We have met the enemy, and he is us

Florida State University. (Photo by Diane Rado/Florida Phoenix)

J.D. Vance, VP-wannabe, likes to say, “ The professors are the enemy .”

Christopher Rufo, a think-tank leech who fancies himself an education expert, also likes to say, “The professors are the enemy.”

They’re both quoting Richard Nixon. The one-time holder of the “Most Criminal President” title (now, of course, second to Donald Trump) made the remark to Henry Kissinger in December 1972, just before he ordered the vicious Christmas bombing campaign in Vietnam.

These guys have got it wrong (as usual): Professors are not “the” enemy; professors are THEIR enemies — enemies of mindless nationalism, intellectual cowardice, science-denial, censorship, repression, intolerance, and ignorance; enemies of people like Vance, Rufo, and Ron DeSantis — the man who has done more than anyone else to destroy higher education in Florida.

I admit I have a dog in this fight; I’m one of those enemy profs.

And I’m allergic to the kind of self-defeating stupidity DeSantis and other Republican knuckle-draggers are trying to impose on Florida colleges and universities.

While courts have surgically removed some of the most poisonous parts of DeSantis’ “ Stop WOKE” law, the governor’s assault on universities, direct and indirect, continues unabated.

The state university system chancellor is demanding deans and presidents scour course syllabuses and reading lists for evidence of anti-Israel bias .

Seems an IDF fanboy (or girl) tipped off the tantrum-prone Rep. Randy Fine, R-Netanyahuville, that some professor at FIU might be using a text called “Terrorism and Homeland Security.”

The book is by the distinguished political violence experts Jonathan R. White and Steven M. Chermak. They are not themselves terrorists. Or in favor of terrorism.

Seems the teacher of the course also dared to ask students questions about how Zionists in the 1940s acquired territory for a new nation and put the words “Israelis” and “terrorism” in the same sentence.

Remember the Irgun?

Maybe Pouty Randy’s unaware an outfit called Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in 1946 or that the Jewish extremist Stern Gang assassinated the British Minister of State in the Middle East in 1944 and the U.N. mediator in 1948?

What term would he use to describe these activities? High spirits?

Combustible conservatives like Fine don’t want university students digging into the contradictions and complexities of Middle East history, reading books that might make them feel “uncomfortable,” or encountering ideas that challenge their — by which I’m sure he means his — prejudices.

He doesn’t want these uppity professors using expertise gained over decades of research and study to present anything he personally doesn’t like.

I guess he’s still mad he didn’t even make the shortlist for president of Florida Atlantic .

To Fine — and to DeSantis and the rest of the Republican regime’s bully brigade — scholars are nobody and nothing: “I am sick and tired of faculty members at these schools who think that they are better than what they are,” said Fine.

He’s going to “remind public university faculty members that they are state employees.”

Well, I’m sick and tired of legislators who think they’re better than they are, and I’d like to remind him he’s also an employee, working for the citizens of the state of Florida.

Meanwhile here in our not-ivory non-tower, Florida’s educators await the next blow.

Will they start rooting around in our texts and lectures for other scary words like “racism” or “feminism” or “slavery” or “gender” or “gay”?

How about “climate change”? DeSantis and his pet lawmakers have excised it from state statutes, declaring it has nothing to do with the massive storms, the floods, and the fever-hot waters of the Gulf of Mexico, jet fuel for hurricanes.

Undermining tenure

So, what to do with all those scientists in university departments of meteorology, oceanography, chemistry, marine biology, geography, and ecology whose work proves otherwise?

Actually, they might just be demoted or booted out.

Florida’s new “ post-tenure review ” means professors who allegedly fail vague, arbitrary, and malleable standards of “productivity” and “conduct” can be fired.

Maybe the prof talks about topics the system chancellor (who helped write the bill), the DeSantista trustees, or DeSantis himself don’t approve of.

Maybe one of them writes something like this column.

I teach the history of slavery, race, white supremacy, and how these ingrained attitudes shape literature. I’m aware I could get in trouble for it.

But I’m not going to stop.

Most of my colleagues aren’t going to stop the way they teach or what they publish, either.

Faculty earn tenure through their research, publication, teaching, and service. They don’t just sit on their backsides drinking beer and scrolling the Internet after they get it.

They keep on researching, publishing, teaching, and serving the university and the community.

I know this is hard for the governor and his developer pals to understand, but not everything is about money.

If you go into academia to get rich, you are very confused. Most of us are interested in learning, in expanding the human experience, in searching for something like truth.

Tenure protects intellectual freedom from political disapproval.

Or it used to.

New College of Florida, once a gem of a liberal arts school, has been destroyed by unqualified (and petty) amateurs .

Last week, the powers-that-be at New College ordered hundreds of books tossed into a dumpster.

The “explanation,” if you can dignify it with that word, was that the books were from the gender studies collection, and since the institution no longer does gender studies, or anything to do with LGBTQ people, those books were surplus to requirements.

What kind of institution of higher education throws out books as if they were empty pizza boxes?

One with Christopher Rufo (see above) among its trustees. He and his fellow vandals have wrecked New College’s innovative curriculum and run off the most creative and eminent professors.

Crony appointments

In contrast, New College’s DeSantis-imposed president, a politician with no higher ed experience, is doing just fine, raking in north of $1 million a year , three times what his predecessor made, to run a college with about 700 students.

While we’re on the subject of unqualified crony appointments, Ben Sasse, president of the University of Florida, also made more than $1 million a year, although UF’s enrolment is nearly 100 times larger.

Corcoran is evil ; Sasse was useless .

He has just resigned, citing his wife’s ill-health.

No one will miss him: The guy was disliked by students and faculty alike.

Thanks to bravura reporting by the Independent Florida Alligator , we now know what an inept yet venal spendthrift Sasse was: His office shoveled big money to Republican former staffers and political operatives, paying them absurd, way-above-market-rate salaries.

Kent Fuchs, UF’s former (and now interim) president, spent $5.6 million in his last year; Sasse spent $17.3 million in his first year.

Many of the “advisers,” “vice presidents” and “directors” Sasse hired worked from D.C. or Tennessee or God knows where. When they needed to be in Gainesville, they flew in at university expense.

Your tax dollars at work

He also blew millions on management consultants, particularly McKinsey — his former employer. Nobody knows what exactly the “consulting” consisted of: The contracts have been redacted so thoroughly they might as well be blank.

Your tax dollars at work, y’all, for, well, who knows?

The fruits of the Republican war on higher education include loss of morale, loss of top faculty , and litigation — several professors are suing over the post-tenure review.

(One of them is a Republican, too).

I’m lucky: My department is highly ranked in teaching and publication and our students are wonderful.

But I don’t know how much longer I can genuinely recommend the best young scholars take academic jobs in Florida.

Nor do I know how much longer our faculty stars will stick around in a state where the government does nothing but disparage them.

But never fear: The governor knows how to fix Florida colleges: “We just need them to be No. 1 in football again .”

Sure, Ronbo. Go Seminoles.

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