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Those professors and teachers are employees of the government. Like it or not, that puts them under the same umbrella as police officers, fire fighters, and ot

Those professors and teachers are employees of the government. Like it or not, that puts them under the same umbrella as police officers, fire fighters, and others. Government employees are very much restricted in what they can say and do when they are on the clock.

ausbah 4y ago
no it doesn't, technically sure but universities are suppose to be free from controlled speech like this. see why tenure and academic freedom exist
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Academic freedom is not a legal concept, and unfortunately the law trumps the ideals in this case. However, academic freedom isn't exactly unlimited: a tenured physics professor who doesn't teach a class on physics, publish a paper on physics, or advise a student for 10 years will likely be fired at most institutions (unless they have a nobel prize or something). Professors working at state schools have additional limits on their academic freedom. This is why you don't tend to see theology departments at state schools. Also, in practice, you could reasonably argue that there generally isn't much academic freedom in most fields, since most research is grant-funded, and that is controlled by (usually) governments.
fallingfrog 4y ago
Amazing how quickly people will pivot to "actually, it's ok to censor campus professors" as soon as the censored ideas are ones they don't like.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  It's amazing how quickly people will pivot to "censorship of professors" when they are talking about laws that control the curriculum of elementary schools. I don't dislike professors or teachers at state schools, but I understand that they work in an institution that effectively does not offer academic freedom. If you are a professor, you can work at any other institution in the country, other than the 50-100 or so that are run by states, and you will have all the academic freedom you want. If this country goes to a major war, a large number of those professors are likely going to be told to work on something war-related, because they are agents of the state. If you are a teacher, who was actually targeted by the education control bills in FL, you arguably don't have enough training to have really have earned academic freedom. Until about 5 minutes ago, nobody argued that they did have academic freedom. Curricula are there for a reason.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > the 50-100 or so that are run by states FWIW, I think you're off by an order of magnitude, more or less.

ausbah 4y ago

no it doesn't, technically sure but universities are suppose to be free from controlled speech like this. see why tenure and academic freedom exist

pclmulqdq 4y ago
Academic freedom is not a legal concept, and unfortunately the law trumps the ideals in this case. However, academic freedom isn't exactly unlimited: a tenured physics professor who doesn't teach a class on physics, publish a paper on physics, or advise a student for 10 years will likely be fired at most institutions (unless they have a nobel prize or something). Professors working at state schools have additional limits on their academic freedom. This is why you don't tend to see theology departments at state schools. Also, in practice, you could reasonably argue that there generally isn't much academic freedom in most fields, since most research is grant-funded, and that is controlled by (usually) governments.

fallingfrog 4y ago

Amazing how quickly people will pivot to "actually, it's ok to censor campus professors" as soon as the censored ideas are ones they don't like.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
It's amazing how quickly people will pivot to "censorship of professors" when they are talking about laws that control the curriculum of elementary schools. I don't dislike professors or teachers at state schools, but I understand that they work in an institution that effectively does not offer academic freedom. If you are a professor, you can work at any other institution in the country, other than the 50-100 or so that are run by states, and you will have all the academic freedom you want. If this country goes to a major war, a large number of those professors are likely going to be told to work on something war-related, because they are agents of the state. If you are a teacher, who was actually targeted by the education control bills in FL, you arguably don't have enough training to have really have earned academic freedom. Until about 5 minutes ago, nobody argued that they did have academic freedom. Curricula are there for a reason.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > the 50-100 or so that are run by states FWIW, I think you're off by an order of magnitude, more or less.