From Greg Lukianoff and FIRE. They include,
Yes, K-12 education is expected to impart some amount of “moral education” to students, far more than is expected in higher education. As former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger described it, “schools must teach by example the shared values of a civilized social order.” However, if we are educating a generation to live as citizens in a free society, we must not teach them that those in authority are allowed to — let alone encouraged to — tell citizens what political beliefs they must hold, endorse, or profess.
Pointer from commenters. There is much more at the link.
This engages in a lot of “wokeness is religion” or “wokeness is ideology”. And then attempts to say that people should have freedom of religion of conscious.
The problem is that while we regard wokeism as fundamentally untethered from empirical reality, the woke regard it as “The Science!”. Disagreeing with woke is like disagreeing with the laws of physics. You wouldn’t let a school teacher say that gravity doesn’t exist.
Given what I watched people do over the last year in the name of Science that wasn’t actually Science…this is going to be an uphill battle.
Once start moving beyond whether K-12 CRT/DEI/anti-racism programs are just another form of neoracism, which they are in most cases, there are still (at least) three other issues to explore:
1) efficacy – what is the track record of CRT/DEI/anti-racism programs? Are they effective in their purported purpose of eliminating racism, micro aggressions, bullying, etc. vs. some other alternative? What do the empirical data say?
2) due process – for those accused of racism, micro aggressions or bullying, what does due process look like? What burden of proof is required and what do the penalties look like? And, how long before such findings in a student’s discipline history file are expunged, particularly since we are primarily dealing with school age children (i.e. minors)?
3) off-campus freedom of speech – quite a few of the purported incidents have occurred off-campus during non-school hours. What freedom of speech rights exist for students even if such off-campus speech is vile or offensive? How does the Morse vs. Frederick (aka “bong hits 4 Jesus”) precedent fit into this? Any pending cases on the SCOTUS docket that might impact this?
4) Also, don’t forget about the new DEI bureaucracy. They will need to justify their existence somehow.
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“At the University of California, Berkeley, for example, the number of diversity bureaucrats has grown to 175 or so, even as state funding to the university has been cut. Diversity officials promote the hiring of ethnic minorities and women, launch campaigns to promote dialogue, and write strategic plans on increasing equity and inclusion on campus. Many issue guidance on avoiding sexist language, unacceptable lyrics and inappropriate clothing and hairstyles. Some are paid lavishly: the University of Michigan’s diversity chief is reported to earn $385,000 a year.“
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/05/08/the-rise-of-universities-diversity-bureaucrats
https://twitter.com/brentawilliams2/status/1393556447963795462?s=21
https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/UMDiversity.jpg?x91208
Hey, it’s only $10.6 million per annum or roughly $225 per student.
My lived experience tells me that the benefits of such overhead far outweigh the costs.
And, once bundled with the rest of the tuition and fees, there won’t be any issues in financing it with student debt and taxpayer funding. Let’s do this!
Re 2) above. Anonymous reporting of purported micro aggressions. What does due process look like? What could possibly go wrong?
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The parents, who are part of a recently formed political action committee called “Fight for Schools,” say the form “asks students to anonymously cancel each other” in an effort to root out racism.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/24/loudoun-county-virginia-schools-bias-reporting-for/
Re 3) above on off-campus speech
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The Supreme Court is due to consider the issue in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. while high school students were punished for off-campus activities.
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/05/30/duck-hunt-university-of-oregon-announces-policy-on-monitoring-student-social-media-and-off-campus-statements/
Lukianoff wants to oppose woke ideology with the older purely individualistic liberalism out of which it evolved. It’s not going to work. People need something to believe in more than just “do your own thing whatever it is;” they want to participate in shared values and a shared way of life. They want to be part of both the little platoons (Burke) and the larger nation. This is why identity politics has had such purchase, but it is poison because it tries to build political solidarity on scapegoating of the white race. Perhaps the only thing that has a chance of replacing it is a sort of national conservatism, in which all can identify. This was the interesting thing about the last administration; they were trying to build a trans-identity working class national patriotic identity, and succeeded to some extent. That is why there was such obsessive malevolence on the part of our tyrannical elites and those who identify with them.
The time to resist wokeism in education was when it was confined to a small corner of the education world almost a generation ago. The teachers themselves have already been through the leftist seminaries and many of them emerged as true believers. Unless they are disenchanted en masse, they will continue to make it prominent part of their curriculums, and plenty of students educated in public schools will grow up accepting it as true.
As Arnold has suggested elsewhere, exit may be preferable to voice. Don’t send your children to public schools under any circumstances. Do your research and be sure your alternative private solution isn’t woke as well. Always vote down public education levies. Vote for state and federal politicians who promise to cut education budgets.
Greg, these principles are too grounded in traditional liberal values, and several of them are too hard for most people (including me) to grasp at first or even second reading. What’s more, they fail the Maya Angelou test: they fail to leave people feeling the way you want them to feel – both because they leave people feeling talked down to, and because they give people very little to join hands and cheer for.
Separately, what I understand from the Woke movement is that it holds that treating people differently on the basis of their skin color or gender or sexual orientation is not (inherently) wrong. Thus, arguments based on the idea that it is wrong will fail. Granted, this might imply that it was never wrong, but I think many of the Woke might argue that it happened, and that after decades of trying to argue that it’s wrong it is still happening, so that “fighting back” is the only effective response.
Taking another pass at Greg’s principles – which often contain good insights, I’d note some relatively easy pushbacks:
1. “No compelled speech, thought or belief” – Schools are established explicitly to teach students what to believe. They are then passed or failed based on whether they can repeat back (i.e., say) those things.
2. “Respect for individuality, dissent, and the sanctity of conscience” – Again, schools are established explicitly to do the opposite, in many cases. As with #1, there is insight here but the statement is too sweeping. Lukianoff says that only near-universal values should be inculcated by schools, but I think there are places in America who could say the public school system was doing something other than that when it was pushing the old-style liberal value system in the face of traditional human values of in-group loyalty, out-group hostility, inherited or gender-assigned social status/role, and so forth.
3. “Teachers & administrators must demonstrate epistemic humility” – Epistemic humility? I think this means teachers & administrators must acknowledge that they may be mistaken in their beliefs. Again, schools are established explicitly to communicate what society believes, on present evidence. Teachers are going to be a lot less effective at doing this if they preface everything with “as far as we know” and end with “but that may be wrong”. Often, we have a pretty good idea of what is very close to being true, and those kinds of qualifiers would do a disservice if they communicate that teachers really have no clue. Also… epistemic humility?
4. “Foster the broadest possible curiosity, critical thinking skills, and discomfort with certainty” – No argument there. I think the Woke would say that’s exactly what they’re doing, though.
5. “Foster independence, not moral dependency” – I think this means “teach children to settle their own differences, rather than turning to authority figures for a ruling.” This is not even close to a universally agreed principle. One could argue that the transition from violent “honor cultures” to much more peaceful “rule of law cultures” lies in going the exact opposite direction.
6. “Do not teach children to think in cognitive distortions” – Okay, so… cognitive distortions. I think this means “do not teach children to think in ways that will make them unhappy”. While this is sensible, the pushback is obvious: if the children aren’t a little unhappy they will not seek change. And they need to be trained to see bad stuff when it is so universal that they tend to take it for granted.
7. “Do not teach the ‘three great untruths'” – “You say they’re untrue. Every culture’s fairy tales (including Hollywood) say they are how the world ought to be. They may have been untrue because the world was a mean and vicious place, but we’re trying to build a better place now.”
8. “Take student mental health more seriously” – “Sure, safe spaces may make students less resilient, but they also remove the need for resilience. Saying we should confront students’ emotional vulnerabilities rather than protect them is like saying we should let disease run rampant to strengthen people’s immune systems: better to avoid the disease.”
9. “Resist the temptation to reduce complex students to limiting labels” – I think this means “Avoid prejudice” but maybe I’m reducing a complex idea with a limiting label 🙂 Here, I think the Woke can say it’s a strawman because of course they know that each student is unique, but that demographics do matter and they could argue that their approach is as valid – and no more morally offensive – than that of the marketer who offers discounts to seniors, for example.
10. “If If it’s broke, fix it. Be willing to form new institutions that empower students and educate them with principles of free, diverse, and pluralistic society.” – I think the Woke would say that’s exactly what they’re doing. They have a radical new idea: if intra-group battles are part of being human, and trying to pretend otherwise is to assume the existence of “gods” (a classic attack on socialism, after all), if it’s just human nature, you don’t fight against it – instead, you organize society around it. Is this a good idea? Time will undoubtedly tell.
I think that going back to the time of Plato (or maybe Homer), the best rebuttals to calls for “justice” have always included an insistence and a very high valuation on excellence (and competition).