Ron DeSantis signs bill to limit tenure at public universities

[Mr. Smith]

Conservatives have been attacking universities for decades, what else is new?

And no surprise that the usual suspects think this is a good move.

This boils down to the fact that right-wingers are just terrified of dissent. That's why they hate universities so much, because it gives their children the opportunity to think for themselves instead of just parroting back what mom and dad have taught them.

No but there should be less grants given out for non hard science research

Frankly, nonsense like this is why there are so many problems with our society. Do you sincerely believe that social sciences and the arts don't produce anything of societal value?

If the social sciences departments were comprised of a truly diverse group of people with a wide spectrum of perspectives, then, yes, that would be the case.  That's not what the Social Sciences in our universities is about today; it's about people with various leftist perspectives performing research to justify their own viewpoints with data, while demonizing opposing conculsions. 

Imagine the flak a Social Sciences Professor would receive for producing research that shows clearly that the Traditional Nuclear Family produces (unquestionably) better outcomes for children, both in childhood and throughout life.  Imagine the criticism a professor would receive if they questioned the wisdom of out-of-wedlock births, easy divorce, etc. by showing outcome data, and by pointing out that the paradigm of our society has shifted from a focus on the well-being of children to a focus of the happiness and personal choices of adults.  How would they be received?

That was Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in the 1990s.  Now imagine a Social Sciences professor doing longitudinal research and finding out the results of the outcomes of children growing up in not just single parent households, but in gay/lesbian households, trans households, etc.  Just what would be the response to data which showed the outcomes of children raised in such homes to be less optimal than children raised in two-parent biological families.  Would this research be received well, or would the research be suppressed, the researcher systematically discredited?  Which would happen in today's environment?

Now I don't know what honest longitudinal research into a topic like this would show.  What I do know is that much of academia is not prepared to be open-minded into all sorts of assertions as to what social norms should be.  Let's not pretend that Social Science departments of universities are stocked with open-minded objective researchers. 

So certain questions are to be forbidden because of an unactualized fear that a single question will be forbidden?

There is not any true "academic freedom" on campus nowadays.  I'm old enough to recall when academic freedom was a liberal issue, but that was before all the 1960s radicals grew old as Senior Faculty in almost all of our universities.  The 1960s radicals because the college Presidents; now, they're retiring and their leading graduates are taking their places.  Higher Education has been radicalized from top to bottom; it has happened before our very eyes, and it has happened even as the nation became more Republican.

What does it say to the state of colleges and universities when conservative lecturers are shouted down routinely to the point where their even being given a platform on campus is cause for discord and disturbance?  Certainly, it says something for the college administrators and faculty that are OK with this.  Academic Freedom has been replaced by Leftist Conformity, and in a way that is almost prison-like.  Students not only have to conform to the Leftist leaning of professors for grades, they hve to conform to the leftist leanings of their fellow students to not be ostracized.  The "Convict Code" on campus.  DeSantis's bill is long overdue, and so is the assessment of the societal value we receive for the immense investment in Higher Education our society makes.

It suggests that Regressives and Reactionaries have nothing to stand on actually except to  work in bad-faith and stir the pot aimlessly, which only results in what one would expect.

[Mr. Smith]

What is the worst feature of our current universities is their progressive rejection of the idea of Western Civilization.  The whining about "racism", "sexism" "colonialism", etc. that they attribute to Western Civilization completely overlooks the fact that Western Civilization provides the ideas and principles which have brought us Civil Peace and the Rule of Law.  Western Civilization isn't perfect, and it's fine to study its imperfections and improve on them, but it's foolhardy to view other civilizations as some kind of Paradise Lost.

Deconstructing western civilization, analyzing it and then criticizing it isn't the same thing as saying "other civilizations are/were perfect". It's absolutely a good thing that we examine ourselves, figure out where we might have gone wrong, and think about where we might correct that moving forward. Look at it another way... if you are having personal or family problems, does taking a hard look at yourself / your family, figuring out what the problems might be / might have been, and then thinking about how things might be better moving forward mean "other families are perfect"? Of course not. It sounds like you simply don't like western civilization being analyzed and all the imperfections being exposed. If that's the case, just say that. Many will disagree with you, but it's your right to hold that view.

Self-examination and criticism of Western Civilization is fine and good.  I'm fine with that.  Manipulative guilt tripping to impose Neo-Tribalism on our society is another.  I'll call that out every time it rears its evil head.

As opposed to old timey Tribalism and parochialism? I mean, that's usually where most conversations with "Western Civilization" outside a philosophy class end up.