1. The move by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill trustees to block tenure for Pulitzer Prize-winner Nikole Hannah-Jones (@nhannahjones), author of the #1619Project on race in America, is an attack on academic freedom -- a stunning yet... 19thnews.org/2021/05/unc-wo…
2. ...inevitable bad place we've been heading with the politicization of state universities, mainly by a Republican Party that hates college. Since a GOP takeover of its state legislature in 2010, NC has handed the keys for public higher ed to right-wing extremists such as...
3. Art Pope, the so-called "Godfather" of the Tarheel State's right turn in Raleigh. Pope and other GOP trustees had already killed academic programs perceived as "liberal," such as an anti-poverty center at Chapel Hill. In fact, a recent list... chronicle.com/article/adding…
4. of the trustees for the entire university system compiled by the Daily Tarheel shows that the GOP-led legislature has chosen 15 Republicans, 7 whose affiliation is unknown, and just one Democrat. (more) dailytarheel.com/article/2021/0…
5. UNC-Chapel Hill, where Hannah-Jones' tenure was blocked, has its own 13-member board. Its chair is a former GOP state senator, and its makeup is shockingly NOT diverse: 11 white men, one white woman and one Black woman. So... bot.unc.edu
6. ...if you're surprised by this attack on a top U.S. journalist, her award-winning work and her ability to teach how journalism can confront racial inequity in America, you haven't been paying attention this past decade. Republicans who see college campuses as outposts of a...
7. ...liberal enemy to be crushed and places to train worker drones, not thinking voters, have slashed spending for state systems to make tuition unaffordable and burden a generation with unfathomable debt, but they didn't stop there... insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/1…
8. Right-wing trustees in states like NC and MI are using their clout to steer campus learning away from liberal ideas they see as dangerous -- the real, actual college "cancel culture" -- and Nikole Hannah-Jones is now their most prominent victim. But with the GOP declaring...
9. ...war on so-called "critical race theory" or any other kind of racial reckoning in the classroom, the battles are only going to get worse. It's critical that we reclaim higher education in America as a "public good," committed to a return to the ideals of learning to make...
10. ...young people better citizens and better informed voters, in addition to participants in an equitable economy. We need free, universal higher ed and training for all our youth -- free from gross political interference like today in NC. -30-
One more thing, which is that I'd be a terrible self-promoter if I didn't mention that I've been thinking about this stuff as I write a book on how college provoked America's political divide, coming next year from William Morrow -- stay tuned for the details!
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