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Evidently a planned requirement to teach the Constitution is so triggering that 637 UNC (University of North Carolina) professors signed a letter in protest. Our “academic freedom” is at stake!
“It’s just absurd, it’s frankly absurd,” Jay Smith, a tenured Chapel Hill history professor, said of that bill. “It is a blatant violation of academic freedom and a blatant show of disrespect for the expertise of faculty at UNC schools.”
“Demanding that American history be taught this way, one way, and that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts be eliminated or dropped—these are two pieces to the same puzzle,” he said. “It’s a culture war that’s being waged, and universities are, unfortunately, caught up in the middle of it.”
Smith, who is also president of the North Carolina Conference of the American Association of University Professors, was the co-author of a letter that has now been signed by nearly 700 Chapel Hill faculty and of another letter on his AAUP chapter’s behalf.
No, this is not a joke. UNC professors got their shorts all in a wad because of some of them would be required to actually TEACH the Constitution!
The first piece of legislation, House Bill 96, would require students to take a 3 credit-hour course covering America’s founding and history. Required reading for the course would include the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, at least five essays from the Federalist Papers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Gettysburg Address.
The professors argue the legislation “violates core principles of academic freedom” and “substitutes ideological force-feeding for the intellectual expertise of faculty.”
Isn’t it fabulous that the Constitution grants these professors the right to speak their minds and show us all that they HATE the Constitution, don’t care for Martin Luther King, and by golly that Gettysburg Address along with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is totally problematic!
Instead they’d rather go their own way and teach courses such as:
Sex and American History
Native American History
The Social History of Popular Music
Global Food History
20th-Century China
And additional courses that include history of music, the French Revolution, Russian history and more. Yes, there are five courses offered that include American revolution to 1865, 1864 to Present, slavery, and others. But none in the catalog are specific to examining our Constitution and key documents that are integral to the foundation of this Republic.
Evidently legislation mandating the creation of, and teaching a course specific to those hugely important documents is “alarming,” and a “threat.”
In 2022, the national American Association of University Professors did a thorough investigation of the problems of shared governance, academic freedom, and institutional racism at UNC since 2010, concluding that UNC needs leadership that “respects faculty expertise, that observes widely accepted principles of academic governance, that protects academic inquiry from political pressures and constraints, and that is willing to do more than simply pay lip service to the idea of equity.”
Instead of heeding this warning, our leaders continue to disregard campus autonomy, attack the expertise and independence of world-class faculty, and seek to force students’ educations into pre-approved ideological containers. We must protect the principles of academic freedom and shared governance which have long made UNC a leader in public education.
How DARE you make us teach and discuss the great documents and writings that are the backbone of this nation! WE, the UNC professors, know much better than any of you what should and shouldn’t be taught.
By their reaction, the named documents above including the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution aren’t worthy of scrutiny, thought, and discussion in a university setting!
Which means any aspiring law student must find his or her Constitutional information elsewhere. Oh but wait! There’s a solution!
Kinda agree with the professors here. Leave mandatory history and civics courses in High Schools. Adults at colleges should have the freedom to pursue their own educational goals without the State dictating course requirements.
— Matthew Larson (@tommybomb45) April 27, 2023
Matthew has evidently been living under a rock all these years. History and specifically Colonial history that includes our nation’s Founding has been phased out of public schools for a very long time. My daughter’s high school only required two semesters of history. Neither of which included the Declaration, Constitution or any of the documents named above! Hers wasn’t and isn’t the only school either.
Furthermore, there are far too many schools now who are using the 1619 Project excrement as their history guide. Does anyone REALLY think that the Federalist Papers or the Constitution made it into that bovine excrement of curriculum? I think not.
"By not knowing the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration, by not knowing the birth tale of America, we cheat ourselves tremendously, and we change the values that are so important and so unique to us." Richard Dreyfusshttps://t.co/n2reuxaejF
— Mr Producer (@RichSementa) April 30, 2023
Absolutely! If we do not learn from and understand the very tenets of this Republic’s founding, then all else is wasted.
We are seeing more and more how our young people have NO understanding of what free speech actually means, hence their shouting down of Judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford. Everything is a right these days. Except there aren’t. Only those rights specified in the Constitution give us the foundations of freedom. No one is being taught that these days and evidently for the professors at UNC, it’s so triggering that they refuse to teach it.
They're afraid if you read it, if you understand, you will demand it; such is the allure of freedom and the liberty of mankind.#NorthCarolina @unc https://t.co/ZX3B9VISvR
— Bex (@BexStreams) April 26, 2023
Ignoring a very real part of American history because “Muh academic freedom!” is doing a huge disservice to the students and endangers this Republic.
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Feature Photo Credit: Constitution with American flag, via iStock, cropped and modified
Scott says: Bex there nails it. If these kids read and understood those documents, they wouldn’t as susceptible to communist propaganda being served up by these same professors, nor as willing to surrender their rights to the government.
These professors oppose such laws because it will interfere with them destroying the nation.. It’s amazing to me that these communist professors manage to ignore the fact that in EVERY country where communism has taken over, the academics are among the first lined up against a a wall and shot, or sent to the gulags.. They are the definition of what Stalin referred to as useful idiots..
michael oglesbee says: spot on scott was speaking about that today to the guy next door.
smythic says: I agree that kids should be taught these important documents, but I see a potential for backfire. The professors could easily say anything they want while teaching the constitution, etc. “it’s outdated, unnecessary, doesn’t deal with the oh-so-modern problems of hate speech, racism.” Or “I t’s a white supremacist document.” The legislation should address k-12, where the instruction would be more appropriate and more useful.
Note to Faculty:
1. You have earned our disrespect
2. You are EMPLOYEES and should be fired
3. We the taxpayers are tired of paying your salaries as you tear down this Nation
4. I and others will work hard to eliminate tenure at state funded schools
Fred Gregory says: As an undergraduate at UNC Chapel Hill I took a political science course entitled ” The Us Constitution “. The course was taught by Professor Billy Jenkins
GWB says: It’s a culture war that’s being waged
Well, yes. It’s a war to retain the culture that built this country (and all of Western Civilization, to be honest). But, in the immortal words of the Boomer poet Billy Joel, “We didn’t start the fire.”
and universities are, unfortunately, caught up in the middle of it
And you’re complaining because that’s where you chose for the battlefield. You just thought that after the 60s Cultural Revolution you wouldn’t have to fight over the same battlefields again. Sorry, but your enemy (me, and all thinking individuals) has a vote. You haven’t managed to obtain that much totalitarian power, yet.
It is a blatant violation of academic freedom
Only in the progressive twisting of that concept – which essentially means “Anything I want to teach as a progressive, I should be able to; but nobody else can require anything if it defies the gods of Progressivism.”
“Academic freedom” as conceived in the 60s was never more than another way to get the Progressive camel’s nose under the tent. Just as the cries for “freedom!” in the 60s were merely about throwing off the pretense of Christian morals to enable hedonism, so “academic freedom” was merely about throwing off the shackles of critical thinking in order to enable Marxism.
a letter that has now been signed by nearly 700 Chapel Hill faculty
Well, that was very nice of them to single out those who should be immediately fired. If only.
“substitutes ideological force-feeding for the intellectual expertise of faculty.”
Bullshit. It substitutes reality for the ideological force-feeding of Progressive religion. Part of that religion is “deconstructing” history so it’s not an objective fact.
the Constitution grants these professors the right to speak their minds
Not in this, it doesn’t. A very clear limit on speech occurs when you are speaking for an employer. They can bullshit all they want about this “freedom” they have, but it’s non-existent when speaking for an employer. And, as teachers OF THE STATE INSTITUTION they are very much speaking for their employers, who have the right to tell them to shut up and teach what they’re told or go elsewhere.
I hear Evergreen is hirin… oh, wait, no they’re not. Heh.
respects faculty expertise
Did you stand up against the misuse of science to abuse the citizens of North Carolina during the Covid Scare? No? You went along with mask mandates, “vaccine” mandates, and shutdowns (including primary schools)? Then you can take your “expertise” and shove it up your fundament, sideways.
that is willing to do more than simply pay lip service to the idea of equity
AHA! There it is! You knew the communism would come out eventually! They fear what a single course of truth and reality might do to their hold on the malleable minds of students. They can’t have facts introduced into the equation – somebody might disbelieve! Heresy!
seek to force students’ educations into pre-approved ideological containers
There’s that Progressive lie, again, that they aren’t a religion. Sorry, bub, but that’s exactly what you’re doing there!
without the State dictating course requirements
Ummmm, it’s a STATE school. It has a vested interest in teaching certain things – hence why they fund it. Among those are good citizenship.
There’s an easy solution to this problem: stop taking state funds. See how easy that was?
They’re afraid if you read it, if you understand, you will demand it; such is the allure of freedom and the liberty of mankind.
QFT.
But, of course, these folks do not WANT the America the Founders envisioned. They want a Progressive Heaven on Earth, and they’ll kill minds and hearts to get it.
Wayne says: OK so we will add UNC grads to the no fly list, er no hire list, because they are morons
Wfjag says: The rights and protections established by the Constitution, including the 1st Amendment are why the Professors have academic freedom. Otherwise, they would be subject to removal, harassment, public shaming and imprisonment as happened to Chinese professors during the Cultural Revolution.
Unfortunately, in HS and the media do not teach the Constitution, but instead seek to indoctrinate based on the latest woke fad du four. Thus, it is important that all students be educated in this area – even if it means teaching students that they have a right to form their own opinions and Professors have no monopoly to dictate which opinions are acceptable. This last point is what really seems to be the crux of the objection.
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