Bill Black: They’re Back: The Poltergeists in the Kansas Senate Renew their Attack on Education

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posed from New Economic Perspectives

Two Kansas legislative leaders who have been attacking Kansas education for over a decade through their wars on teaching about sex and evolution are back.  Their threats drove the Regents’ policy destroying academic freedom and tenure.

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I have written two prior columns (here and here) explaining how the Kansas Regents casually ended academic freedom and tenure in their universities with no notice to or participation by the faculty.

My columns explained how the Regents’ policy was deliberately drafted to chill academic freedom.  The policy is not limited to “social media.”  Anything that is posted on line, which includes academic research, is grounds for firing.  It does not matter that what the professor publishes on line is accurate, well-intentioned, and polite – if the university “CEO” decides that the article is “contrary to the best interests of the University.”  The professor who is fired on this vague, subjective criterion can appeal the dismissal – to the CEO!  Universities are simply businesses led by CEO and the faculty must demonstrate “loyalty” to the CEO and whatever the CEO decides are “the best interests of the University” (which can include not criticizing corporate CEOs’ crimes because they might donate to the university).