Michelle Goldberg: DeSantis Begins Hostile Takeover of Progressive Public College by Diane Ravitch

Friends and Colleagues:

Check out this very important read by Diane Ravitch about DeSantis' hostile takeover of the New College of Florida by packing right wingers like Christopher Rufo to its board. This amounts to a clear assault on academic freedom and democracy.

 Check out what the legendary March for our Lives leader, Emma Gonzalez, has to say about it. Talk about killing a great university....

In Texas, we have our own fish to fry with this very same extremism evident in HB 1006 by Rep. Tepper in the context of the 88th (2023) Texas Legislative Session. 

This "anti-diversity, equity and inclusion"—or simply, "anti-DEI" bill— is deeply concerning for the same reasons outlined here by Diane Ravitch.

Not unlike Senate Bill 3 in K-12 schools—i.e., Texas anti-CRT legislation—what's happening to the New College of Florida is anathema not just to dissent, but to the very right to it in a democracy. This amounts to a tyranny of the majority on minorities and all others who talk, think, write, and present differently.

Democracy must not die in silence. Our communities must vigorously oppose such measures. I am learning that the New College of Florida students are opposing this. Best wishes to them in their struggle against extremism.

-Angela Valenzuela

#SayNoToFascism

#HB1006

Diane Ravitch's blog Michelle Goldberg: DeSantis Begins Hostile Takeover of Progressive Public College dianeravitch Jan 10  Michelle Goldberg, a columnist for the New York Times, writes here about Governor Ron DeSantis’s bold move to crush a progressive public college in Florida by naming right wingers to its board. DeSantis boasts that Florida is the state where “woke” goes to die, so of course he must take control of this “woke” college and destroy it. He’s showing his fascistic instincts. Whatever he can’t control, whatever dissents from his hardline views must die.  She writes: New College of Florida has a reputation for being the most progressive public college in the state. X González — a survivor of the Parkland school shooting who, as Emma González, became a prominent gun control activist — recently wrote of their alma mater, “In the queer space of New College, changing your pronouns, name or presentation is a nonevent.” In The Princeton Review’s ranking of the best public colleges and universities for “making an impact” — measured by things like student engagement, community service and sustainability efforts — New College comes in third. Naturally, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida wants to demolish it, at least as it currently exists. On Friday, he announced six new appointments to New College’s 13-member board of trustees, including Chris Rufo, who orchestrated the right’s attack on critical race theory, and Matthew Spalding, a professor and dean at Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school in Michigan with close ties to Donald Trump. (A seventh member will soon be appointed by Florida’s Board of Governors, which is full of DeSantis allies.) The new majority’s plan, Rufo told me just after his appointment was announced, is to transform New College into a public version of Hillsdale. “We want to provide an alternative for conservative families in the state of Florida to say there is a public university that reflects your values,” he said. The fight over the future of New College is about more than just the fate of this small school in Sarasota. For DeSantis, it’s part of a broader quest to crush any hint of progressivism in public education, a quest he’d likely take national if he ever became president. For Rufo, a reconstructed New College would serve as a model for conservatives to copy all over the country. “If we can take this high-risk, high-reward gambit and turn it into a victory, we’re going to see conservative state legislators starting to reconquer public institutions all over the United States,” he said. Should he prevail, it will set the stage for an even broader assault on the academic freedom of every instructor whose worldview is at odds with the Republican Party. Rufo often talks about the “long march through the institutions,” a phrase coined by the German socialist Rudi Dutschke in 1967 but frequently attributed to the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. Thwarted in their hope of imminent revolution, the new left of Dutschke’s generation sought instead to bore into political and cultural institutions, working within the system to change the basic assumptions of Western society. Rufo’s trying, he said, to “steal the strategies and the principles of the Gramscian left, and then to organize a kind of counterrevolutionary response to the long march through the institutions.” This grandiose project has several parts. Rufo has been unparalleled in fanning public education culture wars, whipping up anger first against critical race theory and then against teaching on L.G.B.T.Q. issues. This year, he is turning his attention to diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and, with his colleagues at the Manhattan Institute, will soon unveil model legislation to abolish such programs at state schools. In New College, he sees a chance to create a new type of educational institution to replace those he’s trying to destroy. When we spoke, he compared his plans to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Later this month, Rufo said, he’ll travel to New College with a “landing team” of board members, lawyers, consultants and political allies. “We’re going to be conducting a top-down restructuring,” he said, with plans to “design a new core curriculum from scratch” and “encode it in a new academic master plan.” Given that Hillsdale, the template for this reimagined New College, worked closely with the Trump administration to create a “patriotic education” curriculum, this master plan will likely be heavy on American triumphalism. Rufo hopes to move fast, saying that the school’s academic departments “are going to look very different in the next 120 days.” The values of the people who are already at New College are of little concern to Rufo, who, like several other new trustees, doesn’t live in Florida. Speaking of current New College students who chose it precisely for its progressive culture, Rufo said: “We’re happy to work with them to make New College a great place to continue their education. Or we’d be happy to work with them to help them find something that suits them better.” Of course, as both leftist revolutionaries and colonialists have learned over the years, replacing one culture with another can be harder than anticipated. New College students may not go quietly. Steve Shipman, a professor of physical chemistry and president of the faculty union, points out that tenured professors are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, which makes it hard to fire them unless there’s cause. People like Rufo “are making statements to make impact,” Shipman said. “And I really don’t know how viable some of those statements are on the ground.” We’ll soon find out. “We anticipate that this is going to be a process that involves conflict,” said Rufo.

Call for Papers: National Association for Chicana/Chicano Studies: Tejas Foco Conference March 23-25 UTRGV Brownsville

Call for Papers!!!

 

 

 

National Association for Chicana/Chicano Studies: Tejas Foco Conference

 

March 23-25, 2023

University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley

Brownsville, Texas

 

Conference Theme:

“Confronting/Resisting the Colonizer Within: A History of Violence, Discrimination/Oppression and Shame”

 

 

The NACCS-Tejas Foco Conference invites scholarly/creative submissions which address internalized colonialism/oppression/racism/colorism, as well as within our Chicanx/Latinx communities. We call for a confrontation/resistance to colonialist indoctrination, such as the legacy of racism, colorism and discrimination which are maintained by settler colonialism within our own Chicanx/Latinx communities. In order to truly decolonize our communities, we must face the enemy within and embrace our indigeneity. We must begin with deconstructing the historical structures such as the Spanish caste system which continues to marginalize/subjugate BIPOC. We encourage submissions that address the following topics, and welcome proposals that address the Tejanx experience in general.

 

History and legacy of the caste system in Latinx culture

Racism/Colorism within Latinx culture  

Anti-indigeneity, Anti-blackness, Anti-immigrant narratives within the Latinx community

Colonialism, Settler colonialism, Land/water/sacred sites, land theft/dispossession, Environmental racism/justice 

Internalized colonialism/racism, intergenerational trauma, abuse/violence within the Latinx community

Reclaiming/retracing our indigeneity and African roots, Nepantla

Identity/body politics, politics of labels, politics of language indoctrination

Indigenous erasure, detribalization, imperialist policies of blood quantums

Indigenous children and boarding schools/missions

Politics of Mestizaje, myth of the Raza Cosmica, “mejorar la raza” narratives 

Mestiza consciousness, double-consciousness, subjection/agency

“Vendidos”/sell-outs, complicity of BIPOC with white male heteropatriarchal narratives of supremacy

Catholicism and colonialism, criminalization of indigenous religions and spirituality

Religion and identity/gender roles/oppression, forced Christianization/indoctrination

History of resistance, Mexican Revolution, Adelitas

LGBTQ+ and colonialism/heteropatriarchal structures/settler colonialism

Lack of Indigenous and Black representation in Latinx media and Hollywood

Indigenous rights, Immigrant rights, Afro Latinos/Indigenous rights

Racial Justice, criminal justice and social control, criminalization of BIPOC, immigration policies & rhetoric

Latinx elites and anti-indigeneity/blackness, white Latinx, white Mexicans/Whitexicans, Fresa culture, MAGA Latinx

European beauty standards and their effects on BIPOC

Transformative pedagogies, decolonial pedagogies, anti-racist education  

Empowerment and activism, teaching/empowering the youth

Intersectionality/matrix of domination, gender roles and racism/colorism, colonialism and misogyny

 

 

Deadline for CFP: January 15, 2023

Please submit proposals for panels, roundtables, and/or individual presentations to the Tejas Foco Conference Organizers: Rosalva.resendiz@utrgv.edu or Miryam.espinosadulanto@utrgv.edu.  

In your email, please include the following: 

Name & Affiliation (Independent Scholar, College/University, Agency/Organization)

Individual submission – include a 200-300 word abstract, along with key terms

Panel proposal (3 to 4 participants) – include a brief description of the panel, list the Presenters, along with the Title of their paper and a 200-word abstract for each presenter  

Roundtable proposal (3 to 4 participants) – provide a 400-500 word proposal, include a Chair for the roundtable, and the Names and Affiliations of the each of the participants

 

2023 MLK Celebration Rally and March—January 16, 2023—Austin, Texas

 Hi Friends:

Put this on your calendar! Austin's January 16 MLK Celebration.

-Angela Valenzuela

2023 MLK Celebration Rally and March

Date: Monday January 16, 2023

Time: 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM

Black Studies and the DDCE are proud to partner with the Austin Area Heritage Council to kick off the 2023 MLK Celebration Rally and March. The annual event celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy while uplifting diversity and multiculturalism in our city.

 

We’ll meet at the MLK Statue on the East Mall (23rd Street and Speedway) at 9 a.m. for a brief program. From the statue, we’ll march as a group to the State Capitol and hear from our local and state elected officials, and then we’ll proceed to Huston-Tillotson University for the annual MLK Community Celebration & Music Festival.

 

We hope you can join us!

 

For more information, please visit mlkcelebration.com.

 

Add to Calendar

The incredible shrinking future of college, by Kevin Carey in Vox

Here is a very informative recent article on the hard-cold reality of the state the higher education is in dubbed as the "enrollment cliff." Some smaller private colleges have announced plans to close. 

An obvious policy fix is to bring in the student of color demographic that has been historically under-represented in higher education. This should get coupled with addressing student debt policies and financial aid support for prospective students. This would encourage many students to enroll. Online degrees are also structuring students from brick and mortar schools. Eliminating barriers to legal immigration would help, too, including creating a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients.

We'll be hearing in higher education circles about both the enrollment cliff and "deconstruction." The latter, as defined by Shippensburg University President Charles Patterson, is as follows:

 “Presidents these days are in the business of deconstruction,” he said — not in the sense of tearing down what their forebears created, but of rethinking and reconfiguring what universities have and who they are, for leaner times."

There are, of course, regional differences with Northeastern and Midwestern colleges particularly impacted in the more immediate future. All told, the future of higher education is concerning such that expressions of local- and state-level political support by our communities must get underscored in our state legislatures nationwide.

-Angela Valenzuela

#EnrollmentCliff #highered #highereducation #deconstruction

The incredible shrinking future of college

The population of college-age Americans is about to crash. It will change higher education forever.

• By Kevin Carey 
• on November 21, 2022 7:03 am
• 
  
  Violeta Encarnacion for Vox

In 2021, Shippensburg University won the NCAA Division II Field Hockey championship, completing an undefeated season with a 3-0 victory over archrival West Chester. The “Ship” Raiders also won it all in 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2013, which I know because I saw it written in big letters on a banner festooning the fieldhouse on Ship’s campus in south-central Pennsylvania when I visited last month.

Ship was in fine form. Young men and women wearing logoed Champion sweatshirts bustled between buildings. There was a line at the coffee shop in the student union. It was the kind of bright-blue autumn day that you would see on a brochure.

There was no way to tell, from the outside, that Ship was a shrinking institution. Or that the problem is about to get a lot worse — not just here, but at colleges and universities nationwide.

In four years, the number of students graduating from high schools across the country will begin a sudden and precipitous decline, due to a rolling demographic aftershock of the Great Recession. Traumatized by uncertainty and unemployment, people decided to stop having kids during that period. But even as we climbed out of the recession, the birth rate kept dropping, and we are now starting to see the consequences on campuses everywhere. Classes will shrink, year after year, for most of the next two decades. People in the higher education industry call it “the enrollment cliff.”

Among the small number of elite colleges and research universities — think the Princetons and the Penn States — the cliff will be no big deal. These institutions have their pick of applicants and can easily keep classes full.

For everyone else, the consequences could be dire. In some places, the crisis has already begun. College enrollment began slowly receding after the millennial enrollment wave peaked in 2010, particularly in regions that were already experiencing below-average birth rates while simultaneously losing population to out-migration. Starved of students and the tuition revenue they bring, small private colleges in New England have begun to blink off the map. Regional public universities like Ship are enduring painful layoffs and consolidation.

CLASSES WILL SHRINK FOR MOST OF THE NEXT TWO DECADES

The timing is terrible. Trade policy, de-unionization, corporate consolidation, and substance abuse have already ravaged countless communities, particularly in the post-industrial Northeast and Midwest. In many cases, colleges have been one of the only places that provide good jobs in their communities, offer educational opportunities for locals, and have strong enough roots to stay planted. The enrollment cliff means they might soon dry up and blow away.

"What to expect from the 2023 Texas Legislative session," by Rhonda Fanning and Glorie Martinez in the Texas Standard

This Texas Standard article touches on what to expect from the 88th (2023) Texas legislative session. My sources tell me that it's going to be a tough one particularly considering  election results that, as we know, is an artifact of Texas' gerrymandered electoral map in a state where people of color account for 95 percent of the state's population growth between 2010 and 2020 (Li & Boland, 2021). A good read on this is from researchers Li and Boland (2021) out of the NYU Brennan Center for Justice titled, "Anatomy of the Texas Gerrymander: Here's How Texas Republicans crafted one of the most politically and racially skewed maps of this redistrictricting cycle. 

The problem is less of one that people don't vote, but rather that their votes do not count as a result of this electoral engineering. Sadly, resolving this through the courts will take years.

Accordingly, Barragán's forecast with respect to the recent election outcomes sound right.

"If, in 2020, Republicans felt like they had a mandate to go and push all the social conservative legislation that they felt the voters wanted, I don’t see how this will be any different. They’ve grown their majorities in both the House and in the Senate. So, I think we’ll probably expect to see another pretty conservative session."

A major issue for our community in K-12 education is school funding, that is, increasing the "basic allotment" so that school districts can have the resources they need to increase teacher salaries and provide greater resources to schools. 

Raise Your Hand Texas,  Texans Advocating For Meaningful Student Assessments, and other organizations will also be calling for changes to high-stakes testing and assessment policies, as well as tackling vouchers and charter school bills that compromise traditional public education. There are still the lingering infrastructural issues related, in particular, to fixing Texas' power grid, as well as lowering property taxes and border issues. None of this is exhaustive, of course, but is nevertheless a respectable starting layout.

The regular session always lasts a mere 140 days so let's buckle our seat belts and get on with it!

-Angela Valenzuela

By Rhonda Fanning and Glorie MartinezJanuary 2, 2023 4:17 pmGovernment & Politics, Texas Standard Original

What to expect from the 2023 Texas Legislative session

With only a few days before the start of the next legislative session, politics reporters Niki Griswold and James Barragán preview what’s on the agenda for state lawmakers.

 There’s just over a week left before the start of the 2023 Texas Legislative session. Property taxes, gun control and the power grid are among the top issues on the agenda for state lawmakers.

» TELL US: What do you want to see from the Texas Legislature in 2023?

To take a closer look at what to expect, the Standard was joined by political journalists Niki Griswold, state politics reporter for the Austin American-Statesman, and James Barragán, politics reporter for the Texas Tribune. Listen to the story above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:

Texas Standard: This could be a very exciting session. I’m curious how much you see this session being a contrast with the previous legislative session, which went into several overtimes. James?

James Barragán: If, in 2020, Republicans felt like they had a mandate to go and push all the social conservative legislation that they felt the voters wanted, I don’t see how this will be any different. They’ve grown their majorities in both the House and in the Senate. So, I think we’ll probably expect to see another pretty conservative session.

That was the thing about the previous legislative session. There seemed to be a lot of socially conservative hot button issues. How much do you think that this legislative session is going to differ from the previous session, Niki? 

Niki Griswold: From what I’ve seen so far. I think the so-called culture war issue that will really take center stage this legislative session is surrounding LGBTQ rights and also education —how curriculum on the topics of race and sexuality can be discussed in the classroom. 

We’ve already seen a number of bills filed to target the rights of transgender children, as well as battles in the classroom and in libraries over what books should be made available to children, with a lot of focus being on removing subject matter that validates LGBTQ identities. So, I think we’ll have to see how much of a focus that issue is this session versus the more bread and butter issues of lowering property taxes and tackling public school funding. 

The bread and butter issues may well collide with these other culture war issues. I’m thinking back to a couple of sessions in which the so-called bathroom bill emerged, and then there was a push back from corporations and businesses out of concern that it might hurt Texas economically if lawmakers were to move forward. Do you think we’re going to see anything like that emerge, Niki? 

Niki Griswold: It’s funny. Texas does pride itself on being a very business friendly state and hands off government when it comes to the economy. But we did see that fight play out a little bit during the pandemic over vaccine and mask mandates, with the governor pulling back on efforts to require mask mandates. 

We did see some businesses push back against the state’s pretty extreme abortion ban. But so far, the economy is still booming. We still have plenty of industries focusing on expanding their presence in Texas or moving here to do so. So, I don’t know how much of an empty threat it is when businesses say they will be taking their business elsewhere if Texas lawmakers pursue these really conservative policies. 

Judging by the $27 billion budget surplus, business has been pretty good in Texas. There are a lot of interests across the Lone Star State wanting a little piece of that action. How do you see that playing out, James? 

James Barragán: Yeah, it’s a $27 billion surplus. Actually, Comptroller Glenn Hegar said that it might be more. The big thing is property taxes. He wants it spent on that. The governor has said he wants half of it spent on that. But the House Speaker says, “hold on, wait a minute, maybe we should spend it on infrastructure, a one time expenditure, rather than having to use it over and over and over our property taxes.”

I expect that to be a big fight and that may lead to some horse trading on some of these socially conservative issues and the bread and butter issues that we’re talking about. 

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick outlined his legislative priorities back in December. Property tax relief is high on his agenda, as are electric grid fixes and border security. Do you think his agenda is going to line up with the governor’s and that of the House Speaker? Do we know who the House Speaker is going to be yet, James? 

James Barragán: We know who’s the current speaker, but we know that Representative Tony Tinderholt has mounted a challenge. Frankly, some people do see this as a check to see how supportive the House is of Speaker Dade Phelan. It looks like he’s got the support. The Republican caucus voted almost unanimously to support Speaker Phelan. But there are some of the more conservative legislators who say, “hey, we’ve got to go further, we’ve got to do more.”  We’ll find out on that first day of the legislative session, if Phelan gets a second session with the gavel.

Niki, do you see any link between the governor, the lieutenant governor and the incumbent Speaker Dade Phelan? Do you detect any tension or any wiggle room among those three? 

Niki Griswold: I think the biggest difference between the lieutenant governor’s priorities for this session and the governor’s priorities is just how to make that property tax relief happen. Gov. Abbott has made it very clear he wants the legislature to spend half of that budget surplus on lowering property taxes for Texas homeowners. But the lieutenant governor has pushed back on that. He’s not supportive of busting the constitutional spending cap to achieve that and is more interested in other funding and budget workarounds to make property tax relief happen. 

The House Speaker has indicated he is a little bit more interested in using that budget surplus for one time investments such as improving infrastructure in the state. That budget surplus is not a sustainable source of funding. So, if the governor were to get his way, it would be a one time only property tax relief for Texas homeowners. I think the big battle will be over those dollars and how to effectively spend that money while still achieving the big priorities, including property tax relief and border security. 

James, is there any chance we’re going to go into overtime in this legislative session like we did the last one?

James Barragán: There’s always that possibility. It’s too early to tell right now. You mentioned the electric grid and the lieutenant governor did say he wants more fixes on that. He did say during a press conference a couple of weeks ago that he doesn’t see himself going home at the end of the spring unless there have been more changes. So, there is that possibility. 

Niki, what do you think? 

Niki Griswold: The lieutenant governor has a lot of power in the state legislature. If he doesn’t feel like one of his priorities might make it across the finish line, he does have the power to hold things up and make sure that the governor can’t get his priorities passed as well. I think we’ll have to see how the dynamic between the big three looks as lawmakers start going to committee hearings. 

If you’re a Democrat in Texas, what are your expectations for the coming year? Where do you see politics headed? 

James Barragán: Well, I think it’s the same conundrum they’ve been in for two plus decades at this point. They go into this legislative session thinking, “defense, defense, defense.” How can I kill off bills that are bad for me and for my constituents? How can I do some deals, make some trades here for legislation? The reality is that Republicans hold the majority in both houses of the legislature, and that’s the way things go. 

Do you think we’re going to see this continued battle between the state leadership and leaders of some of the big cities, Niki? 

Niki Griswold: I absolutely think that is going to be top of mind. Local control versus state government control has been played out for many sessions and I anticipate the same for this session. At the end of the day, I think the Texas legislature also prides itself on allowing for more bipartisan cooperation than you might see in D.C. So, I think there is some overlap in terms of interests for both parties. I’ve heard from plenty of Democrats that they see room for cooperation when it comes to public education funding. I think Democrats are going to be focusing on the issues where they can maybe wrangle some bipartisan support and like James said, play defense on the other issues. 

If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.