Photo credit: NAU: Northern Arizona University
Column by John Young
If you want proof that the essence of republicanism in 2023 is petty white grievances, consider this hit job at a community college in Idaho.
Look, North Idaho College: So evil that it teaches young people about diesel machines and X-rays in Kootenay County. It’s pretty diabolical in terms of offering low-cost core courses to people who didn’t hit their 4-year goal.
It’s so evil that Republicans in the Idaho Panhandle say it must be destroyed to save it.
Universities are at risk of losing accreditation during the MAGA takeover. This could result in a loss of federal funding and impair the ability of students to transfer credits.
Instructor is running away. Administrators have been tossed like rag dolls by “anti-awakening” activists elected to power.
The problem is that all of this destruction seems to border on education.
Big crime committed by North Idaho College operations following Black Lives Matter protests and killing of George Floyd, college diversity committee released statement supporting social justice efforts 2020 It happened in the year
Flaring, raging, raging, in white-hot fury, the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee leaped over its mole hills. It attempted to take control of the university governing board, which was quite feasible in a county that gave Donald Trump 70% of his vote.
Suddenly, this unnatural caldera spilled its guts on the bewildered students.
Republicans have used terms such as “deep state” to identify administrators who are incarcerated at universities.
They started firing college presidents for no reason, except perhaps his wife endorsed Hillary Clinton.
Students interviewed by The New York Times expressed their dismay at the events that had befallen their school.
The Times report states, educationThis seems to be another example of what Ron DeSantis sees as modern leadership. “Owning a library,” and what Donald Trump stands for in his own mind, tells the Conservative Political Action Committee, “I am your retribution.”
Ask students at New College of Florida, an innovative and particularly progressive university in Sarasota, why DeSantis hijacked it, and understand that they are just pawns in a power play.
What DeSantis and other Republicans condemn and target, such as the amorphous specter of “critical race theory,” is what is really happening in our classrooms and what children and college students experience. It has nothing to do with your life.
This is Kabuki theater for a small segment of American society who, like DeSantis, wants nothing more than to thrash liberals and vent their displeasure in a world of difference. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg calls this “threat inflation.” This is a desperate grab for a straw by privileged people who need a reason to get out of bed.
The biggest problem with education is not “awakening” doctrine. It is the homogenization of learning and standardization that has become a de facto religion among many policy makers. It’s a destructive power play in itself.
Targeting schools over tangential issues is reminiscent of the Brookings Institution study of school coverage in the news media. We found that the overwhelming majority of news articles had nothing to do with actual learning, but were about sports, school violence, uproar over things like dress codes and religion.
As such, the MAGA warriors built a war against the Phantoms behind the walls of the school.
Charles Blow wrote in The New York Times that DeSantis and Trump were champions of a class of attractive individuals who “wanted victim privilege.”
They are indulging in “the gluttony and narcissism of the citizens who must corner the market of privilege,” he writes.
At the expense of students who just want to learn.
John Young, a newspaper reporter living in Colorado. Please email jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
