State Senator Wants to Slash U. Wisconsin’s Budget Over Reading Assignment
Senator Nass’ comments reflect larger tensions between the state’s university system and the legislature.
FIRE reports.
Wisconsin Legislator’s Threat to Slash UW Budget Over Reading Assignment ‘Cuts to the Core of Academic Freedom’
A Wisconsin legislator’s threat yesterday to cut the University of Wisconsin System’s budget over an “obscene” course reading assignment is the latest salvo in what is becoming a years-long war between the university and state lawmakers over academic freedom.
State Senator Stephen Nass made the remarks in an email he sent Thursday to email lists for Republicans and Democrats in Wisconsin’s Senate and Assembly. In it, he criticized a reading assignment lecturer Jason Nolen gave in his UW-Madison sociology course titled “Problems of American Racial and Ethnic Minorities”:
0
0
Read the original article:
Wisconsin Legislator’s Threat to Slash UW Budget Over Reading Assignment ‘Cuts to the Core of Academic Freedom’ (FIRE)
Wisconsin Legislator’s Threat to Slash UW Budget Over Reading Assignment ‘Cuts to the Core of Academic Freedom’ (FIRE)
Comments
So just what is the basic rationale for “academic freedom”?
It sounds like a good idea, but what’s special about The Academy? Any job, task or profession which deals with the real world—medicine, engineering, manufacturing, science, transportation, inventory control, resource management, money (some of it, anyway)—would benefit by being free to deal with reality, rather than propaganda, entertainment, or PC-ism.
But the origin of “academic freedom” as a popular concept is not what is generally assumed. It was somewhat more sinister than a mere “good idea”. It became a big-time buzzword in the 1930s. The idea was to put pressure on college administrations to not get rid of blatantly Communist professors. I might speculate that the intent of staff purges was to keep the typical college focused on education, rather than propaganda and subversion. Even in those early days, the modus operandi of Communists was recognized, and its incompatibility with what most people in those days considered a college education was clear.
“Academic freedom” has, as we see today, had its intended effect.
Of course, to point this out is not an assertion that any legislature should be able to negate it at whim.