Idaho’s Boise State has canceled 52 diversity classes in a blatant endeavor to curb the teaching of important topics and interests for its students. It’s an attempt to rein in “social justice” courses by a state government that feels threatened by the education of its students about vital topics that affect our world and community today. And if anything, it’s going to set back students more than it’s going to help them.
Lawmakers tried to paint this move as part of a budget cut that would help universities and the state as a whole. But it’s clear, from the particular classes chosen, that this is a form of censorshipdisguised as “support” for local universities. Courses that were cut included a University Foundations course that challenged students “to inquire into key ethical ideas and values together, giving equal voice to all who are committed to the public good.”
Additionally, the course included several section topics that include “moral problems, moral courage, censorship, the ethics of food, folklore, deviance, and human rights.” An estimated thirteen hundred students were enrolled and will be affected by the university’s decision. And apparently, the decision came after allegations that a white student was being humiliated in such courses for “their beliefs and values.” Per Inside Higher Ed:
So why are lawmakers going full steam ahead on canceling these courses? Because they want to “send the message” that they do have a say in what is taught in Idaho. It isn’t about tuition increases, as 27 Idaho lawmakers would like you to believe. Or how Florida now wants it to be under their petition to increase tuition bills for “woke” majors according to Campus Reform. It’s about serving up a defeat to left-leaning ideologies that they see as a threat to Idaho.One faculty member, who quickly deleted his comments, wrote on Twitter that he’d been told a student “taped a Zoom discussion on white privilege, in which apparently a white student was made to feel uncomfortable, and sent video to ID state legislature, who are ‘enraged.’ BSU suspended all UF 200 classes mid semester as a result.”
These moves are upsetting, infuriating, and they set a dangerous standard for other states to follow. We’re a mixture of vibrant communities and “social justice programming and critical race theory” is a manner of teaching our country that our differences make us stronger, but also that this nation was founded on systemic racism that persists today. It isn’t about erasing anybody or setting people ahead of others as Idaho lawmakers would like you to believe. It’s about adopting more open forms of communication grounded in an understanding of our differences. America is sorely in need of education in this respect.
Idaho is also taking it a step further by including budget cuts from state universities using “appropriated funds” to “support social justice ideology student activities, clubs, events, and organizations on campus.” According to The Fire, withholding such funds from student organizations based on their viewpoints is in contradiction to precedents set by the Supreme Court of the United States. As it should be.
This further points to concerns that the cutting of the classes and the budget cuts are due to “content, not conduct.” This is consistent with the Idaho Freedom Foundations’ call to suspend classes that they say reflect the “systemic problem” of “propagandizing and indoctrinating of students in a false and pernicious idealogy.” They describe social justice as “toxic.” According to The Fire, the suspension of these courses and these funds are “not an effort to remediate harassing conduct, but the effectuation of censorship in response to legislative and public pressure.”
Boise State students have the right to be free from harassing conduct in the classes they attend. But there is no right, and there shouldn’t be, for lawmakers to eliminate the teaching of different views or material that some people imagine is “toxic.” Further limiting students from even having clubs and events that address matters of social justice is outrageous. And the legislative and public pressure being put on the university is unfair to students who are here to learn and staff members who are here to educate them on different views, lives, ideologies, or just ways of thinking.
