{"id":43846,"date":"2018-05-28T14:12:57","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T21:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=43846"},"modified":"2018-05-28T14:12:57","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T21:12:57","slug":"the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina\/","title":{"rendered":"The Republican war on academic freedom in North Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Joe Knott, one of the Republicans who dominate the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, published an\u00a0op-ed<\/a>\u00a0on May 25 that imagines an alarming future for higher education under the headline \u201cWe need more conservative professors. Here\u2019s how we can do that at UNC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knott generously declares his support for academic freedom: \u201cIf scholars are not free, the search for Truth is over and with that goes the value of the individual, the sanctity of conscience, freedom of speech, religion, and Western civilization itself.\u201d But allowing professors to think for themselves creates a problem for Knott, since many of these professors are liberal.<\/p>\n

So Knott has a \u201csolution\u201d: \u201cMy proposal is that we establish at our flagship university an Honors College with the stated purpose of bringing to North Carolina the best, most respected and accomplished scholars in the world who love and defend Western civilization.\u201d This is not an \u201cHonors College\u201d\u2014it is a Conservative College. What Knott is proposing is a massive affirmative action program for conservatives: An entire segregated college where only conservatives are allowed to be hired.<\/p>\n

Knott declares dramatically, \u201cWith intellectual unanimity comes intellectual ennui.\u201d But the University of North Carolina has neither. What it will have, if Knott gets his way, is the first official ideologically-based hiring program for professors at a public university.<\/p>\n

The scope of Knott\u2019s proposed right-wing college is amazing: \u201cThe Honors College would be able to hire and fire, grant or deny tenure, accept or reject students according to the college\u2019s own standards and judgments without any input, veto, or bureaucratic delay or control from the existing faculty.\u201d Knott despises his own faculty so much he doesn\u2019t even want allow them any \u201cinput\u201d into any decision at his Right-Wing U. Knott wants a segregated faculty with a segregated student body all in service to his right-wing ideology.<\/p>\n

According to Knott: \u201cThese scholars, without fear of having their classes disallowed, changed to include \u2018approved\u2019 texts or forced to submit to majority norms, can teach and defend the glories and roots of Western civilization and culture as they see fit.\u201d No, if you are compelled to \u201cdefend the glories and roots of Western civilization,\u201d you are not teaching as you see fit. You are teaching what Joe Knott sees fit.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s no small irony that Knott speaks about the fiction of conservatives having their courses \u201cdisallowed\u201d when the only professor at UNC who experienced this is\u00a0Jay Smith<\/a>, the history professor banned by the administration from teaching his critical course on college athletics.<\/p>\n

Knott has some very peculiar and specific notions of what his Right-Wing U would look like: \u201cThe university would enforce absolute standards of civility and respectful discourse.\u201d I don\u2019t know what \u201cabsolute civility\u201d is, but I certainly don\u2019t trust Knott or a university to enforce it on anyone.<\/p>\n

Knott wrote: \u201cThe only risk is we settle for half measures. The existing faculty might well agree to the hiring of five or ten new professors, but they will insist on keeping them under the authority of the existing faculty.\u201d It is breathtaking that Knott considers the hiring of ten conservative professors for their political views to be a \u201chalf measure\u201d inadequate for the degree of thought control he demands.<\/p>\n

Knott reports that he has already taken it upon himself to determine who will help run the new Right-Wing College: \u00a0\u201cDr. Robert George of Princeton University has agreed to be part of a steering committee for such a new endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n

One might hope that an idea this crazy and expensive, one that breaks all of the campus policies and shared governance rules while violating the First Amendment\u2019s ban on politicized hiring by a public university, would be quickly dismissed. But North Carolina is a crazy place. The 28-member Board of Governors has only one Democrat, and it has repeatedly shown terrible judgment in imposing its partisan agenda on the university. The Board has capped spending on need-based financial aid to try to keep out poor students, fired the university president (a Democrat) and installed former Bush education secretary Margaret Spellings, and ordered the\u00a0closing of the Center on Poverty, Work, Opportunity<\/a>\u00a0(because its director, Gene Nichol, had dared to criticize Republicans), and imposed a\u00a0\u201cfree speech\u201d policy<\/a>\u00a0to punish campus protesters.<\/p>\n

Knott himself filed the motion in 2017 to\u00a0ban the Civil Rights Center<\/a>\u00a0and all other centers at UNC from engaging in litigation, declaring that the law school \u201cneeds to stick to its knitting\u201d and not do legal filings or other things that lawyers are known for doing. So when Knott talks about the danger \u201cif scholars are not free,\u201d he knows of what he speaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Knott, one of the Republicans who dominate the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, published an\u00a0op-ed\u00a0on May 25 that imagines an alarming future for higher education under the headline \u201cWe need more conservative professors. Here\u2019s how we can do that at UNC.\u201d Knott generously declares his support for academic freedom: \u201cIf scholars are […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":43847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15645],"tags":[12484],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-43846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-academic-freedom-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Republican war on academic freedom in North Carolina - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Republican war on academic freedom in North Carolina - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Joe Knott, one of the Republicans who dominate the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, published an\u00a0op-ed\u00a0on May 25 that imagines an alarming future for higher education under the headline \u201cWe need more conservative professors. Here\u2019s how we can do that at UNC.\u201d Knott generously declares his support for academic freedom: \u201cIf scholars are […]\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-05-28T21:12:57+00:00\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/academicfreedom.jpg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"680\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"382\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kevin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee\"},\"headline\":\"The Republican war on academic freedom in North Carolina\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-05-28T21:12:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":794,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/05\\\/academicfreedom.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Academic freedom\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Education\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-republican-war-on-academic-freedom-in-north-carolina\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Republican war on academic freedom in North Carolina - 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