By John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange College
There’s a lot of concern about an incident in Cobb County where more than 200 teachers were pulled from their classes to explain why they walked out of an administrator’s speech. Sadly, it’s not an isolated incident. From executive orders to the cancellation of faculty decision-making bodies, to the power nongovernmental organizations have through lobbies of politicians, teachers and professors are being micromanaged in a way that’s closer to authoritarian countries than fellow democracies.
Visual Capitalist maps out countries for their levels of academic freedom, or the lack of it in some places. Partnering with V-Dem via Our World in Data, they measure academic freedom by those closer to a “one” have the most academic freedom, while those closer to zero have no academic freedom. America’s score is a 0.40. What does that mean?
First of all, that score places the United States in the same company as Thailand and Bhutan. Thailand fell to 33/100 in their overall Freedom House score, rating them as “Not Free,” with a political rights score of 11/40 and a civil liberties score of 22/60. It’s an undemocratic regime. Bhutan is a monarchy, but thankfully is a constitutional monarchy that scores better on Freedom House’s measure.
The average African country has an academic freedom score of 0.48. The average Asian country has an academic freedom is 0.35. The average European country has an academic freedom score of 0.76, while Oceana is 0.83. South America and North America average 0.68 and 0.67 in academic freedom, respectively. Many European and Latin American countries have academic freedom scores double that of the United States.
Why is this the case?
My wife and I both teach in private education, so we have some more freedom than those teaching in the public schools. By virtue of being regulated by the government, those teachers are being micromanaged where every lesson seems to be under a microscope. Some parent groups are there to give the children’s parents a say, but others act like political creations to ban anything they don’t like. Faculty Senates in universities are being cancelled by politicians across the country.
Even in private education, we’ve had orders from the government that mean I can’t teach certain classes on certain topics. I can’t include certain things in my syllabus. I’ve had to rename some classes. There’s not a bias on any of these topics; I’ve had liberal and conservative students take my classes. This isn’t my college administration making me do it, but this emanates from the national government.
One time, I had a critic at a public event said “Maybe we’ll get someone to record your classes and let everyone know what you’re really teaching.” I replied “Oh would you, please? I would love to have my classes recorded so students can see them!” That shocked the critic into silence. Later, technology enabled me to record my classes for students. Some are online. I’d have more if there weren’t student privacy issues. But I teach liberals, moderates and conservatives. To be effective as a teacher, you have to be able to reach all of them. And my topics and theories and debates transcend ideology and partisanship.
If we want to have a republic, and keep it, it seems we need to make teacher and professors freer to do their jobs and serve the kids they teach, and maybe make it easier for real, well-meaning parents without a political axe to grind to learn what their kids are learning. And I love talking with the parents of the students I teach. As a parent, I certainly wanted to know what my kids were learning too! But if we treat teachers like it’s Thailand, we’ll find ourselves with a 33/100 freedom score for all Americans, even if they don’t teach.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu or on “X” at @johntures2. His first book “Branded” a thriller novel where corporate greed, media manipulation and academic intrigue collide in a deadly game of product placement, has been published by the Huntsville Independent Press (https://www.huntsvilleindependent.com/product-page/branded). His second novel, “Independent Thought,” about a third-party candidacy that brings America to its knees, is coming out later this summer with HIP (https://www.huntsvilleindependent.com/).