's more dangerous to conservatism than a youth that actually knows what the constitution is meant to uphold? However, I am obviously worried about any faculty willing to teach this course. Surely, they'll have an insanely right-wing outlook on the material, and they'll be able to teach that with extreme bias and no push back. For example, imagine the angle these classes are sure to take on Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. They'll thank him for his contributions to Capitalism and write off anything he said about labor or hoarding. Meanwhile, if a leftist were to present this material and provide even the lightest critical analysis of any of it, they would lose their job. The Age of Narks Rambling aside, that just scratches the surface (though, it's the part I care about because it most directly affects students). My university has an entire page detailing the policies that will need to be enacted, which include: A new complaint and reporting process A new faculty review process, especially for tenured faculty (note: this also includes state mandated questions in the student evaluations that target ideas like bias) A new intellectual diversity policy (i.e., we have to let students come to dumb or even harmful conclusions on their own) A new invited speakers policy (i.e., the university has to list every speaker that was paid each month) A new policy that forces universities to cut small programs A new policy that bans partnerships with China A new "political and ideological restrictions" policy that affects hiring and admissions A ban on DEI trainings A ban on land acknowledgements In short, I don't think any of these changes is astronomically damaging, but taken together, these create a pretty hostile environment for anyone interested in progress. The policies I'm interested in talking about relate to this ongoing trend of surveillance and suppression. Broadly, if you look at what's bold above, you'll see what I mean. We have a special new nark system for people who want to whine about their hurt feelings as they relate to anything "woke." If I talk about my privilege as a white guy, suddenly I'm being reprimanded for hurting some soft conservative's feelings. "Free speech" must go so hard if you're stupid. That said, I worry about this because it's already happened to one of my friends by another staff member. Now, I have to worry about it at the end of each semester when the new Survey of Student Learning Experience (SSLE) goes out. Here are the literal state-mandated questions: Does the faculty member create a classroom atmosphere free of political, racial, gender, and religious bias? Yes No Are students encouraged to discuss varying opinions and viewpoints in class? Yes No Not applicable I've already told my students that the "correct" answer to the first question is obviously no. It's functionally impossible to live without bias. Yet, I think if my students answer no to that question, I am suddenly investigated. Is that an environment you want your child's educator to be in? One where they have to hide their beliefs, thoughts, and ideas out of fear of punishment? So now, there are like three new ways to lose my job in the age of teacher shortages: I can be told I'm too biased by my students through a survey. I can be reported explicitly by a student for violating some aspect of SB1 (e.g., intellectual diversity). I can be reported during my annual review, as now I have to turn over all my course materials. This all seems pretty ironic to me given that SB1 is supposedly promoting intellectual diversity, right? Also, before anyone asks: yes, I even want that conservative professor to have the ability to teach his right-skewed version of American history. I just don't want it mandated by the state. Surely, SB1 is just a political attack masked as free speech. It's not about making schools less "woke." It's about stomping out even the most mild progressive thought, which is a tough thing to do given that education helps you arrive at the truth. In fact, I would argue that there's no indoctrination needed when the truth is just left-wing. You wouldn't need to flex the arm of the state to censor free speech and stomp out progressive ideas if they weren't rooted in the evidence. Of course, not every student is going to arrive at the truth given enough time and space to do so. It's vitally important that we have educators who are willing to push back on bad ideas, theories, and beliefs. As Simon Feldman and Afshan Jafar put it, "no one living through this current era of easily disseminated enticing and conspiratorial falsehoods could think that truth has a chance without intervention by those who have the training to discern good research from bad, facts from opinion, evidence from propaganda." "Indoctrination" Is Good Actually What the right frames as indoctrination is really just good education. We don't tell students what to think, but we do help them to analyze and evaluate arguments. As it turns out, good arguments tend not to come from conservatives. It's why they don't argue. They use their power to enforce their ideals. Heaven forbid we flex the tiniest bit of our own power in the classroom. Ultimately, by ushering in the age of narks, we're preventing educators from stopping the spread of harmful ideologies. We're creating a space where everyone is entitled to their opinion, and those opinions might be that "climate change doesn't exist," that "Israel isn't doing a genocide," and that "the Jews will not replace us." Do we really want to live in a world where educators cannot step in to stop the spread of harmful ideas?

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