Arizona Senate Projects Free Speech

Conservatives cannot be discriminated against on university campus

You may have heard the news yesterday that the Florida universities have ended DEI. It seems obvious that any system that classifies humans by race and then treats them differently on that basis is the very definition of racism. We ended “separate but equal treatment” in education with the Brown v Board of Education decision. But it has continued in secular universities and has been a means of discriminating against conservatives. The mental gymnastics that a liberal secular profession must accomplish to make sense of claiming racism is wrong while advancing different treatment of races is funny to watch but it also has terrible real world affects on people’s lives. Such a professor believes they must be right because they are “just trying to help.” But we all know that good intentions are used to pave the road to hell.

Here in Arizona, we also have some good news. Arizona Senator Anthony Kern is championing several bills that will protect free speech and prevent the misuse of university resources for radical leftist agendas. As state employees, university professors are not to use state resources to promote their own political agenda. One way they do this is by using biased class content only to teach their own political opinion and call alternative views “bigoted.” A new bill will require that all syllabi be made public so that students, parents, and everyone else can see what is being taught in the classroom. I welcome it.

I have already heard fear-mongering by professors about how this will threaten our academic freedom. It does nothing of the kind. Professors are free to follow their research where it leads and to teach the content in the classes for which they were hired. But at ASU, our bylaws already prohibit using the classroom or ASU resources for personal political opinions. Becaue this is not being enforced the Arizona State Legislature now is involved. This often happens. When someone does not live by their own rules, another oversight body will need to step in and make sure those rules, already agreed upon, are enforced. We also saw this happen with ASU’s honors college and FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression).

Parents, students, donors, legislators, pastors, we need to continue speaking up. It is not right that our state universities have been used to advance radical leftist ideologies and discriminate against conservative voices. These state universities should be a place for people of all political perspectives to debate and hear the best presentation of the other side.