What's happening with Nikole Hannah-Jones at UNC is egregious, but by no means unique because conservatives control public higher education. insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…
I wrote the post below 5 years ago, before Trump was President, when he was barely a candidate. Even then conservatives were compromising the work of public higher ed with partisan actions. insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…
I find the Nikole Hannah-Jones story as framed as part of the cancel culture debate an utter distraction. We're talking about governing structures which make public higher ed playthings for ideologues in many states.
Just as a significant faction of Republicans in Congress seem uninterested in actually practicing democracy, many of the partisan bodies that oversee public universities have little interest in being stewards of the institution itself.
They've come to dominate, and if necessary, destroy the higher ed institutions they're tasked with managing. This is not an exaggeration. Look at what happened in Wisconsin under Scott Walker and Robin Vos the state assembly speaker.
Conor Friedersdorf (who blocks me here) has written a fair minded piece on the NH-J situation that emphasizes first amendment protections for different viewpoints, which is all well and good and I agree with all of it, but this is not the actual battle that's happening.
High-minded pleas to respect diversity of viewpoints will not sway conservative ideologues who wish to stamp out voices like Nikole Hannah-Jones. The effort so many of them have put to stuff the 1619 Project back into the box is unbelievable.
Tthe 1619 Project is out and alive and having an impact, and in some ways, the efforts - including legislative ones - to stifle it only bring it more attention and make it stronger, but there is no ends those in power will not go to in these cases.
The UNC Board which refused to act on tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones knew that it would stir up this kind of negative attention and reflect poorly on the university, but they do not care. They only care about control.
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