The New York Post, Inside Higher Education, and the New York Observer have covered my struggle at Brooklyn College concerning the dean's refusal to provide funding for ideas I had that do not fit the college's socialist ideology. It saddens me that institutions of higher learning cannot tolerate a diversity of ideas and opinions. Since I have arrived in higher education, I have been repeatedly attacked because of my free-market views.
One thing that the articles did not make clear is that all of the ideas that the dean turned down were my own. There were no "strings attached" to anything, and the foundation did not encourage me to pursue anything. Rather, the dean refused to allow me to get funding for my ideas because the faculty will not tolerate them.
Talk about academic freedom as a reason to refuse funding from the Charles G. Koch Foundation and other freedom-oriented foundations is pretext. The faculty of Brooklyn College have squashed my academic freedom to pursue ideas that interest me. That the bigots do so in the name of academic freedom is telling. Just as their fellow totalitarians inspired George Orwell's image of Newspeak in 1984, so do universities claim that their suppression of libertarians' academic freedom is in the name of academic freedom.
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2 comments:
Why not work in a private college if you dislike "socialism" so much? CUNY, NYPD, FDNY, Sanitation, etc. are all socialist arrangements (though there has been much privatization, driving up costs for CUNY students, but I'm sure that is not something you are gonna discuss).
When socialists gain power, one of the chief means by which they control opposition is by denying jobs to people who oppose their policies. CUNY has essentially socialized higher education in New York City, where I lived from 1996 through 2009. According to its website:
The City University of New York provides high-quality, accessible education for more than 269,000 degree-credit students and 247,000 adult, continuing and professional education students at 24 campuses across New York City.
Given that public education in New York City is in large part socialized,you argue this: "New York is a socialist state, and socialists control most of the jobs, but since you oppose socialism, you cannot work in the ideologically socialist university."
Socialism is inherently suppressive, dictatorial, and totalitarian because government institutions like CUNY do not tolerate dissidents. The best dissidents, like myself, can do is protest, which I have done at cost to my career.
Public education has totalitarian implications, as do other public services. Because of the socialist monopoly, it is difficult to find alternative jobs.
Also, private universities receive significant public money, so they are not a free alternative.
Admittedly, my choice to work in education was a step into socialism. I add that when I worked in the corporate sector, several of the private firms with which I worked also depended on government regulation or government contracts. Because America is largely a socialist country, more socialist than Sweden was in the 1960s, when the Swedish system was successful, it is difficult to work in a free occupation.
Another point is that once an academic gets tenure, it is difficult or impossible to attain an equivalent job elsewhere. I have a few years to go until retirement, and I do not plan on extending my work life at CUNY. That in itself is a byproduct of CUNY's suppressive nature.
I agree with your assessment of state services.
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