Meanwhile, perhaps emboldened by what Trump is doing, the red states are going much further. They are attempting to destroy higher education as we know it. This assault on higher education is another indication of the radicalism of today’s Republican Party. What’s even more alarming is that most of these education moves in red states are happening without any involvement from Trump or his aides. The fascist Republicans aren’t just the ones in the White House.
Republicans have long been wary of universities and particularly professors. Ronald Reagan rose in California politics, more than five decades ago, in part by casting the University of California at Berkeley as a hotbed for radicalism. But conservatives had mostly left universities alone. The 2020 George Floyd protests were a turning point. Young people in the streets across the country declaring that America still has a racism problem resulted in a slew of red-state restrictions on the teaching of race and LGBT issues in both K-12 and college education.
Now it’s getting even worse. Governors and state legislators in red states have gradually stacked universities’ boards and administrations with their appointees, many of whom are ex-Republican politicos with little experience in higher education. These appointees are carrying out a similar playbook across the South, Great Plains, and Mountain West. African American studies and other racial and ethnic programs, women’s and gender studies, and sociology departments, in particular, are being cut or downsized. Faculty are being forced to post their syllabi online or otherwise make them public, to make it easier for conservative activists to blast universities for assigning books that Republicans disagree with. Schools are allowing and at times encouraging students to record lectures, so that faculty can be shamed and potentially fired if they say something perceived as too liberal. University administrators are increasingly reviewing what professors plan to teach in their courses and blocking some lessons.
