EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION
Professors in the Texas Tech University System are reportedly struggling to understand a flowchart that asks them to stay on topic and are worried that public officials are asking them to explain what they are teaching (on the taxpayer dime).
Chancellor Brandon Creighton released the flowchart and memorandum to “ensure that classroom instruction fully complies with state and federal law, Board of Regents policy, and Chancellor directives.”
That includes some common sense prohibitions on teaching that “[a]n individual, by virtue of race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, consciously or unconsciously” or “[a]ny person should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of race or sex.”
Taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidizing education that teaches people are racist by the virtue of their skin color or that racial discrimination is acceptable.
Another question is relatively simple and should truly be the basis for all teaching: “Does [the] faculty member believe course material is relevant and necessary for classroom instruction?”
This is causing some problems, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Art professor Andrew Martin said the content review is “disastrous.”
“History is full of examples of what happens when authoritarian governments gain control of the educational institutions of a country or a society,” the Texas Tech professor said. He is also the president of the campus American Association of University Professors chapter.
“That is the death of freedom,” Martin said.
What Martin really means is his “freedom” to teach whatever he wants on the taxpayer dime without any limits is at risk. Or perhaps he means his right to have his painting subsidized by the taxpayer.
Looking at some of his art, we get to a better understanding of why quality standards might frighten him.
Public university officials work for the university and by extension the taxpayers who essentially hire them to perform a function.
Yet for years, public university professors have gotten the idea in their head that the school exists for them not for the students and taxpayers.
The truth is university professors are hired by the taxpayer to perform a certain function. After years of DEI and woke ideology in the classroom, legislators are beginning to forcefully push back and reclaim the universities from the professors.
It is within the rights of lawmakers to guide the policies of the institutions they are tasked with overseeing.
