Republicans push "Academic Right Wing Freedom" at the UW, criticizing Trump class discussion of his failures!!!

Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans pushed and passed legal protections for academic freedom at the UW. Academic freedom is nothing more than a protection racket that is meant to intimidate professors and defended right wing ideas and their guest speakers.

For instance:

It all sounded innocent enough:

Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, leveled criticism in a letter to UW-Madison professor Kenneth Mayer, who is teaching “The American Presidency” this semester.

The syllabus’ first page includes a two-line paragraph saying Trump supporters “rejoice in his contempt for what they insist is a corrupt D.C. establishment.” It then includes an 11-line paragraph that begins: “To others, he is a spectacularly unqualified and catastrophically unfit egomaniac who poses an overt threat to the Republic.”

Wait a minute, since when does Prof. Ken Mayer have the freedom to present a few negative facts and opinions held my a majority of Americans about Trump. Trump has been the best president in history, ever, right?

Mayer also included a few other facts and questions that when said out loud sound really bad:

Despite all the positive things Trump has done; like loosen pollution standards; push coal; take health care away; ban Muslims; separate kids from parents with no way to identify and reunite them; and economically destroy government workers lives with a government shutdown, Rep. Murphy could only focus on Mayer's plans to discuss Trump's negatives...

Murphy said, referring to an 1894 Board of Regents statement on academic freedom enshrined in bronze outside Bascom Hall, “If the course description already tells basically what the bias is going to be in the course, it’s pretty hard to sift and winnow that,” .

Fierce Advocate of Academic Freedom, GOP Rep. Dave Murphy...Criticizes Freedom? What fascinated me most about this story was Murphy's specific criticisms. Notice the contradictory statements and loony tunes logic, "sparking a dialogue" with a UW professor about what is "appropriate?" 

Murphy, who wrote in his letter that he is a fierce advocate of academic freedom, said his intention is to spark a dialogue on what is, and is not, appropriate for a course syllabus. 

…and throw in a little "stop by my office" intimidation:

He issued Mayer an invitation to his office and encouraged the professor to show some good faith and invite a Trump administration official to speak with students.

Rep. Dave "Academic Freedom" Murphy has encouraged similar freedoms before:

In late 2016, Murphy asked UW-Madison to cancel a course titled “The Problem of Whiteness” because he said it was inappropriate and a waste of money. School officials defended the course. Two years later it is still listed as a course offered in the spring 2019 semester.

Again, this is what Republicans view as "academic freedom:" Here's part of Murphy' letter to Mayer:

I especially like Murphy's suggestion to students to drop his class:

It is unfortunate that students who enrolled in your course expecting to learn about the overall American presidency may now have to choose between dropping the course and taking a course that is a bait and switch, focused instead on a critique of the Trump presidency. 

Mr. Politician and Academic Freedom advocate Murphy then suggested a better way to teach, heck, even waiting decades before passing judgment on Trump:

It may have been more appropriate to design a new course with a more accurate title and permit another less biased instructor to teach sections of Political Science 408. Although utilizing current event examples in learning is clearly valuable, the level of focus on the current presidency in a course designed to survey the American presidency seems wholly misguided. For example, teaching this course with such a lens during the Watergate scandal, without any of the historical record and perspective, would have provided students with an incomplete and academically unsound account of the Nixon presidency and its relationship to the function of the office of the president. This lack of perspective is a slap in the face to the sort of academic rigor that should be a central focus at an institution such as UW–Madison.

Watching Oppressive Republicans dismantling free speech and freedom of the Press!!!

End of the First Amendment; Free Speech and Freedom of the Press: This says it all about what the Republicans Party has become.  

"Republican Greg Gianforte declared victory in Montana's special congressional election, barely a day after he was charged with misdemeanor assault following accusations that he (body) slammed a journalist to the ground. Gianforte: “It's unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ" ... it's another example of a candidate being rewarded by voters for behaving badly. So what's the incentive for good behavior?

Security Protection for the Press? Why not? Have you heard what Trump has said about them?

Meanwhile Trump racks up Security Costs:

Congress would allocate more than $120 million in additional money to help cover the escalating costs of protecting the Trump family and Trump Tower.

Shoot the Democratic Enemies of the State: And woe to anyone who disagrees with the Republicans authority; protests will not be tolerated, resistance is futile:

A Texas Republican threatened to “put a bullet in one of his colleague’s heads” during a scuffle on the House floor over the state’s new anti-‘sanctuary cities’ law. Representative Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, made the comment to Democratic Representative Poncho Nevárez during a dispute that began when Rinaldi told two Hispanic lawmakers that he called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Senate Bill 4 protesters at the Capitol.

“I made it clear that if he attempted to, in his words, ‘get me,’ I would shoot him in self defense,” Rinaldi said. “I would shoot him in self defense. I am currently under DPS protection.” 

"Populist" Right Wing Authoritarians now need Protection from the Public? This isn't a new idea. Scott Walker played up "threats" (even created a few) during the massive protest in 2011, resulting in the elimination of open public forums. He now appears at closed corporate speaking engagements with captive employees:

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that in 2013 taxpayers spent $2.23 million for the 10 state troopers who protect Walker and his family, GOP Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, and dignitaries from other states and countries who visit Wisconsin … up from $657,457 paid out by Walker’s predecessor, Democrat Jim Doyle during his last year in office in 2010. Walker’s security bill inched higher in 2014, to $2.3 million. A large part of the increase came because Walker had added five members to what is officially known as the Dignitary Protection Unit in the wake of the Act 10 protests. 

Security Protection for Right Wing Authoritarian Campus Speakers: The rise of white supremacist groups, gun rights militias, and anti-liberal Republicans are now getting the speaking time they've demanded for years, thanks to a Walker Republican bill to threaten severe punishment for University of Wisconsin campus student protests. Their work since the 60's might just pay off this time around:

A Republican campus speech bill requires University of Wisconsin System institutions to punish students who take part in disruptive protests … requiring universities to expel any student who violates the policy three times … students who engage in “violent or other disorderly conduct that materially and substantially disrupts the free expression of others.”

Outright admission that conservatives deserve extra protections: Despite dominating government, our talk radio outlets, and churning out large numbers of conservative college students:

Republican members argued that their ideas are under fire on college campuses from left-leaning students and faculty, saying the legislation was needed to preserve open debate at UW institutions and protect the free speech rights of controversial speakers. Rep. Joan Ballweg, R-Markesan, said the bill would ensure “there is no idea or issue that will be shouted down in a public forum.”

It would chill free speech on campus and infringe on regents’ authority to govern their institutions themselves. “The very bones of this legislation are diseased,” said Democratic Rep. Jimmy Anderson.

“Don’t you see a concern about two left-wing or two right-wing students raising an issue with perceived activity by students attending an event?” Rep. Gary Hebl said. “Don’t you see the floodgates opening?” Republican Rep. Jesse Kremer asked Hebl if he had a better idea. Hebl responded that he couldn’t see any way to make the bill better.

Republican Rep. Travis Tranel told the committee he had heard from college students in his district that they’re afraid to express conservative views in class for fear the professor could dock their grades. Hebl and fellow Democrat Terese Bereceau both cut him off, challenging him to prove his anecdote was true. Hebl accused Tranel of making things up without any evidence, comparing him to Joe McCarthy.

Even Unconstitutional Repressive Laws can't be Criticized: If Republicans decided tomorrow to shred the Constitution and arrest every known liberal, UW system professors would be banned under penalty of law to say anything:

It also states that System institutions must “strive to remain neutral” on public policy controversies. 

Conservative groups could organize and systematically eliminate their opposition with ease:

Another amendment requires universities to launch an investigation and hold discipline hearings if they get two or more complaints alleging someone violated the policy.

Cities Next: Portland Republican says party should use militia groups after racial attack: 

The top Republican in the city said he is considering using militia groups as security for public events. James Buchal said: “Yeah. We’re thinking about that. Because there are now belligerent, unstable people who are convinced that Republicans are like Nazis.”

The Oath Keepers are described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “one of the largest radical antigovernment groups in the US,” recruiting current and former military and law enforcement personnel. They have recently appeared at rallies from Berkeley to Boston. The Three Percenters are described by Political Research Associates as “a paramilitary group that pledges armed resistance against attempts to restrict private gun ownership.” They were a highly visible presence in Burns, Oregon, before and during the occupation of the Malheur wildlife refuge by rightwing militia early in 2016.

James Buchal issued a statement in which he bemoaned a “criminal conspiracy to commit crimes of riot” ... lament(ing) “rising lawlessness” in Portland ... a video of Buchal addressing a Multnomah County Republican Central Committee meeting depicts Buchal making a fiery pro-Trump speech. He says of the President, “His enemies are my enemies and his enemies are all our enemies. Our enemies are more dangerous than ever. We are really in a life and death battle for the future of our society. And these globalist people are not going to give up. If we don’t tell out fellow citizens that there are these dark forces in the government, like the CIA and the shadow government, who are trying to take Trump down with lies, who is going to tell them?” 

Spencer Sunshine, an associate researcher at Political Research Associates who last year co-authored a major report on the growth of the far-right Patriot Movement in Oregon, said: “Consideration of the use of unaccountable, private paramilitary groups by one of the main political parties is a dangerous lurch to the far right.”

Right-Wing Campus Group creates "Professor Watchlist!!!" Now that's Academic Freedom.

While a new wave of white supremacist groups are infiltrating our college campuses...: 

White supremacists have held minor campaigns on college campuses in the past, but an unprecedented amount of hate-group propaganda and a rebranding of white supremacy as “alt-right” have been especially geared to recruit and provoke college students in recent months. A recent report by the Anti-Defamation League cited at least 107 incidents of white-supremacist propaganda on college campuses since September, at least 65 of which have occurred since January. Posters with messages like “Make America white again” and “Imagine a Muslim-free America” have been found in high-traffic areas on campuses in 25 states.

...at the same time Republican legislators are using academic freedom to clamp down on real academic freedom. The timing isn't a coincidence:

Conservative critics have opened a new chapter of their long-running complaints about institutions such as UW-Madison ... It could also foreshadow new legislation that seeks to change what many Republicans see as a lack of “intellectual diversity” on college campuses, by pushing institutions to invite more conservative speakers and hire more right-leaning faculty.
Speaker Robin Vos, (R), who last year called for UW institutions to invite more conservative speakers, has indicated that he wants to see the System’s funding tied to the variety of voices on campus...

In December he and Rep. David Murphy, (R), criticized a course on white identity and racism titled “The Problem of Whiteness.” Sen. Steve Nass, (R), told his colleagues that a program in which students discuss masculinity amounted to the university declaring a “war on men.”

Which begs the question...

Donald Moynihan, director of UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs said, “Would you start looking at people’s voting registrations, or who they had donated money to? The degree to which this would be government intrusiveness on people’s lives would be mind-boggling.”

...which has now been answered by right wing Brownshirt's... 

Turning Point USA has put together a list of academics that they say discriminate against conservative students and use their lectures to push their left-wing propaganda. But what about the first amendment?

Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk laughed at, even scoffed at the idea that this is somehow "Hitlerian," but historically....

The practice of Hitlerian authorities removing professors for any but scholastic reasons … Still others left because they would not subject their conscience to the dictates of the National Socialist ideologies as preached by the govern­ment. 

A professor at the University of Rostock demanded from the German government, which controlled all univer­sities, that he be given a clear guarantee that the government leave unimpaired his freedom to seek and teach the truth. Despite his prominence in his field, he was ousted from his position.

Walker tells nation, academic freedom and public education must end.

Scott Walker made it very clear about his plans for public education. The title of his opinion piece, in the Des Moines Register, was "We changed broken education system." It wasn't for the good, but yes, he changed it.

K-12: Walker injected private sector principles into what we decided long ago would be "public."
There was a reason we took the profit motive out of it. But that's over. Teachers can now focus on their paychecks, and not concern themselves with their community or commodified kids. There's always someone who'll pay them more, right? 

Walker wrote about all the choices parents will have from the growing number of competing businesses offering an education that's out-of-this-world...or so says the advertising brochure. Remember, parents know this stuff instinctively, and will make the right choices. We trust them, and they like it when we say that. But if they're not happy, they can always send a nasty letter to the schools CEO, via their public relations department:  

Walker: "I believe that every child deserves access to a great education — be it at a traditional public, charter, choice, private, virtual or home school environment. We need leaders who value quality choices and who trust parents to put the interests of their children first."

UW: The same is true of our great public university. Thank god Walker took care of that, before he focused all his attention the presidency. Check out the following article about Scott Walker's irrational attack on the UW system by Forbes' contributor Steve Salsberg:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's Dual Attacks on The University of Wisconsin: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker really doesn’t like professors. He seems to have a special grudge against the University of Wisconsin, against which he has launched a two-pronged attack this year.

It’s rare for a governor to attack the flagship university in his own state. Governors usually do just the opposite, promoting their universities to the rest of the world whenever the opportunity arises. Thus it’s surprising–startling, really–to observe how Scott Walker is waging a war on academic freedom in his home state of Wisconsin. Let’s look at what he’s doing, and then ask why.

First, back in January he proposed an enormous $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin’s budget, at a time when other state universities are finally recovering from the recession. Now he’s proposing to get rid of academic tenure, not only threatening faculty jobs but also destroying academic freedom for professors at the University of Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin faculty responded that this new policy, if implemented, will inflict lasting damage on a highly successful institution….It would be difficult to overstate how destructive and unnecessary the [legislature's] proposed changes to tenure and shared governance are.

Perhaps the reason behind Walker’s dislike of academia is that he thinks that professors are too liberal. If true, this is deeply disturbing: it means he wants to stifle speech that he disagrees with. This kind of repression of scholarship is one of the most important reasons for tenure in the first place. One doesn’t have to look far–hello, Vladimir Putin?–to find examples of how powerful politicians can suppress speech, to the detriment of their societies.

As UC Irvine’s Mark Levine wrote this week, none of academia’s core functions could occur without tenure and the assurance of academic freedom it enables.

The leaders of a national university governing board association (agreed), pointing out that under Walker’s proposed new policy, “decisions about a tenured faculty member’s service could be based less on performance and institutional finances and more on the political or personal views of board members.”

Governor Walker’s actions make even less sense when viewed from outside the state, where the University of Wisconsin is considered one of the nation’s top public universities (currently ranked 13th among public schools).

Walker is sending a message that professors at Wisconsin should sit down and shut up. It’s disturbing that Wisconsin’s governor is using his power not only to weaken one of the state’s biggest assets, but also to attack the free expression of ideas. I can’t come up with any explanation for his actions that doesn’t appear vindictive and short-sighted. This isn’t the kind of behavior I want in any politician, and certainly not in someone who wants to be the most powerful politician in the nation.

Sen. Steve Nass already challenging academic freedom, calls for Professor's termination.

Before the ink is dry and the new rules on tenure are signed into law, Republican State Sen. Steve Nass was already asking the UW to fire a professor he did not agree with, accusing him of "partisan garbage research" and "hiding behind academic freedom."

Really, "hiding" behind academic freedom. Outrageous, what scoundrel. Tenure was in place to protect against this exact thing, ironically proving the point opponents made about the GOP changes back in March:

Tenure by definition offers protection for academic freedom, grounded in a conviction that creating knowledge and expressing ideas should be free from intimidation or retaliation. Under policy currently in state law, tenured professors can only be dismissed for just cause or a campus wide financial emergency.

Nass' iron fisted control over academic research is only the beginning:

State Sen. Steve Nass blasted a UW-Madison economics professor in a scathing email ... calling the academic's report on right-to-work legislation and economic performance "partisan, garbage research."

The email, sent to Senate and Assembly Republicans and UW System officials with the subject line "UW-Madison Professor Steven Deller Uses State Resources to Trash Right to Work," cites a two-page fact sheet written by a Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics faculty member.

"Attached is yet another example of wasted resources at the UW-Madison/UW Extension to issue a trumped up report from a partisan academic against Right to Work. Hiding behind academic freedom to issue partisan, garbage research is what we have come to expect from some of the overworked and stressed faculty at UW-Madison.

I will certainly forward this email on to UW System President Ray Cross and UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank, as just one suggestion of a faculty member with time to teach more courses. Or maybe not!"

Nass has been the enemy of public education for years:

Nass, an outspoken UW System critic who chairs the Senate Committee on Labor and Government Reform, took issue with Deller's findings, the way they were presented and released to the public, says his chief of staff, Mike Mikalsen.

"Steve is frustrated with what we see as a faculty member abusing their position within the UW System to issue, frankly, just pure garbage research," Mikalsen says. "This piece clearly takes a side or a position."

Yes, research and facts eventually took a side...funny how that works:

Deller, who works with the UW Extension's Center for Community and Economic Development, says he wrote the report about a month ago with the intention of providing individuals with an overview of the controversial anti-union legislation. "I tried to make it as objective as possible," says Deller. The report summarizes the common arguments for and against right-to-work legislation, acknowledging that there is "little agreement within the literature that has attempted to empirically document the impact of [right-to-work] laws."

Does this sound like a partisan researchers to you?

Deller says the cooperation between UW System academics and government officials is a two-way street: Researchers shouldn't use the university as a "bully pulpit" to promote a political ideology, but lawmakers "shouldn't shoot the messenger."

"We try to provide information and ideas and let citizens make a decision," Deller says. "If we filtered everything that came out of the university based on whether or not it's going to pass through some political lens, then why are we here?"

Ever more proof this guy is pretty impartial:

Deller, coincidentally, says he declined to join a union when he taught at the University of Maine, opting instead to donate the dues he would have paid to a general scholarship fund that the university used to support low-income students. The donation option was the alternative the University of Maine offered to address the issue of "free riders," or employees who benefit from union contracts without paying for membership. "I think you could set up the same thing in Wisconsin," Deller says.

Using income, poverty and unemployment data from states with and without the anti-union legislation and comparing them using a statistical test to identify significant differences, Deller found that "right-to-work states tend to have lower manufacturing wages and overall income levels, higher poverty rates and lower education levels."

Mikalsen also questioned whether Deller, who has a doctorate in agricultural economics and a master's in economics, was even qualified to present findings on the topic of right-to-work.