(C) Ohio Capital Journal
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A moronic, shameful low: Attacks on freedom of thought and expression in Ohio and American education • Ohio Capital Journal [1]
['David Dewitt', 'Tom Hodson', 'Marilou Johanek', 'More From Author', 'March', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2025-03-21
A nation abandoning academic freedom, policing freedom of thought in the classroom, persecuting freedom of expression on campus, dismantling education, ripping down its own pillars of scientific and medical research, this is a nation in the wild-eyed throes of moronic and shameful madness.
We may as well be prosecuting Galileo for saying the earth revolves around the sun, or sentencing Socrates to drink the hemlock for “corrupting the youth.”
That’s about the ignominy of the moment.
Ohio and U.S. Republicans are attempting to impose some kind of bizzaro, reverse-Enlightenment, right-wing fantasy where insane crank nonsense shall be put on equal level of serious academic inquiry, and will never be subjected to mockery, scorn, and ridicule ever, ever again. We promise. Scout’s honor.
A political movement defined by its hostility toward expertise, knowledge, and education — and bulk rejection of empathy and empirical reality — is using the full force and power of state and federal government to harass and attempt to demoralize people of learning and institutions of education.
I don’t know how much history you’ve read, but that’s a pretty bad sign.
Here is what millions of Americans have been conditioned to believe:
That America’s colleges and universities, Hollywood, public schools and teachers, journalists, labor unions, librarians, TV networks, civil servants, and “coastal elites” are all part of a “Democrat” plot to destroy all that is good and decent about America; to take down Trump for standing up to them; to indoctrinate children in the schools; to import illegal immigrants into the country and have them vote illegally to steal elections; to use reverse racism to divide the country and give “others” hand-outs while victimizing “real Americans” and stealing the country from them; and to take away everyone’s guns so they can’t resist.
In other words, based on these fantastical ideas pushed into their heads relentlessly by right-wing propaganda and echo chambers, they view half the country as their mortal enemies.
They believe “the woke left” has some raging desire to actively destroy the country.
That’s the regurgitative slop trough out of which the entire right-wing media propaganda system gorges itself.
But when it comes to tangible large-scale weaponization, it can’t escape our notice that where the left used “cancel culture” — the soft power of social pressure and influence — the right is now pushing to extremes the hard power of Cancel-By-The-Force-of-Law.
This is a wildly dangerous escalation that spits in the face of the First Amendment, forget the howlingly obvious hypocrisy.
The left, for whatever its failures and faults, does not want to “destroy America.” I mean, touch grass, get a freaking grip.
What’s nearer to the truth is that the vast majority of the left wants to once again grow the middle class like we were when we were putting the middle class first instead of the rich; to protect human and civil rights; to live more sustainably with less pollution; to alleviate rampant and systemic inequalities that have kept many families of all kinds across America stuck in endless cycles of generational poverty, injustice and deprivation; and for the reactionary right to stop using the power of government to try to control and victimize others.
Fat chance.
As Vice President J.D. Vance forewarned back in 2022, “I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left. And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program. … I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'”
Vance there is approvingly alluding to President Andrew Jackson threatening the U.S. Supreme Court and driving the Cherokee nation on the Trail of Tears, resulting in the deaths of between 13,000 and 17,000 men, women, and children.
Is that a controversial subject? President Jackson tacitly murdering thousands of Cherokee people and insulting America’s system of checks and balances?
I ask because under Ohio’s new higher education overhaul bill, controversial subjects are a no-go.
Or does the most notorious case of a president putting his middle finger in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court stand as perhaps relevant knowledge?
Especially during our own era in history where the current president is issuing unhinged all-caps impeachment threats to judges?
Especially when his vice president has said explicitly that ignoring the courts — a co-equal branch of government — would be his sage advice to the president?
Never mind that both of these men swore on the Bible to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.
Would discussing in the classroom the factual and historical reality of Jackson’s cruel actions be too emotionally distressing for the precious fee-fees of right-wing reactionaries who’d be more comfortable not thinking about it?
Shall we create a new state law to protect their soggy feelings?
Shall we make law allowing these tender minds to persecute professors for bringing it up? To threaten their teachers’ professions, livelihoods, and lifetimes of career achievements?
Because little Landon couldn’t handle being told about America’s obvious and screamingly racist past, much less thousands of years of worldwide patriarchy?
Shall we provision them with legal weapons to cudgel their professors whenever they feel uncomfortable with classroom discussions?
As Trump threatens economic destruction — like a mafioso — for any university that doesn’t conform to his regime’s demands, Ohio Republicans stomp forward with their own assault on higher learning.
Ohio Senate Bill 1 has been passed by the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House and now waits just one more formal vote from the Senate before being sent to Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature.
The bill bans faculty strikes, bans diversity and inclusion efforts, and sets rules around classroom discussion of topics involving “controversial beliefs,” such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion.
The old cover-your-eyes and plug-your-ears approach to human knowledge. Charming. Lovely.
I imagine aspiring meteorologists in Ohio are stoked about how their professors won’t be allowed to discuss the Earth’s changing climate.
I’m sure political science professors are thrilled that electoral politics are off the table.
Time to 86 all those foreign policy discussions in the international relations courses. That should create an all star line-up of future diplomats.
I can’t imagine marriage and divorce are very relevant topics for law students. And we all know that no medical school should ever acknowledge that abortion is or ever has been a medical procedure.
What on Earth would happen to our intrepid college students if they were forced to confront the fact that we live in a world and a nation of people from diverse cultures and backgrounds?
I mean what kind of catastrophe would befall us if students learned America is a nation of immigrants?
And, oh my me, what if anybody suggests that everyone should be included? Inclusion?!? The Horror!
The skies will turn to fire and blood will pour down on all of humanity. Forbid it.
While a handful of Ohio lawmakers were absent Wednesday, the 58-34 vote in the House indicates Republican lawmakers might not have the numbers to overturn Gov. DeWine’s veto, should he choose to protect both his legacy and the treasured history of academic freedom at Ohio’s colleges and universities.
I won’t be expecting a veto though, because I always expect the worst.
There’s nothing new under the sun, and persecution of the educated is sadly nothing new in human history.
Even the playbook they’re using — fear, legal and financial threats, paranoia, chaos, confusion, manufactured self-censorship and chilling of speech, all of that is so hack and played, through millennia.
It’s so Boring.
Tired, worn-out. Aren’t we all over this yet as a species? How many more hundreds of years can we keep recycling these same stupid games?
Anyway above all, it’s dumb. It’s really, really dumb, and shows they have learned nothing from history.
Because the most obvious conclusion from all of the many previous attempts is that you can’t successfully use force and coercion to try to place shackles on the human mind.
It has never worked. It will never work.
The human mind is so much stronger and more beautiful and resilient than that. It will always eventually Break Free.
Suppressing knowledge and policing discussion does not make the ignorant more correct about anything, and it does not convince the knowledgeable, or make the knowledgeable suddenly incorrect about anything.
And it does not furnish any permanent state of affairs.
No matter the movement or era, human beings will always find and share the banned book; they will pursue the forbidden knowledge; they will spread it and it will grow to mythical proportions because its suppression only heightens its power. Time will pass, the pendulum will swing, this all too will fall away and transform into something new.
So one can rejoice in one’s own stupidity and ignorance and live happily and care-free, if one likes, but no one can forcibly thrust their stupidity and ignorance on anybody else.
It just doesn’t work like that.
Ideas are not scary, and controversial topics don’t require Big Brother government rules and regulations policing academic discussion.
The worst and most shameful periods of human history have been when knowledge was attacked during ages of mindless mass hysteria.
The brightest shining moments have been when we have used our knowledge and natural state of social cooperation on incredible, awe-inspiring accomplishments from the pyramids to germ theory to space flight.
With media fractured and fragmented, America is looking at itself in a digitized shattered mirror of reality, one broken and disjointed piece at a time.
So it’s no wonder that many seem incapable of distinguishing knowledge from lies, propaganda, sophism, hyperbole, scapegoating.
The truth is, most of what I know, I didn’t learn during my formal education, because the facts and theories and equations themselves are not the core value of formal education.
The deep and lasting value of formal education is that you learn how to learn, and how to be a lifelong learner: To fill your mental tool-shelf with everything you could possibly need to take on any job.
Quality education doesn’t tell you what to think or try to control what is discussed in the classroom, it arms your intellect by training you how to think well, to inquire honestly, to be able to view things from others’ perspectives, to face hard truths and build strength of mind on a foundation of brick, not straw: On real, hard-fought, acquired knowledge, not whims and instincts, presumptions and generalizations. To use the Socratic method on your own thoughts and beliefs.
That’s the strength. That’s the power.
It demands freedom. Freedom is its lifeblood. Freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, inside the classroom and out. Freedom for all.
To try to rob that from students — from faculty who have dedicated their lives not to fame or fortune but to the pursuit of knowledge for the good of humanity — is a wicked thing to do.
It will be remembered as such, as another low, as another terrible, shameful moment in the history of America and humanity. And its perpetrators stain themselves and their own names for all time.
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