We can’t ignore conservative dictates, like those from Michele Morrow | Opinion
A student of mine was recently so upset, he nearly skipped class. He thought it a bad idea I was allowing a debate about whether the LBGTQ+ movement has been a net negative or positive.
He thought it could potentially dehumanize a vulnerable community. He told me this calmly but passionately. But he also knew the standard I had set. Students could choose any topic to grapple with during an ethical debate and deliberation process, with rare exceptions. I would not allow, for instance, a debate about whether it was OK to genocide a people – or demonize anyone. There are lines to be drawn even on college campuses. Our job is to enlighten and challenge, not belittle and degrade.
After expressing his concerns, he took his seat, listened to his classmates debate, participated in the question-and-answer session, then showed up in the next class as one of the debaters on the utility of affirmative action.
Despite his discomfort, even anger, he engaged. I didn’t for a second expect anything less of him. I’ve seen him demonstrate time and again that thirst for knowledge and a skillset that would equip him to better discern truth on tough and complex topics. I’ve seen many students do it, not only at Davidson College, where I teach, but at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C. where I taught journalism, and at Duke University, American University and Nevada, among other institutions, where I’ve spoken with students and faculty about the importance of free expression to a healthy educational environment.
That’s why it angers me when laws are passed suggesting students can’t handle or shouldn’t be exposed to uncomfortable subjects. It’s why the claim that educators are using indoctrination techniques to eliminate racism couldn’t be further from the truth.
The biggest threat to an admittedly-flawed educational system — but one that has helped create the most prosperous nation on Earth — isn’t the students. It’s those who are using the rhetoric of “free expression” and “ideological diversity” while using legal and other formal structures to impose their wants upon those who hold a different worldview.
Their false allegations about supposed indoctrination are making it harder for parents, educators and voters to fully grasp the dangers of anti-tenure laws, like the one recently passed in Indiana, laws that try to restrict the true teaching of our history, like that in South Carolina, and extremists who are trying to take over the educational system in North Carolina.
While we were being distracted, Republican Party voters in North Carolina nominated Michele Morrow to run the state’s public school system. In the past, she has publicly called for the execution of former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden, said public schools are indoctrination centers, and shared anti-Islamic comments and the claim tens of thousands of Chinese troops were ready to invade the U.S. to help Biden become president.
If she wins in November, she will oversee an $11 billion budget. Her views are not harmless. They are the kind that led to thousands of Americans attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And she shared conspiracy theories like the one that convinced a Salisbury man, Edgar Welch, to drive to Washington, D.C. in 2016 with an AR-15 rifle to rescue children supposedly being held for sex trafficking by Democrats in the basement of a pizza parlor that had no basement. Welch served four years in prison after shooting inside that restaurant while finding none of the imaginary sex-trafficked children he had become convinced were there. It’s why Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is “unlikely” to support Morrow during the general election.
That’s why we can’t afford to let these groups distract us any longer. They don’t simply want to debate or have input in the educational system. They want to dictate their preferences upon us all. And those dictates aren’t just discomforting. They are dangerous.
Issac Bailey is a Carolinas opinion writer for McClatchy.
