DeSantis signs bill requiring FL students, professors to register political views with state

[laughing dog]

Yes, you implied it. "If they're not indoctrinating kids, who cares?"

I was explicitly talking about the Florida case.

So what?

“considers the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented” and how free members of the college communities feel “to express their beliefs and viewpoints.”

Neither of those statements are about indoctrination, but about breadth of ideas and political tolerance.

To use your phrase so what?

I have provided two reasons, from the bill itself which was linked on the first page, above, and neither of those reasons are 'fear of indoctrination', though that would also be a problem and it is the kind of problem discoverable from a survey.

Your position appears to be: it doesn't matter if universities have bred an environment with limited breadth of ideas and where students and staff are afraid to express their viewpoint; no right-wing government should try to survey people anonymously and voluntarily to discover if such non-problems exist.

Please stop imputing these straw men. Just stop it.

First, I think legislation and resources should be used to address actual issues not imagined ones. If there were documented instances of issues that had been disinterestedly investigated, then the legislation would appear warranted.

Second, whether one feels free to express one's beliefs and viewpoints or the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are present can be investigated without reference to political, ideological and religious beliefs of university staff and students.

Third, when legislators complain about fear of indoctrination and when the governor openly hints that funding might depend on the results, it ought to be clear what the operational intent of the legislation is. While I will grant that faculty tend to be overly suspicious of potential oversight, in this instance, I think the staff have reason to be worried.

 

[Metaphor]

Yes, you implied it. "If they're not indoctrinating kids, who cares?"

I was explicitly talking about the Florida case.

Yes, that's what this entire thread is about.

Neither of those statements are about indoctrination, but about breadth of ideas and political tolerance.

To use your phrase so what?

I am answering your question!!

Please stop imputing these straw men. Just stop it.

First, I think legislation and resources should be used to address actual issues not imagined ones.

Good for you. There is evidence that these are issues in US academia.

If there were documented instances of issues that had been disinterestedly investigated, then the legislation would appear warranted.

Good for you. The legislation is warranted. There is evidence that students self-censor because of the campus climate, and this self-censoring is along political lines.

Second, whether one feels free to express one's beliefs and viewpoints or the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are present can be investigated without reference to political, ideological and religious beliefs of university staff and students.

Sheer nonsense. The ideas, beliefs and viewpoints that the Florida legislature is interested in and where one chooses to express (or censor) are going to be along political, ideological or religious lines.

University X has 1,000 students. 300 students express that they are uncomfortable with expressing their political views on campus. You don't know anything else about those students because you didn't collect anything about the political or ideological views of those students.

Imagine instead you'd collected this information, and you find that the university has (on a three point scale)

• 500 'liberal' students
• 300 'moderate' students
• 200 'conservative' students

But the breakdown of students who said they felt discomfort was as follows

• 100 liberal students
• 100 moderate students
• 100 conservative students.

20% of liberal students felt discomfort, 33% of moderate students, and 50% of conservative students.

You wouldn't have known that without questions about ideology. Now of course this doesn't mean the university has bred a chilling environment--you'd need further investigation. But the point is, if you'd not collected the information, you wouldn't know about the disparity at all.

Third, when legislators complain about fear of indoctrination and when the governor openly hints that funding might depend on the results, it ought to be clear what the operational intent of the legislation is. While I will grant that faculty tend to be overly suspicious of potential oversight, in this instance, I think the staff have reason to be worried.

Why shouldn't funding depend on the results? If a taxpayer funded university has bred a climate that is hostile to the political views of certain kinds of taxpayers using the university, why shouldn't it be accountable?

 

[ZiprHead]

Sheer nonsense. The ideas, beliefs and viewpoints that the Florida legislature is interested in and where one chooses to express (or censor) are going to be along political, ideological or religious lines.

University X has 1,000 students. 300 students express that they are uncomfortable with expressing their political views on campus. You don't know anything else about those students because you didn't collect anything about the political or ideological views of those students.

Has there ever been a time when certain political views were not frowned upon?

 

[Toni]

Can you explain what those ‘good reasons’ to investigate university culture along political lines? What might those reasons be?

Yes, I certainly can, and I don't even need to use my imagination.

Posts mischaracterize Florida law on college campus surveys

Criticism of the year-old Florida bill has reemerged online this week, with some social media users making misleading statements about the scope of the legislation.

apnews.com

(note that this bill is a year old and news of it was revived)

EDIT 2: Even salon.com--salon.com for god's sake--revised its false headline that the bill requires people to 'register' their political view with the state, because that characterisation is so egregiously false.

The bill requires the State Board of Education and The Board of Governors to create a survey to be administered annually by the 28 schools comprising the Florida College System and the 12 public universities included in the State University System that “considers the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented” and how free members of the college communities feel “to express their beliefs and viewpoints.”

So, for example, there is already evidence that conservative students self-censor their views more than liberal students. But, the only way to know if this is a problem in the Florida system is to survey the Florida system.

Are Colleges and Universities Too Liberal? What the Research Says About the Political Composition of Campuses and Campus Climate

“Is Academe Awash in Liberal Bias?” This is one of many recent headlines trying to grapple with a question that we’ve been debating for decades: are colleges and universities dominated by liberals? Over the past few years, charges that colleges and universities are “about Radical Left...

www.aei.org

The Knight Foundation’s 2019 survey of over 4,400 undergraduates on the state of collegiate student expression shed more light on these troubling trends: 68% felt silenced because “their campus climate precludes students from expressing their true opinions because their classmates might find them offensive.”


And most recently the aforementioned FIRE free speech survey of almost 20,000 college students confirmed that self-censorship on campuses is prevalent: Six out of ten college students say they have kept quiet due to fear of how others would respond. Breaking this down further, the largest group on campus which self-censors is “strong Republicans” (73%) and the lowest is “strong Democrats” (52%). These findings are in many ways a continuation and deepening of trends from 2016 and 2017 when conservative students reported self-censoring more than their liberal counterparts.


Student willingness to use violence and engage in behavior to explicitly stop speech is another area where the FIRE report uncovers disturbing trends. Those identifying as extremely liberal said violence to stop a speech or event from occurring on campus was “always” or “sometimes” acceptable at a rate double than of students identifying as extremely conservative: 13% to 6%. More than a quarter of extremely liberal respondents said it is “rarely” acceptable, compared to 8% of extremely conservative respondents.


One of the most interesting findings in terms of political bias in the FIRE report comes from comparing conservative student ratings of institutions with liberal student ratings. What emerged is that even when conservatives rank a predominantly liberal institution highly in terms of being open to speech, they find themselves self-censoring. University of Chicago was ranked highly by both Liberals (1st) and Conservatives (3rd). Overall less than half of the students report self-censoring (44%). But when broken down by political leaning 82% of Conservatives report holding back their views compared to 53% of Moderates and 40% of Liberals. As one student at Chicago noted: “[I am] afraid to disagree with certain liberal talking points because even if I do not agree with the conservative side either I feel like I will be rejected for not being ‘woke’ enough.”

Beyond self-censorship, in class and in coursework, I would also say that the administration may impose requirements on to students that reflect the political beliefs of the administration.

I assume most people would be aghast if a public university decided to send all students a weekly Christian devotional. Yet universities think nothing of making compulsory courses unrelated to the student's study, courses about white privilege and microaggressions, for example. Some universities withhold your results until you complete such courses.

EDIT: At my current university, there are two short courses, in addition to what I'm actually studying, that I was required to take. An academic plagiarism course (which is fair, that is relevant to whatever you are studying) and a course about consent, illustrated with a range of differently-coloured and sexually-orientated cartoon characters, built on the idea that some rapists don't know when they're raping people, and a consent course will change their minds about raping people.

Note: it is my understanding that universities in the US enjoy greater academic freedom
compared with Australian universities. Indeed, academic freedom, to go where the research/data/evidence leads you is a primary value in US universities. Or public ones anyway.

I'm sure you believe that, but it isn't true. Try being a psychologist who examines the relationship between ethnicity and IQ.

I do believe that there is greater academic freedom in US universities compared with Australian Universities, but only because I’ve been told so by Australians who have taught both at US and Australian Universities. To be honest, like most Americans, I tend to take academic freedom as a given.

It is wise to be skeptical of surveys of students who self report ( anything). Students responding to such surveys can, at best, report their perceptions rather than objective fact. Students can and do respond to surveys with good intentions or…depending on their mood. Some studenuts respond as honestly as possible and some respond to deliberately deceive.

Students who self-identify as conservative resort that they hold back their views may be accurately reflecting an atmosphere that discourages opinions outside of what is perceived to be the political bent of the department —or it may reflect that they are simply uncomfortable with their own opinions or that they are unaccustomed to having their opinion challenged.

Surely one function of a food education is to challenge students’ already established opinion. University of Chicago is indeed a very highly respected university. It does not achieve or maintain such a reputation by suppressing student speech.

Further, FBI surveys of politically motivated violence in the US show a much greater incidence of such violence by ultra right wing groups compared with left wing groups,

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

A high proportion of Florida University students are going to be liberal And i expect many of them are going to state in surveys, they resent the intimidation attemps of Florida's Republicans.

 

[Metaphor]

Sheer nonsense. The ideas, beliefs and viewpoints that the Florida legislature is interested in and where one chooses to express (or censor) are going to be along political, ideological or religious lines.

University X has 1,000 students. 300 students express that they are uncomfortable with expressing their political views on campus. You don't know anything else about those students because you didn't collect anything about the political or ideological views of those students.

Has there ever been a time when certain political views were not frowned upon?

No. That isn't the point.

Do you think it is proper for taxpayers to fund institutions of learning where students who lean to one major political party feel less welcome (or indeed, are subject to policies designed to make them feel less welcome) than students who lean to the other major political party?

 

[Metaphor]

A high proportion of Florida University students are going to be liberal And i expect many of them are going to state in surveys, they resent the intimidation attemps of Florida's Republicans.

Wouldn't that be useful to find out?

 

[Metaphor]

It is wise to be skeptical of surveys of students who self report ( anything). Students responding to such surveys can, at best, report their perceptions rather than objective fact. Students can and do respond to surveys with good intentions or…depending on their mood. Some studenuts respond as honestly as possible and some respond to deliberately deceive.

But I absolutely and totally agree with you.

Students who self-identify as conservative resort that they hold back their views may be accurately reflecting an atmosphere that discourages opinions outside of what is perceived to be the political bent of the department —or it may reflect that they are simply uncomfortable with their own opinions or that they are unaccustomed to having their opinion challenged.

I absolutely and totally agree with you. There could be a genuinely hostile environment, or conservatives might be thin-skinned, or they may incorrectly perceive hostility where there is none, or any other number of reasons or admixture of reasons they report more self-censoring.

Similarly, women who perceive sexism may be genuinely subject to it, or they may be hyper sensitive to non-sexist events, or a mixture, or any other circumstance. Same goes for any other 'ism' or 'phobia'.

Just because it is a survey of perceptions and opinions (what else could it be) doesn't mean it's a fruitless exercise.

Surely one function of a food education is to challenge students’ already established opinion. University of Chicago is indeed a very highly respected university. It does not achieve or maintain such a reputation by suppressing student speech.

Many universities in the United States have speech codes. The heavy-handedness of such speech codes are bound to differ between universities, and if the University of Chicago has a good one, other universities could learn from it.

Further, FBI surveys of politically motivated violence in the US show a much greater incidence of such violence by ultra right wing groups compared with left wing groups,

I'm not sure what this has to do with the thread. Incidents of violence should be dealt with and investigated by the police outside any of these surveys. But if a survey showed left-wing students feared violence more than right-wing students, then the survey would help discover that.

Well, it wouldn't help discover that if laughing dog got his way.

 

[ZiprHead]

Sheer nonsense. The ideas, beliefs and viewpoints that the Florida legislature is interested in and where one chooses to express (or censor) are going to be along political, ideological or religious lines.

University X has 1,000 students. 300 students express that they are uncomfortable with expressing their political views on campus. You don't know anything else about those students because you didn't collect anything about the political or ideological views of those students.

Has there ever been a time when certain political views were not frowned upon?

No. That isn't the point.

Do you think it is proper for taxpayers to fund institutions of learning where students who lean to one major political party feel less welcome (or indeed, are subject to policies designed to make them feel less welcome) than students who lean to the other major political party?

That has been happening since tax funded colleges were first created.

 

[Metaphor]

Sheer nonsense. The ideas, beliefs and viewpoints that the Florida legislature is interested in and where one chooses to express (or censor) are going to be along political, ideological or religious lines.

University X has 1,000 students. 300 students express that they are uncomfortable with expressing their political views on campus. You don't know anything else about those students because you didn't collect anything about the political or ideological views of those students.

Has there ever been a time when certain political views were not frowned upon?

No. That isn't the point.

Do you think it is proper for taxpayers to fund institutions of learning where students who lean to one major political party feel less welcome (or indeed, are subject to policies designed to make them feel less welcome) than students who lean to the other major political party?

That has been happening since tax funded colleges were first created.

So, it doesn't bother you then and if it were happening, would not need to be addressed?

 

[Toni]

A high proportion of Florida University students are going to be liberal And i expect many of them are going to state in surveys, they resent the intimidation attemps of Florida's Republicans.

Wouldn't that be useful to find out?

Do I think the state of Florida, which has already stated that intends to adjust funding depending on the results of these surveys would find such results interesting?

Yeah.

I think those surveys are intended to intimidate faulty and students to give the ‘correct’ answers to ensure that funding continues.

 

[Metaphor]

A high proportion of Florida University students are going to be liberal And i expect many of them are going to state in surveys, they resent the intimidation attemps of Florida's Republicans.

Wouldn't that be useful to find out?

Do I think the state of Florida, which has already stated that intends to adjust funding depending on the results of these surveys would find such results interesting?

Yeah.

I think those surveys are intended to intimidate faulty and students to give the ‘correct’ answers to ensure that funding continues.

What a strange idea.

So, assuming DeSantis thinks Florida universities are hostile to conservatives, you think he wants to help cover up that hostility to conservative so that the taxpayers can continue funding the universities and have a clean conscience about it?

 

[laughing dog]

Yes, that's what this entire thread is about.

Glad you remembered.

Good for you. There is evidence that these are issues in US academia.

How quickly you forgot - this thread is bout Florida, not US academia. Neither the Florida legislature or you have presented these issues are present in Florida.

[

Good for you. The legislation is warranted. There is evidence that students self-censor because of the campus climate, and this self-censoring is along political lines.

Where is that evidence for Florida?

Sheer nonsense. The ideas, beliefs and viewpoints that the Florida legislature is interested in and where one chooses to express (or censor) are going to be along political, ideological or religious lines.

University X has 1,000 students. 300 students express that they are uncomfortable with expressing their political views on campus. You don't know anything else about those students because you didn't collect anything about the political or ideological views of those students.. <snipped the unnecessary bloviation>...

If someone says "I felt uncomfortable expressing X", then one asks "Why". That is sufficient to see if there is an issue.

Why shouldn't funding depend on the results? If a taxpayer funded university has bred a climate that is hostile to the political views of certain kinds of taxpayers using the university, why shouldn't it be accountable?

Funding should be dependent on the political and religious views of the staff or students. One can establish hostility towards views without engaging in political or religious witch hunts.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

EDIT: At my current university, there are two short courses, in addition to what I'm actually studying, that I was required to take. An academic plagiarism course (which is fair, that is relevant to whatever you are studying) and a course about consent, illustrated with a range of differently-coloured and sexually-orientated cartoon characters, built on the idea that some rapists don't know when they're raping people, and a consent course will change their minds about raping people.

It's not complete nonsense, just the usual stupidity of focusing on a small part of the problem that can be addressed and pretending it's a big part of the problem.

There are cases where the woman gets into a situation she didn't intend to but is afraid of saying no. While I do not agree with requiring a "yes" there needs to be something affirmative, not merely neutrality. I'm fine with non-verbal ways of expressing that yes.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

University X has 1,000 students. 300 students express that they are uncomfortable with expressing their political views on campus. You don't know anything else about those students because you didn't collect anything about the political or ideological views of those students.

Imagine instead you'd collected this information, and you find that the university has (on a three point scale)

• 500 'liberal' students
• 300 'moderate' students
• 200 'conservative' students

But the breakdown of students who said they felt discomfort was as follows

• 100 liberal students
• 100 moderate students
• 100 conservative students.

20% of liberal students felt discomfort, 33% of moderate students, and 50% of conservative students.

You wouldn't have known that without questions about ideology. Now of course this doesn't mean the university has bred a chilling environment--you'd need further investigation. But the point is, if you'd not collected the information, you wouldn't know about the disparity at all.

And this doesn't tell you if there's a problem or not.

Some people will have positions they know are not generally acceptable and thus will avoid expressing their opinion without there being any oppression.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No. That isn't the point.

Do you think it is proper for taxpayers to fund institutions of learning where students who lean to one major political party feel less welcome (or indeed, are subject to policies designed to make them feel less welcome) than students who lean to the other major political party?

Depends on why they feel less welcome.

The world isn't going to roll out the welcome mat for the Heil Hitler, bring back Jim Crow crowd.

 

[Metaphor]

Yes, that's what this entire thread is about.

Glad you remembered.

Good for you. There is evidence that these are issues in US academia.

How quickly you forgot - this thread is bout Florida, not US academia. Neither the Florida legislature or you have presented these issues are present in Florida.

Yes, I suppose there is an outside possibility that something true of the national level across multiple states does not apply in Florida. But we don't know if it applies specifically in Florida until it is measured, but we do know the issue exists in US academia.

[

Good for you. The legislation is warranted. There is evidence that students self-censor because of the campus climate, and this self-censoring is along political lines.

Where is that evidence for Florida?

The national evidence is sufficient for programs like this to be justified in any state. And when the surveys run, we will get Florida-specific evidence.

Are you against collecting evidence to see if there is a problem in Florida?

Sheer nonsense. The ideas, beliefs and viewpoints that the Florida legislature is interested in and where one chooses to express (or censor) are going to be along political, ideological or religious lines.

University X has 1,000 students. 300 students express that they are uncomfortable with expressing their political views on campus. You don't know anything else about those students because you didn't collect anything about the political or ideological views of those students.. <snipped the unnecessary bloviation>...

If someone says "I felt uncomfortable expressing X", then one asks "Why". That is sufficient to see if there is an issue.

Correct. If uncomfortableness varies by political ideology, we should investigate. If umcomfortableness does not vary along political ideology but is very high, we should also investigate.

I am glad you are convinced we should investigate.

Why shouldn't funding depend on the results? If a taxpayer funded university has bred a climate that is hostile to the political views of certain kinds of taxpayers using the university, why shouldn't it be accountable?

Funding should be dependent on the political and religious views of the staff or students. One can establish hostility towards views without engaging in political or religious witch hunts.

I think you meant 'should not be dependent'.

Funding should not be dependent on the political and religious views of staff or students, but it should be dependent on the university creating a climate that is fair to all taxpayers.

 

[Metaphor]

No. That isn't the point.

Do you think it is proper for taxpayers to fund institutions of learning where students who lean to one major political party feel less welcome (or indeed, are subject to policies designed to make them feel less welcome) than students who lean to the other major political party?

Depends on why they feel less welcome.

The world isn't going to roll out the welcome mat for the Heil Hitler, bring back Jim Crow crowd.

I absolutely agree mere opinion and perception is not enough. But measuring opinion and perception is the first and necessary stage in seeing if there is a problem.

I'm glad to see so many converts.

 

[Metaphor]

University X has 1,000 students. 300 students express that they are uncomfortable with expressing their political views on campus. You don't know anything else about those students because you didn't collect anything about the political or ideological views of those students.

Imagine instead you'd collected this information, and you find that the university has (on a three point scale)

• 500 'liberal' students
• 300 'moderate' students
• 200 'conservative' students

But the breakdown of students who said they felt discomfort was as follows

• 100 liberal students
• 100 moderate students
• 100 conservative students.

20% of liberal students felt discomfort, 33% of moderate students, and 50% of conservative students.

You wouldn't have known that without questions about ideology. Now of course this doesn't mean the university has bred a chilling environment--you'd need further investigation. But the point is, if you'd not collected the information, you wouldn't know about the disparity at all.

And this doesn't tell you if there's a problem or not.

Some people will have positions they know are not generally acceptable and thus will avoid expressing their opinion without there being any oppression.

I absolutely agree mere opinion and perception is not enough. But measuring opinion and perception is the first and necessary stage in seeing if there is a problem.


I'm glad to see so many converts.

 

[Metaphor]

EDIT: At my current university, there are two short courses, in addition to what I'm actually studying, that I was required to take. An academic plagiarism course (which is fair, that is relevant to whatever you are studying) and a course about consent, illustrated with a range of differently-coloured and sexually-orientated cartoon characters, built on the idea that some rapists don't know when they're raping people, and a consent course will change their minds about raping people.

It's not complete nonsense, just the usual stupidity of focusing on a small part of the problem that can be addressed and pretending it's a big part of the problem.

There are cases where the woman gets into a situation she didn't intend to but is afraid of saying no. While I do not agree with requiring a "yes" there needs to be something affirmative, not merely neutrality. I'm fine with non-verbal ways of expressing that yes.

You missed the point.

I know how to not rape people, and I knew how to not rape people before I enrolled at university. And if I had the desire to rape people, a 'consent' course, I imagine, would not change my mind. Also, I did not enrol in a masters of how to not rape people.