culture war

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/1/2021
  

  When Culture War Politics Consume School Boards, Basic Functions Suffer

  "there is a striking disconnect between the crises that have consumed school board meetings for well more than a year and the emergencies that teachers, nurses, custodians, secretaries and other staff members say they are facing when they show up at school each morning."

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  11/30/3021
  

  ‘It Just Felt Wrong’: U. of Florida Faculty Say Political Fears Stalled an Initiative on Race

  Faculty in the College of Education contend that University of Florida administrators are holding up the establishment of a concentration for doctoral students in the study of race and ethnicity in education, due to political pressure. 

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• SOURCE: Tampa Bay Times
  11/30/2021
  

  A UF Professor Used "Critical" and "Race" in a Sentence. Trouble Ensued

  Education Professor Chris Busey contends that he has been barred from stating his academic specialization, which is approved by his college, in his faculty profile. Is a political attack on critical race theory responsible? 

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• SOURCE: HuffPost
  11/30/2021
  

  Black Voices Excluded from Critical Race Theory Debates in Virginia

  “The parents who are outraged right now and spreading this misinformation about teaching critical race theory ... why were they not concerned about [slavery] being taught as if it was a game?”

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/30/2021
  

  The History of the "Anti-White" Victim Mantra of White Supremacy

  by Ibram X. Kendi

  '"Anti-racism is anti-white' is the old and explosive mantra of avowed white supremacists. It has been their organizing vehicle, fueling their rage, fueling their backlashes, fueling their delusions."

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• SOURCE: Times Higher Education
  11/25/2021
  

  David Olusoga: Support Historians in Culture War Crosshairs

  “These new history wars have the warped logic of a witch trial; their aim is to convince people that they are being oppressed by the irrefutable facts of their own national histories, such as slavery in America, or the British Empire,” University of Manchester historian David Olusoga said.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/30/2021
  

  Conservatives Today Carry on Buckley's Legacy of Being Mad at Higher Ed – But Not His Motivation

  William F. Buckley warned in 1951 that Yale professors were too heterodox. Today's academic culture warriors are worried that faculty are inculcating an orthodoxy other than their own, argues Virginia Heffernan.

• 
• SOURCE: Politico
  11/29/2021
  

  Biden Doesn't Need a "Sister Souljah" Moment

  by Seth Masket

  The evidence that the Democrats can win White voters by signalling disapproval of Black protesters is slim; why do strategists keep insisting on distancing themselves from a core constituency?

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/23/2021
  

  The Conservative War on Education that Failed

  by Adam Laats

  "A full century ago, the most effective school-ban campaign in American history set the pattern: noise, fury, rancor, and fear, but not much change in what schools actually teach."

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• SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
  11/15/2021
  

  The Hate They Censor: Burying Lessons of History

  The editor of the Mississippi Free Press compares today's national wave of book banning to the efforts to control information that established the "Lost Cause" narrative in early 20th century Mississippi. 

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• SOURCE: TIME
  11/16/2021
  

  ‘We’re Preparing For a Long Battle.’ Librarians Grapple With Conservatives’ Latest Efforts to Ban Books

  by Olivia B. Waxman

  “We’re seeing an unprecedented volume of challenges,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Executive Director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “I’ve worked for ALA for 20 years, and I can’t recall a time when we had multiple challenges coming in on a daily basis.”

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  11/16/2021
  

  “Critical Race Theory” Is White History

  by Kali Holloway

  "The history of Black folks in America—through slavery, Black codes, lynchings, redlining, voter disenfranchisement, Jim Crow, racial pogroms, illegal medical experimentation, extrajudicial and state-led theft of Black land, anti-Black policing, racist mass incarceration—is white American history, too."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/10/2021
  

  Poll: 4 in 10 Republicans Want Less Teaching About History of Racism

  Even discounting the current media buzz about "Critical Race Theory," new polling data show that there is a sharp partisan divide about teaching the history of racism in American schools. 

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  11/5/2021
  

  When Politicians Like JD Vance Call Professors Like Me the Enemy, What's Really Going On?

  by Benjamin Carter Hett

  It's no longer politically expedient to attack minorities or immigrants; professors make a great substitute because their work is often a mystery to the public and they don't have the power to fight back. 

• 
• SOURCE: PEN America
  11/9/2021
  

  Academic Gag Orders

  The PEN Foundation provides an overview of state laws regulating the content of school curriculum and concludes that they "not only pose a risk to the U.S. education system but also threaten to silence vital societal discourse on racism and sexism."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/9/2021
  

  NYT Magazine's Silverstein: 1619 Is Part of Long Battle over Telling the Nation's Story

  by Jake Silverstein

  The continuing debate over the 1619 project shows that what we call "history" is inseparable from the process of historiography, which has never been free of bitter conflict and disagreement.

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  11/8/2021
  

  Some Antiracist Organizational Trainings are Reductive and Dumb; Liberals Should Draw Lines to Protect their Priorities

  If liberals don't aggressively separate the goals of revising history curricula and improving teacher training from the pop-social science of the growing industry of social equity consultation, conservatives will aggressively lump them together, says New York Magazine writer Eric Levitz.

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  11/8/2021
  

  Who's Afraid of Higher Education?

  The splashy launch of the University of Austin concept echoes the establishment a half-century ago of evangelical conservative colleges; despite the claim to value free speech, the institutions seek to avoid intellectual turbulence and conflict.

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• SOURCE: Dallas Morning News
  11/8/2021
  

  Will Texas Legislature Repeat 1962 Hearings on What Schoolkids Read?

  Texas’ House Textbook Investigating Committee held hearings across the state in 1962, which were suddenly halted after they became so rancorous and the lawmakers received threats.

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• SOURCE: Richmond Times-Dispatch
  10/26/2021
  

  Generations after Keeping Black Students out of School, Will Virginia Exclude Black History?

  Richmond-based opinion columnist Michael Williams connects the battles to preserve segregation to today's controversies over how racism is taught in Virginia schools, and argues politicians have cynically exploited both.