The battle for new college

It didn't really piss me off, it was more of a nuisance than anything. What genuinely irritated more than anything is I show up to UF and suddenly half my social media timeline is friends and followers sharing Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and Vox trash. Sometimes it felt like students enjoyed playing the victimhood olympics only to have the university try to pander to prove how inclusive they are.

Is UF as bad as other places? Definitely not. But it's there and it's plain as day. It felt like overnight everyone got so damned sensitive. I don't know, maybe I'm just a boomer at heart. The people I got along with best at UF, regardless of race/color/creed/sexual orientation, were people who can take a joke and people around which you didn't have to walk on egg shells to make sure you didn't hurt their feelings.

 

I've already mentioned my point repeatedly on the thread, though not directly to you.

In the interest of time, what point are you making about these organizations relative to DEI? Is it that they have nothing to do with DEI and no reasonable connection can be made between them and DEI?

 

What makes you different than them, other than you have a different set of grievances?

 

This is a key point that people seem to be missing. Are universities very liberal? Yes, likely so. Is that good? I don’t think so.

…but does this suggest that the state should simply mandate what should be taught and how? Hell no. Anyone confused on this latter point should reread Karl Popper’s The Open Society and it’s Enemies. The whole point of the liberal democratic order is to limit the power of the few to control the many.

 

I'm not seen to be quite as marginalized because I'm a straight White male, despite being Hispanic. Victimhood olympics are a thing man. A lot of times, UF operates kind of like a mother with babies. The baby who cries gets fed first. So there are structures in place to incentivize you to whine about how bad you have it regardless of how good you actually have it.

 

To me it seems like you are saying the focus on DEI is marginalizing you or making people like you feel like a victim or less important. Otherwise, why would you care an Asian student group exists and gets funding? You are essentially raising the same complaints those students do, just for a different group.

 

Mostly good post here, but I think a case can be made that academia has become a bubble in itself. So it's not really "democratic" in that regard either, it's elitist with a hive mind as far as politics goes. Again, there are conservatives in higher education, but if you want to be there a long time, you better learn to bite your tongue real quickly.

 

I don't care that these organizations exist. I care about the leverage they have and the influence they have because everybody wants to be able to prove how inclusive they are. And I care about how closely connected equity-mentality is to many of these organizations. That's a huge part of how they leverage their position.

Which organizations get money from student government is actually a zero-sum game. There's only so much money to go around.

 

There isnt a lot democratic about universities, that's true. But I dont know what you mean, when I say its not democratic, I say its generally hostile to workplace democracy in the form of unions and to student democracy in general. I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean though.

 

If it is a zero sum game, it seems like the more identity centered organizations there are, the thinner that money is spread, which means less leverage or influence for any one group. Imagine if there was one big student group and they got lots of money. Instead you just have a bunch of competing rabble with esoteric and minor material squables about parking or whatever. Maybe the university does like that, but you are wrong about the why, because the leverage thing is the opposite of what you say it is. It probably disempowers students if anything, prevents or inhibits any sort of mass politics from occurring on campus.

 

I mean universities find a way of getting people from as many different countries, colors, and sexual orientations as possible who think exactly the same way, then call it diversity.

It's completely undiverse in the place where it matters most.

 

If you are talking about the university administration and power structure, you might be going liberal on us

 

I'm a conservative. I believe the government should use its power to give me a safe space on college campuses.

 

I don't follow the funding issues or the regular happenings at UF so I will keep my comments general. I don't think it's unfair to respond here that many White men increasingly complain about having it worse than anyone else today. Many Christians have been crying foul since before I was born. Perhaps that's predicated on their worldview of that their persecution is pre-ordained. It baffles me though that they somehow don't see themselves as part of the "Victimhood Olympics," or as snowflakes but they don't.

The complaints of White men (I am also one) ring pretty hollow to me because we were not historically marginalized and remain in most positions of power in our society. UF was obviously gender-segregated for many years. The first Black student who earned an undergraduate degree just passed away a couple of years ago at the age of 76. That formal and official oppression and exclusion aren't ancient history, and what's happening today can't be viewed in isolation.

 

Yes, earlier he argued it was necessary to adopt liberal tactics to fight back, and I pointed out that buddy, conservatives already did a long time ago. As long as I can remember conservatives have more or less adopted strategies and tactics associated with liberals or progressive politics. Its like no one has ever heard of Phyliss Schlafly or Anita Bryant, but to be fair, their heydays were before I was even born too. More recently though, conservatives have absolutely mirrored the cultural zeitgeist in needing to be "seen"/represented and accuse others of gaslighting, seek safe spaces and all the snowflakey jargon and posturing associated with overly precious libs.

 

Since 2010, when Viktor Orban's Fidesz party won two-thirds of the seats in parliament, he has been dreaming up innovative ways to turn Hungary back into an autocracy, while maintaining a democratic façade. On April 27th his government passed a law transferring control of the country’s 11 main state universities to a series of foundations that are likely to be run by his allies. The party has already asserted its grip over institutions such as the electoral system, the media, the courts and much of the economy. Now it wants total power over the ivory towers.

Like most of Mr Orban’s illiberal reforms, the plan is complicated, brilliant and likely to be copied by aspiring strongmen in other countries. The universities have been placed under the control of public foundations, along with billions of euros-worth of assets (including a palace, a harbour and shares in state-owned companies) which are supposed to help finance them. The foundations’ boards are initially appointed by Mr Orban’s government, and those appointed so far consist mainly of Fidesz members or sympathisers. Subsequent vacancies will be filled by candidates chosen by the boards themselves.

Viktor Orban seizes control of Hungary’s universities

Sound familiar?

 

we are no longer standing on the slippery slope, we have hurled ourselves headfirst down it with no consideration of where it stops or what awaits at the base. it would seem that the best hope to stop this lies with the courts but our lawyer friends here seem to hold little hope that the courts will enforce even the most basic of constitutional rights. sad, scary times

 

I appreciate this point. Indeed, it feels like there are perspectives that aren’t welcomed right now in academia, many of which align with conservative views. I think this is a shame. Indeed, I am a member of the Heterdox Academy, which was founded to combat this problem.

That said, however unsatisfactory we find to be the current liberal influence over academic discourse, it was produced via a bottom up process over time. Trying to battle a bottom up process with a top down decree is virtually never going to produce an enviable outcome. Further, this move only strengthens the political influence over academia. Whenever someone approves of an action like this, they always picture their party in control, but no one stays on top forever. Once this door is open, why not have the next liberal governor replace all kinds of conservatives in universities?

I do want to have more diversity of ideas, but this is not the way we should be doing it. Already we have bottom up institutions coming our rescue in the fight for more diversity, such as FIRE and the heterdox academy. And as @slayerxing’s link shows above, the people of FIRE are not at all pleased by this political takeover. Nor should they be. The last group anyone should want in charge of our quest for truth is politicians.