Please join President Glenn for Hot Topics in Higher Education on 2/27 at 12:30pm in C204.

Is Teaching About Power and Privilege Education or Indoctrination?

“Culture wars” between conservatives and liberals in the United States are not new.  Issues such as abortion, gun rights, religion, privacy, and same-sex marriage have defined parties and personalities, and won and lost elections, for decades.  More recently, media organizations and private companies have begun to also define themselves by stances they take on these and other hot-button issues.

American colleges and universities have often been at the center of these “culture wars,” though perhaps never as significantly as they find themselves today, especially in the state of Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis is moving aggressively to defund diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on college campuses and turn the small, public, liberal arts New College into the south’s version of Michigan’s conservative, Christian Hillsdale college, all under the banner of protecting the students of Florida from “woke indoctrination.”

In this “Hot Topics” we will discuss:

• What is “ideological indoctrination,” and does it ever occur on college campuses?
• Should colleges teach “truths” or teach students to analyze and arrive at truths themselves?
• Are colleges and universities out of touch with “mainstream” America on these issues?
• What is the role of academic freedom in this controversy?
• What should the role of a college president be in situations like this? College trustees?

Read:

“Is Teaching About Power and Privilege Education or Indoctrination?”
“Governor DeSantis Elevates Civil Discourse and Intellectual Freedom in Higher Education”
“Florida College System Presidents Statement on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Critical Race Theory”
“The DeSantis Takeover Begins”
“Stopping the DeSantis Wrecking Ball”
“A Subtle Subterfuge, An Outrage, or Both?”

Please register for this and other CPD events HERE.