Indiana Law Requires Profs to Promote ‘Intellectual Diversity’ - Will DEI Advocates Go For This? (do

Indiana Law Requires Professors to Promote ‘Intellectual Diversity’ or Face Penalties (link, not paywalled)

Diversity is a great thing, and, along with freedom, makes America strong. But, will DEI advocates embrace this? I don't think so. Excerpt:

The sole focus of the biased coverage against the law is its effect on faculty tenure. The law could, perhaps, use some fine-tuning in that respect, but why should students, as now, be subject to being penalized for essays that don't "tow the line"?

 

They shouldn't be exposed to any political ideology at all outside of a political science course. When I went to college in the 1960's every course was on topic. I didn't even know the political ideology of the professors. If the subject was geology, everything said in the course related to geology. The idea is to educate students, not to recruit them to a personal ideology.

 

I recall when I was in college and taking a statistics class. One of the books assigned was "The Bell Curve Theory", a book that tried to make the case, mathematically, that some races were dumber and more violent than other races. The assignment was to determine if the figures used were proper or were in some way faulty.

The consensus of the class was that the authors were racists paid to arrive at the conclusion of the book, mainly that "darkies was dumb and violent". There was a small group of three students that tried to make the case that even with the exposed weaknesses in the statistics the premise was sound, since "everyone knows, darkies is stupid and violent".

All three failed the class and there was quite the stink about it. They argued that just because they took an unpopular fringe position they were penalized. The professor (a former marine) pointed out that he failed the three because they had failed to grasp even the most basic concepts of statistics, and how liars can use statistics to lie. He pointed out that they had even fallen back on the "everyone knows this to be true so we don't need no steenkin facts" argument.

College should be a safe place for all manner of thoughts and study. But then of course, with that kind of freedom comes responsibility. Both professors and the administration have the obligation to make sure that all views are equally protected and criticism of any of them be civilized.

Now I had a math teacher in Jr. High who was a WWII vet. He had been part of the death marches on Guadalcanal. Besides being the best math teacher ever, he took one day a year to put away the math books and talk about the war. He would describe his part in the war, the death march, the POW camps, and his rescue. He answered any and all questions, including how he felt towards Orientals and Japan and his own government that had abandoned him. It was fascinating to listen to him talk with such quiet passion about his experiences.

His message was simple; freedom isn't free. Ever.

Well, the administration caught wind of it. I don't know the full story, but the teacher was suspended for awhile and the teacher ended up for at least one year not taking the day in class to talk about freedom.
But, they had an assembly and the teacher did for the entire school what he used to do with just his classes. I recall some teachers, and even some parents who also showed up, so emotional listening to the story. His message remained, Freedom isn't free. Not ever. This was in the early 60's when Viet Nam was heating up, and fighting for one's country was becoming a bad thing. I know my attitude towards freedom and responsibility as a citizen of America was largely formed from listening to my math teacher.

I wonder what my teacher and professor would say about the current DEI stuff?

 

LOL! This is nothing new. "Conservative viewpoints" apparently can't stand on their own merit, so they have to force them down student's throats, with the threat of kicking out faculty who don't comply. So much for academic freedom.

 

University education is useless without academic freedom. Professors should teach facts BECAUSE they are facts. Not because some law requires them to teach something. If a teacher is good, and teaches students facts, it SHOULDN'T matter how they taught them. If he DOESN'T teach facts, he needs to be out!

No university, let a lone a LAW should tell University professors HOW to teach. If a teacher decides to teach anatomy by stripping down and showing body parts live... students should be alerted that's what he/she will do, so they decide whether or not to take the class. But so long as the educational goal is achieved, that should be THEIR choice. NO law should ever make illegal something that would not be illegal outside of an academic environment.

 

Either that or conservative viewpoints are so attractive the wokesters have to suppress them

 

A conservative viewpoint is that everyone is equal and no one deserves special treatment based on social trends. Libs would shut that viewpoint down in a heartbeat if they could.

 

Like professors have been doing for decades? What kind of fear is involved in the need to push political ideologies in the classroom? Why can't a professor stick to the subject of the course? That worked well for centuries. The students attend a course to learn about the subject of the course. Replacing that with something else is unfair to whomever is paying for the education. Note. There shouldn't be any conservative ideology either.

 

DEI = Didn't Earn It



Making Folks Earn It, Again

 

I approve, at least for any university that accepts public money. Which is probably all of them ...but should there be any universities that are 100% privately funded, they should be able to teach (or suppress) anything they want.

 

They started doing that a long time ago. Now they have a word for it. They replace equality with equity.

 

To the part in your post that I bolded, I agree. However, did you read the OP? To quote: "State Senator Spencer Deery, who sponsored the bill, made clear in a statement that this would entail the inclusion of more conservative viewpoints on campus."

So, this indicates to me that this is for the purpose of pushing conservative ideology in the classroom. In other words, they'll now have to teach intelligent design in genetics class, in order to not run into trouble with government rules. Is that what you want?

 

I said what I wanted. I want zero political ideology in the classroom. All you had to do was read it.

 

A teacher that can’t leave their politics out of math classes is mentally ill. Now if you’re teaching history, politics is a part of it, but you would figure a teacher is intelligent enough not to PUSH a side. They can inform and explain, but why sway students to their point of view, even punishing them for not sharing their POV? Indoctrination!! That's just evil and illegal!!

And DEI is just open legal racism and discrimination by its purest definition. It is destroying this country.

 

DEI is social engineering and societies aren't engineered.

 

I agree, I want the same. Does this mean that you disapprove of what this Indiana State Senator is trying to implement?

BTW: Even though I am a professor at a state university, I don't really have skin in this game, because I teach Chemistry, usually not a subject where ideology comes into play. However, I do feel I have to be careful what I say (for example teaching about the IR spectroscopic properties of CO2, and mentioning that this is why it is a greenhouse gas), because people from Campusreform might be lurking and misrepresent me on their website, which is a wholesale smear campaign.

 

So now they push the idea that a woman can be born in a man's body . Does that make any sense?

 

That is actually a core basis of liberalism.

 

I think there should be a rule that you should do all you can to ensure that students don't know what your political views are.

 

In 2024, the human species is actually having conversations if you should hire the most qualified or the most tan.
Aliens all over the universe are laughing their arses off right now.

 

I don't know, I am not an expert in gender dysphoria. In my field, particle wave duality, and most other concepts in quantum mechanics, also don't make sense to 99.99% of people. Does that mean it should be forbidden to teach them in class?

 

Probably not appropriate for a high school English class. It really depends on the class. Gender dysphoria research and theory likewise.

 

I disagree with most new laws. All the ones that help society were passed long ago. I think the political ideology problem should be handled by students, parents and donors, not government. In Indiana the two major state universities are Indiana U and Purdue. Purdue specializes in science and engineering. I hear about the ideology issues at IU often enough but rarely about Purdue. Not much of a problem at Ball State, known for its architecture department, or Indiana State either. I live not terribly far from Notre Dame and it is the epicenter of political ideology but wouldn't be included in this law since it is a private university.

Greenhouse gases are a perfectly scientific subject in a chemistry course. An explanation of the greenhouse effect is perfectly appropriate. As long as you stick to the facts there should never be a problem. If your job is to teach chemistry and you teach chemistry in your classes then you are doing the right thing. Try to avoid commenting about men competing in womens' sports.

 

Should it be forbidden to teach critical gender studies is a bunch of malarky. It is now.

 

No problem with teaching quantum mechanics. Big problem with teaching political ideology outside of a political science course.