Louisiana should try a different strategy for now to join the vanguard of states that demand that their institutions of higher learning cultivate critical thinking, not indoctrination.
Sensing incorrectly and severely overplaying its hand assuming that the voting public would accept its judgment that a majority of the mass public were systemically, if not irredeemably, racist and badly in need of corrective action emanating from it, much of higher education now has gone into full-scale retreat over woke “anti-racism” ideology it has peddled. More nakedly that ever it displayed this in classroom instruction in the first half of this decade.
Louisiana colleges weren’t exempt from this fusillade. By way of example, at one time my university suggested we incorporate various forms of this propaganda into out teaching were applicable; for example, recommending use of the deeply-flawed and historically inaccurate 1619 Project materials that noxiously hypothesize racism as a fundamental and inescapable part of American culture from its start. Courses at institutions across the state have been taught with this notion as foundational to their purposes.
The state’s four supervisory boards have done little to address this at the street level. The Legislature, viewing this as a larger inculcation of reverse discrimination against people but more importantly as opposing heterodoxy in viewpoints and academic freedom, made schools outline their spending for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and Republican Gov. Jeff Landry issued an executive order increasing transparency involving free expression right on campuses, but these do little to inhibit instruction postulating that people according to their skin color are natural oppressors or victims and that all American institutions and their actions are based upon this.
The Legislature on several occasions has tried to prevent the uncontested teaching of this in college classrooms as foundational (as opposed to contextually such as noting historically at one time public policy endorsed exactly the concept, but no longer), most recently this year with a bill that passed the House of Representatives but was not taken up in the Senate. Ironically, exaggerated claims that this would interfere with academic freedom appears to have derailed the effort.
Yet other states have acted in the face of these arguments but taking different tacks. Texas passed a law prohibiting public universities from having DEI offices, certain DEI training, and include DEI criteria in hiring, but didn’t address course content. Florida passed a law doing some of the same, but including a prohibition of programs, majors, minors, curriculum, and general education core courses that violate Florida law regarding prohibited discrimination or that are based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities, to be reviewed annually for compliance.
This year, Florida’s body that governs universities eliminated courses that could count for fulfilling its general education requirements that all students must have to graduate from a senior institution that fell under the law’s prohibition. The state body dealing with community colleges, did the same, with a significant number now disqualified for both. However, these courses can continue to be taught without any changes, just that they don’t qualify for GER fulfillment.
Louisiana could adopt the same approach, and more easily. As it is, by law the Board of Regents has authority over the state’s GER, specifying the kinds of credits that comprise it for each kind of degree. Without needing express legislative authorization, the Regents could issue regulations similar to Florida’s law – institutions may offer such courses, but they cannot qualify to satisfy the GER, which are as in Florida prior to the passage of its law decided solely by the institution as to whether they qualify. For example, at my institution a sociology course called “Gender, Race, and Class in Society” has a course description that likely would run afoul of the language in the Florida law.
This approach doesn’t infringe on academic freedom nor interferes with course content, and such courses still could be taught. Simply, they would not be part of the GER and would avoid leaving students with the impression that indisputably material in DEI-shaped courses is the uncontested view of how the world works. GER courses that prize heterodoxy and provoke the critical inquiry necessary to evaluate and rank order different approaches would be maintained. The Regents would do the state but especially its higher education students a service by promulgating such an amendment to its GER regulations.
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