This reminds me of the article "Catechism Class at British Universities" about similar policies in the UK, and that title neatly sums up how, while this confli

This reminds me of the article "Catechism Class at British Universities" about similar policies in the UK, and that title neatly sums up how, while this conflict is being presented as about politics, it is really about religion. People in earlier eras wouldn't have all been surprised by the requirement for all teaching and research to happen within a particular moral framework, whose tenets were not drawn from rational study or considered open to debate, but simply held as self-evidently correct. They wouldn't be surprised about lecturers or students having to attend prayers or recite scripture. And all societies undergo periodic revivalism, where there is a constriction of what is considered ethically acceptable behaviour, enforced through a mixture of social ostracism and state and institutional coercion. The fact that the current revivalist movement is a secular religion instead of a spiritual one is a minor difference. Otherwise, it's little different from equivalent Victorian campaigns against immoral behaviour. It just feels unusual because we've been through such a long period of liberalisation and religious decline and perhaps fooled ourselves into thinking it was a permanent state of affairs.