The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: red scare
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Miami Paper Blasts DeSantis Over Ideological Policing Of Colleges

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

On June 22, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a Republican-sponsored bill that calls for standards of "intellectual diversity" to be enforced on college campuses in the Sunshine State. But the Miami Herald''s editorial board, in a scathing editorial published on June 24, emphasizes that the law isn't about promoting free thought at colleges and universities but rather, is an effort to bully and intimidate political viewpoints that DeSantis and his Republican allies in the Florida Legislature disagree with.

"The state government wants to know what political ideologies and beliefs university professors hold, and it's giving the green light for students to secretly record lessons to later use what instructors say against them," the editorial explains. "All of that is being done in the name of free speech. Such twisted logic and targeting academia have been hallmarks of anti-democratic regimes. Now, they have also become the MO of Florida Republicans who passed a bill that requires public universities and colleges to survey students, faculty and staff, to ensure 'intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity' on campuses."

The Herald's editorialnotes the type of arguments that Florida Republicans have used in favor of the new law. According to the law's supporters, college campuses in Florida have become "socialism factories" designed for "indoctrination" of students.

The Herald's editorial board writes, "Don't worry, bill sponsors say, these surveys won't be used against college professors or to threaten their employment, even though there's nothing in House Bill 233 that guarantees that, or that survey responses will remain anonymous. University budget cuts might be looming if our supreme leaders — er — lawmakers don't like what the survey results show, bill sponsor Sen. Ray Rodrigues and DeSantis suggested Tuesday."

According to the Herald's editorial, HB 233 is designed to do the exact opposite of promoting "intellectual diversity" on college campuses.

"College professors have got to be seeing the writing on the wall," the Herald's editorial warns. "We wouldn't be surprised if they fudged their survey responses out of fear of retaliation or that their institution will lose funding for being deemed too liberal. That's especially true for professors teaching liberal-arts degrees that conservatives consider a waste of time and were trying to make ineligible for full Bright Futures scholarship funding. Luckily, that proposal failed during this year's legislative session after student backlash."

History repeats itself, and the Herald's editorial recalls that during the 1950s, college professors were a favorite target of far-right Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and his Cold War witch hunt.

"University professors were a target of the post-war Red Scare," the Herald's editorial notes. "In 1949, the National Council for American Education published a booklet called 'Red-Ucators at Harvard,' listing professors deemed subversive. In 1954, Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy...sought to flush out communists among educators and questioned professors accused of having ties to the Communist Party. Intellectual diversity should be something every university strives for, but we know the results of government officials policing educators: paranoia, persecution and the opposite of the free speech Republicans say they want to protect."

American Politics Is Very Imitative, So Remember — And Beware

American Politics Is Very Imitative, So Remember — And Beware

It’s a better than even bet that in Massachusetts today there is more than one ambitious young Democratic candidate running for local office who is deliberately pronouncing the word “again” so that it rhymes with “a pain.” Why, you logically ask? Because that’s how the martyred John F. Kennedy pronounced “again.” American politics and campaigns are frankly imitative.

Half a century ago, in 1968, then-presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, discarded his suit jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves and waded into the campaign crowds who came to see him. The unspoken message was clear: This leader in shirtsleeves was a regular guy, unpretentious, ready to go to work and even, if pushed too hard, prepared to defend, mano a mano, the less powerful against the Rich Bully.

How many times have we seen the candidate in her campaign TV spot listening attentively to children or to retirees signaling to us voters that this candidate truly cares about the next generation and also honors the older generation? Then there are the obligatory images of the candidate of the people (who may actually be on his way to a high-number fundraiser with hedge fund managers) smiling comfortably and respectfully in the company of blue-collar workers in hard hats or firefighters or cops; I’m a regular Joe at home with ordinary Americans who, unlike me, actually shower after work instead of before.

Why do we see these canned and unoriginal political TV spots year after year? Because they work and politics is imitative. That may be insulting to us voters’ intelligence, but it is usually not a threat to the nation. What can be a threat to the nation and to our public life is when a candidate runs and wins and becomes a major national force the way that US Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI)., did when on Feb. 9, 1950, he told a Republican party dinner in Wheeling, West Virginia, “I have here in my hand a list of 205 … a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy at the State Department.” In Salt Lake City, McCarthy’s number of communists would be 81; in Reno, Nevada, it was 57.

So politically powerful did McCarthy become leading the Red Scare that Dwight Eisenhower, a national hero, failed during the 1952 campaign in Milwaukee to defend publicly his close friend and Army chief of staff General George Marshall — who served as secretary of state and received the Nobel Prize for authoring the Marshall Plan that rebuilt a war-devastated Europe and stopped Soviet aggression — after McCarthy had falsely accused Marshall of “a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.”

Baseless charges and unfounded accusations of treason were Joe McCarthy’s M.O. Nobody on his “list” was ever arrested for treason. The guilt of no alleged spy was ever confirmed, but dozens of would-be Joe McCarthys ran as his disciples and imitators across the country, and too many won ruining the lives of American citizens with vicious unsubstantiated charges. McCarthy made cowards of all but a handful of U.S. senators. Sound a little familiar in America 2019?

If anyone still wants to know why the 2020 presidential campaign matters so greatly, just understand what the reelection of Donald Trump would mean to American political life and to the hundreds of ambitious young politicians who would rationally, if not admirably, conclude, “I see. That’s how you run and you win.” American politics is, do not forget, highly imitative.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.