There is an intriguing controversy unfolding in New York that perhaps mirrors differing emerging views on how to win the intellectual-diversity campus wars.
As The New York Sun reports, the vibrant charter-school movement in the state is divided on whether proponents “should be engaging or attacking their opponents in the Legislature,” which is evaluating whether to raise the cap on the number of charter schools.
One group backs a more muscular approach in the belief (in The Sun’s words) that “lawmakers won’t act unless they are confronted with outside pressure and negative publicity. Advocates of tougher tactics have launched a statewide ad campaign that identifies by name specific lawmakers who are standing in the way of more schools.” The other faction is up in arms about the unthinkable–angering the named legislators.
Regrettably, with respect to higher-education reform, it would seem that the professoriate and those with oversight over it refuse to act to heal the academy. Thus names should be named–in the ranks above the “dangerous” professors described by David Horowitz. We need more open criticism and indeed an objective, public ranking of lawmakers, governors and trustees. Which among them is in fact committed to ensuring academic freedom for all?
And if anger follows? Bring it on