• joe@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Ron DeSantis’s slew of laws attacking teaching of race and gender issues sees state’s colleges struggle to fill faculty posts

    As intended.

    • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldOP
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      Good luck finding right-wing professors, Ron. Alumni of the Florida Universities are going to be really mad when the schools can’t fund football and basketball in the coming years. They already have a recruiting crisis due to Ron’s actions.

      • joe@lemmy.world
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        It’s a lot like that quote:

        If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.

        If conservatives become convinced that an education makes people less conservative, then they will not gaze inward to wonder why that might be, but instead reject education.

          • Shalakushka@lemmy.world
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            I’d agree, which is why we shouldn’t be presenting slavery as a circuitous jobs training program, like Ron DeFascist wants to.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            At some level, education is about instilling certain ideas and theories within an audience for the purpose of driving some kind of social activity. Whether that activity is academic research or religious proselytization depends on the information being conveyed. But every form of education does require a certain set of axioms be taken at face value.

            People tend to lose sight of the fundamental and necessary techniques used in imparting new knowledge while fixating on the relative values that the new knowledge provides when they toss out words like “indoctrination”.

          • joe@lemmy.world
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            Can you articulate the difference to me? I’m curious to see what you come up with.

            • LrdThndr@lemmy.world
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              Yeah, sure, I’ll bite.

              Education is teaching kids to think for themselves while giving them the ability to tell fact from bullshit.

              Indoctrination is forcing your own ethics, morals, and beliefs onto children who lack the ability to discern fact from bullshit, usually early enough in their development to ensure that the bullshit you’ve forced onto them becomes permanently encoded into their brain structure.

              Nobody’s indoctrinating college students. The students are being taught to critically analyze information and are using that critical analysis to realize that the worldview they’ve been spoon-fed is bullshit.

              • joe@lemmy.world
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                I think some confusion has happened since I made my last comment. I was under the impression that Education != indoctrination was saying that DeSantis wasn’t going after educators, but instead, getting rid of “indoctrination”.

                I wholeheartedly agree that the major difference is that education teaches to question your world, and indoctrination tells you to shut up and get in line. What DeSantis is getting rid of is education, and making room for indoctrination.

            • spriteblood@kbin.social
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              Education is the act of imparting knowledge, usually with the goal of improving general understanding and critical thinking skills, while indoctrination carries inherent connotations of partisanship - usually about believing a specific doctrine or ideology, even if facts or evidence suggests it to be untrue.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        Good luck finding right-wing professors, Ron.

        Absolutely no shortage of right-wing academics and ideologues who would be happy to take an $80k/year stipend to tell their RAs to play PraegerU videos for an auditorium-sized classroom while they clumsily flirt with freshman co-eds in the back office.

        Once you abandon the idea of education as a real thing that colleges are actually supposed to do, its basically just a no-show job that functions as a kick-back to your cronies.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          But won’t that mean that everyone will just go to universities in other States? Isn’t the point here about a brain drain, not the complete loss of all population.

          The people with no brains to drain will stay in Florida presumably.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            But won’t that mean that everyone will just go to universities in other States?

            That depends on how you value your college degrees. If degrees represent real useful career knowledge, then sure. But if they’re just tokens handed out to a social network, then why would I leave Florida U if I know an FU degree will land me a good job in a high-paying Florida business? If I’m just working the sales desk of a construction company or doing entry level accounting on my way to completing my CPA license or Real Estate License, who cares whether U. Miami or Florida State is a diploma mill?

            The people with no brains to drain will stay in Florida presumably.

            There are plenty of very good doctors that come out of Baylor and Brigham Young University, despite both campuses being notoriously far-right. You don’t need a liberal education to learn to code. You don’t need it to update actuarial tables at a big insurance company. You don’t need it to help run a multi-billion dollar media empire.

            There is no shortage of good money in cultivating a large loyal contingent of right-wing academics, either. Certainly Milton Friedman and Karl Ichan and Charlie Munger did very well for themselves.

            And where will the drained brains even go? It isn’t as though Silicon Valley or Wall Street are lacking for far-right ideological leaders. In the end, you’re still going to end up working at Exxon or Apple or FOX Media or Goldman Sachs, no matter how liberal your politics. Moving to California won’t save you from Peter Thiel or Ben Shapiro.

            • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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              It’s not that having a right leaning political viewpoint will prevent you from learning higher skills it’s just that if businesses consider Florida to not be of high education quality then they won’t accept their diplomas.

              Sure if I can just pay some money and then lie around doing nothing and get a degree that’s great, but only if the degree is actually valid outside of Florida. Otherwise I wanted a qualification that gives me options.

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                if businesses consider Florida to not be of high education quality then they won’t accept their diplomas.

                The education that’s being targeted isn’t business school training or software development. DeSantis isn’t defunding the petroleum engineering department. This is all revolving around the liberal arts schools, effectively forcing out anyone with a history or english lit degree that doesn’t spend the weekends in white hoods.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
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        For real?

        Dude once they are desperate it’ll be the PTO warriors that become “professors”.

        • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldOP
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          Professor isn’t a title many on the right can achieve. A Education PhD, published research, and the clout in the education community play a role. The education community rarely produces any right wingers outside of the business related schools.

              • foggy@lemmy.world
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                You do not need a teaching degree to be a professor.

                Most universities are private institutions, and can employ whomever they see fit in whichever positions they seem appropriate. They have a vested interest in employing accredited individuals.

                What I am saying is Florida will run out of such individuals at which time, it will become very easy for anyone to become a college professor.

                Also, I have been a college professor, and I only have an undergrad. Not in teaching. It was my actual title.

  • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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    I’ve wondered how long we’ll go before universities across the country start refusing to accept Florida high school graduates because their coursework does not meet basic acceptance criteria. I can see the Ivy league starting first because they have a legitimate reason to want their incoming freshmen to have top-notch coursework under their belt so they can hit the ground running, and once the first domino falls I’d imagine lots of universities would rush to join the chorus. If Florida officials want their kids to learn that slavery was good and that rainbows don’t exist, then fine. They’re disqualified from attending tertiary institutions whose history and sociology instruction is predicated on those things being bullshit. It’d be no different from some crazy-ass wingnut homeschooler trying to get into Harvard after having taken classes like “Cell Biology and Jesus”, “Why God Made Calculus”, and “The Physics of Heaven” from their mom.

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      I’ve wondered how long we’ll go before universities across the country start refusing to accept Florida high school graduates because their coursework does not meet basic acceptance criteria.

      This is exactly what DeSantis and his ilk want. Conservatives are scared shitless of their kids going off to university and finding out that their parents and schools have been lying to them their whole life.

      Solution: Ensure no out-of-state schools will accept your students so they’re stuck in your shitty system forever.

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        I remember a homeschooled kid the first year of college. Their whole life was turned upside down. Couldn’t finish the year, then they enlisted. Never heard what happened after

        • deadsenator@lemmy.ca
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          Couldn’t finish the year, then they enlisted.

          Sounds like the system the right would like to institute and they’d be okay with this outcome.

    • SpamCamel@lemm.ee
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      While this would make a big statement, the real victims would be innocent teenagers. Arguably we should be doing the opposite and trying to get as many of them out of that state as possible.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        I don’t understand why the education curriculum is not set at a federal level. It’s not like 2+2 ever equals 14, no matter what state your from.

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          It might be preferable in the current political climate, but think about what might have happened if this was the case 5 years ago.

      • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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        Meh. If it doesn’t directly impact them or their families, conservatives won’t give a shit. So I say make it very real for them, and make it clear their children are learning a version of history that significantly undermines their academic and professional careers. Harvard doesn’t owe them shit, and Karen McBurnaBook won’t pay attention to a word you say until little Annie can’t get into college and has to take remedial classes at the community college to qualify for an out-of-state 4-year institution. Maybe that way Annie will be forced to stand up to her parents’ bullshit antics when they show up at the school board meeting to call everyone a pedophile.

        You want to make an omelet? Gotta break some eggs, unfortunately.

          • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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            What part of my comment makes you think I’m complaining about the ideology of children?

            • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyz
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              Why would you restrict the opportunities of children then? That fucks them over more than the parents, and speaking of which, there are also many non-conservative parents in Florida.

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                By not allowing them to receive the basic education requirements to attend college level classes their parents are the ones fucking them over, this would just be a consequence of that…

                • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyz
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                  Most of our parents don’t have anything to do with Ron DeSantis’s laws, we just live here.

              • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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                Omelet. Eggs.

                Furthermore, one of the top reasons for people to move to or away from somewhere is the quality of a school district. Families can (and do) make life-altering decisions based on where their children will get the kind of education that gives them an advantage in life. If Florida has decided it’s ok with the collateral damage to children’s future that comes with hitching their wagon to culture war issues, then I’m ok with collateral damage to show them how fucked up that is. Sucks those innocent kids have to go through this, but right now it’s either a) attend shitty FL high school and still get into college, b) attend shitty FL high school and don’t get into college, or c) don’t attend shitty FL high school. I’m not super keen on letting their kids benefit from their shittiness, but I’m also not in charge of college admissions.

                • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyz
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                  I really enjoy how everyone on this platform circlejerks about helping the poor and then advocates fucking over kids who’s parents can’t afford to leave Florida

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        While this would make a big statement, the real victims would be innocent teenagers.

        This part was true. There’s no action that we can take to save them from shit parents if they support this nonsense.

    • kite@lemmy.world
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      having taken classes like “Cell Biology and Jesus”, “Why God Made Calculus”, and “The Physics of Heaven” from their mom.

      I see you’ve met my cousin! I wish I was kidding. :(

  • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldOP
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    Florida is in for a rough time, in the next ten years will have a massive shortage of medical workers, teachers, and professionals. It will be the most uneducated state in the western hemisphere and likely a major center of criminal activity.

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      Not to worry. The real estate market will prop up their econo… wait…. Oh. Um. At least they have good tourism because of Disn…. Huh. Ummmm… they can go swimming in the FL keys! The hot tub ocean temps will feel good till you want to cool off.

    • mercano@lemmy.world
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      They’re also loosing agricultural and construction workers as DeSantis’s anti-immigration policies drives away illegal migrants who filled those positions in under-the-table jobs.

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      It will be the most uneducated state

      Alabama and Mississippi will cage-fight Florida for that trophy.

    • Cossacks@lemm.ee
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      One of my kids is a sophomore in high school (we live in FL unfortunately), she wants to be a vet but we will probably be looking to other states to send her to college. Political climate down here is ridiculous right now.

    • fubo@lemmy.world
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      Content warning: Fascism, sexual abuse.


      The people who matter to the Florida Fascists all have investments in other states and countries. They aren’t dependent on the local economy prospering; and they benefit from keeping state and local taxes low.

      They can import doctors and other skilled laborers from overseas. Then by eliminating birthright citizenship and restricting naturalization, they can ensure that those skilled laborers’ children will not become citizens. Uppity immigrants will be stuffed in a box and mailed to California.

      By destroying public education, they ensure that those skilled laborers (and everyone else) must pay far-right private schools to educate their children. Only far-right schools and teachers will be permitted to operate; all others will be prosecuted as “groomers” and/or just lynched by outraged “mothers’ groups”.

      Crime is very good for fascists; it keeps rich people scared of poor people, and thus willing to support politicized-militarized police violence, private militias, etc.


      The goal is to replicate a fascist social structure, which is a parody of a traditional conservative social structure — with the aristocracy replaced by the loyal Party elite; church replaced with Party rallies; and multigenerational family replaced with atomized nuclear families whose man-of-the-house must be tested for Party loyalty. These all stand above the racial underclass — who do the doctoring, landscaping, and cocaine importing, and who don’t get to do things like vote, question the police, or get their rape kits tested.

      Being a trad dad isn’t enough, men; if you tolerate political dissent among your children, they will be taken away from you and given to a Party-loyal abuser. Today it’s your trans kid; tomorrow it’s your teenager who’s a Greta Thunberg fan. Permitting your daughter to attend an illegal protest is proof that you’re a bad father — so you go to prison for child abuse, and she goes to the basement of some Gaetz-lookin’ dude who attends Party rallies every Sunday with his terrified wife.

  • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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    Most likely this drain of academics was an intended effect of the laws passed under DeSantis. The loss of academics hobbles institutes of higher learning while positions remain unfilled, resulting in a more ignorant populace. It also opens the possibility for far right extremists to infiltrate academia to corrupt academic thought and principles from within. The danger of ultra right wing, bigoted, nationalistic, authoritarianism continues to grow. How long before more right wing states follow suit?

      • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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        The voters may not want the economy to suffer but DeSantis and his cronies do. It’s part of the GOP playbook. Damage the economy with tax cuts and other legislation, then blame the Democrats for the bad economy. Their voters always fall for it.

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          My wife has extended family from Mississippi. They are some of the stupidest people I have ever met. They all, and I mean ALL, send their kids to private schools so they won’t have to attend alongside black kids. One of her cousins was just down visiting with us and I walked in while she was ranting about how “I know trump is blahbidyblah, but things were so much better under him… just look at the GAS PRICES screee scrawww hurr durr”. I did the ol’ Grandpa Simpson about face and checked tf out before I said something ugly and upset my wife (not that she actually agrees with her cousin or anything, I just need to be nice…)

    • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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      Conservatives have been gutting education for 40 years. Look at the educational outcomes in Republican run states. They like ignorant, meaning uneducated voters. Crippling higher education is definitely their goal.

    • cath@lemmy.world
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      Chasing left leaning people out is how they think they can fight demographic change and continue to survive at the polls.

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    A lot of people on this thread are saying the consequences of these policies is intentional.

    I don’t give them that much credit. I don’t think they fully understand the consequences of these policies. And as things go to shit, they will just blame liberals.

    And this is all really sad. There are some really nice parts of Florida, with some really nice people. Fucking sucks. Oh well.

      • drewofdoom@lemmy.world
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        It’s even more sinister than that. An uneducated populace is good for the ruling class. They have more children on average and will believe the lies more willingly.

        The Republican party has been trying to destroy the education system for decades. Not only do they not want the poors getting educated (more malleable labor), they want to privatize education (vouchers, divert more public money to private hands).

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        I’m convinced these types of arguments are from republicans trying to garner sympathy for the poor stupid people, how could they have known! See they’re really not that bad guys, they just don’t know any better!

        Such bullshit and really the most pathetic kind of excuse.

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          As someone who has lived their whole life around these people, I can assure you many of them really have drunk the kool-aid. It’s honestly all quite sad, and has cost me a number of friendships.

      • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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        They definitely wouldn’t. But if push came to a shove, I wonder if they’d really be able to stop them? I’m not really clear on the finer legal points. But I know that for the American Civil War, the south all left the federal government (which presumably would have made it easier to pass any bills regarding the south) and they also basically forced armed conflict (both by attacking first and by seizing federal bases).

        I’m not sure if a single state leaving would have the same effect, especially with how divided American politicians are. I don’t fully understand if anything actually needs to be voted on (I do know that the American Civil War didn’t formally declare war), but if anything had to be, it’s hard to picture even a single GOPer doing anything (nor enough Democrats to pass anything – never mind that in the Senate, the fillibuster means that if the GOP refuses to vote, that’s the end of things).

        So it’s a pretty big worry, in my mind. With all the shit states like Florida have done, I wouldn’t put it past them to try and secede. And no matter what, there’s no way that would end well. Either things will get a lot worse for any Floridans that aren’t cis, straight, and white, or there’ll be a war that costs a lot of lives. It’s a lose-lose for any decent person. Only fascists stand to gain and they have power in Florida.

        • bingbong@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          There is no way in hell a state would be allowed to secede as long as the federal government stands. Even ignoring the economic and geopolitical consequences, that precedent cannot be allowed to be set if the US is to remain a functioning nation.

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            Also, no Republican has won the Presidency without winning Florida since Calvin Coolidge did a hundred years ago.

            So the GOP won’t be allowing Florida to secede so long as the Electoral College exists.

          • PRUSSIA_x86@lemmy.world
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            You’re assuming they’ll do it alone and not as part of a coalition that controls large swaths of the American interior. A federation doesn’t mean shit if half the parties involved walk out.

        • El Barto@lemmy.world
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          The U.S. won’t allow Florida to secede. I think it’s by design. As in, no State is allowed to leave the United States, and if Florida fucks around, they will find out.

    • cath@lemmy.world
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      They’re not interested in secession, they want a constitutional convention to redefine the nation.

    • Temple Square@lemmy.world
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      But it’s not.

      This isn’t intentional. Florida’s politicians want an educated, wealthy population and to fight a meaningless culture war with Disney and young people (to keep Boomers happy).

      They are too dumb to see they can’t have their cake and eat it too! This will be one expensive culture war.

      Quality universities create quality employees and quality (tax paying) companies. By the end of the decade, and the region will stagnate and you’ll see a “new” Republican going full panic mode to fix the damage (while somehow blaming it on Democrats).

      In short: There is NO plan. They’re just THAT shortsighted! (Everything you see can be, once again, explained by simple Boomer overindulgence)

      • geissi@feddit.de
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        Florida’s politicians want an educated […] population

        Usually, populists want an uneducated population to increase their chances of getting re-elect