Last week, Ron DeSantis signed legislation into law requiring transgender people to use public restrooms that align with their assigned sex at birth.
The six trans men shown below were all assigned female at birth. I’m wondering if DeSantis REALLY thinks it makes sense for them… pic.twitter.com/jzG2cuU5dM
Gorgeous. Anyways. Unisex restroom could do it! We’re all first and foremost humans. The World needs to stop behaving like Russia. #NoToHateAndDivision 🫶😊
I don't care who is using the restroom when I am in it as long as they are respectful and leave me alone when I'm doing my business. Most trans women are going to look like women, maybe mannish, but a lot of women look like men! I once went into a work restroom to find someone… pic.twitter.com/sEldHxB7Bt
— Wolf River Ghost Society (@WolfRiverGhosts) May 21, 2023
Under Trump's watch, the National Debt increased by $7.8 trillion, from $19.9 trillion to $27.7 trillion, due to tax cuts for billionaires. The Republicans want to make these tax cuts permanent. This will cost the Treasury another $3.5 trillion. So much for fiscal responsibility. pic.twitter.com/bHeV1lJGxW
Sen. Van Hollen: "The farce of this whole thing is that under Donald Trump, we raised the debt ceiling 3 times, 40% of our national debt was actually accumulated under Trump, and now they're not willing to talk about any revenue from very wealthy people as part of this effort." pic.twitter.com/VrkrFwj3Iv
Again the devil is in the details of the bill. At first, it sounds normal, to protect kids from sex or nudity. But then the republicans give away the game by throwing in the words abnormal, unhealthy, degrading, shameful. All words the right wing fundamentalist religious haters use to describe men wearing clothing these religious people associate with female gender. This the goal, to outlaw men dressing as women or doing drag while keeping kids from seeing it in public normalizing it for them. Instead the point is to make men dressing as women and women as men to seem harmful and shameful. It is all about rolling back the advances in acceptance and tolerance in society of people who don’t follow the social norms of the 1950s, rolling back accepting of the LGBTQ+ people. Again this is an attempt by religious groups to force Christian moral dictates on the public. Look at what bills the people involved pushed, things like mandating the Christian 10 commandments in all schools forcing the Christian religion on all students regardless of their or their families religious affiliations. Hugs
The Texas House gave initial approval to a bill restricting children from seeing sexually explicit performances on Friday. Senate Bill 12 was originally designed to restrict kids from attending drag shows, but its most recent version seeks to criminalize any live performance that the bill defines as sexual.
It defines a sexually explicit performance as one in which someone is nude or appeals to the “prurient interest in sex.” SB 12 would fine business owners $10,000 for hosting such performances in front of kids. It would also slap performers violating the proposed restriction with a Class A misdemeanor, which could result in up to a year in jail, a $4,000 fine or both.
On Friday, Republican state Rep. Matt Shaheen of Plano cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s definition of prurient interests, which is defined as “erotic, lascivious, abnormal, unhealthy, degrading, shameful, or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion,” though the language’s interpretation varies by community.
The original version of the anti-drag bill has already passed in the state Senate, which will have to revisit the amended version.
Rep. Matt Shaheen [photo above] first appeared on JMG in 2015 when he introduced a bill to nullify LGBTQ protections statewide.
The author of the bill, GOP state Sen. Bryan Hughes, appeared here in April for his bill that would defund public libraries that host Drag Queen Story Hour.
In March, he appeared here for his bill to raise taxes on bars that host drag shows. A Texas lesbian bar has since been denied insurance.
Last year Hughes appeared here when his bill to force public schools to display “In God We Trust” posters went into effect.
In 2021, he appeared here for his bill banning criticism of white supremacy in history lessons.
RELATED: Several Pride organizations in Florida have banned drag performances or canceled events since DeSantis signed a similar bill that criminalizes shows that would potentially be within the view of children.
Texas House lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill restricting children from seeing sexually explicit performances.
While the bill no longer targets drag performers, LGBTQ advocates say it's vague language could still be used to criminalize such shows.https://t.co/4wKpEVcIwk
I have never seen a drag show that I would say falls in this description. But someone will say it is “abnormal,” so it will be prosecuted. These bills are intentionally vague so they can suppress any activity these christofascists don’t like.
We have a few shows here in Houston where the performers are mostly trans and strip down to just a g-string… but they’re in bars where no one under 21 is allowed.
I am getting very worried for people like you Girlgoon, some of these laws include a ban on “impersonating the opposite sex”. Although impersonation has nothing to do with trans people, I fear the fascists will eventually include all trans people as “impersonators” and start criminalizing them. They already say trans women do not exist and that they are delusional and fake. Florida is already forcing parents to detransition their trans children!!! I don’t know where this is heading but we LGBTQ cannot let it go there!
I’m not sure how nude drag would even work. Aren’t the costumes (and wigs and make-up) the whole point?
Yes, I’ve been to some drag shows that were not G-rated. (Varla Jean Merman comes to mind.) But those performers would not do that material in front of children. Those were late night performances in a bar that carded. We were all adults and it was HILARIOUS! (Varla’s R-rated Schoolhouse Rock takeoff is a personal favorite.)
I’m not sure how nude drag would even work. Aren’t the costumes (and wigs and make-up) the whole point?
Yes, I’ve been to some drag shows that were not G-rated. (Varla Jean Merman comes to mind.) But those performers would not do that material in front of children. Those were late night performances in a bar that carded. We were all adults and it was HILARIOUS! (Varla’s R-rated Schoolhouse Rock takeoff is a personal favorite.)
Yes – will they also go after R-rated movies? Or PG movies that dare to have an LGBTQ person or character?? What about TV shows?? The internet?? These right wing fascists are out of control. All for the votes of their Christian and ultra conservative base. And just like Floriduh, I don’t believe the majority of people in Texas agree with this craziness. But also very noticeable that they aren’t passing any laws to screen potential sexual groomers, predators and molesters in their churches. They are the real threat. Not drag queens. It’s fucking ridiculous.
I have been writing that this is about enforcing a 1950s society by demanding gender roles stereotypes of that time, removing civil rights for minorities, removing visibility of minorities, and removing anything but heterosexuality in public or media. It started with trans, as they are the smallest part of the LGBTQ+ and the most easily attacked. The right used the idea of protecting the children, which is what the religious hate groups have been pushing forever, that changing social norms are somehow dangerous and bad for children. That is false, and an old trope used forever against people these hate groups have targeted. This is about removing any LGBTQ+ from public and society. This is about enforcing a return to a conservative religious lifestyle, removing all progress of society to regress to a time when misunderstandings and misinformation was king, to a time when Christianity was equated with automatic good, Christianity was the only religion represented in public, White men were in charge, women were second to men who were in charge in public along with in the home, and only straight white couples were in the media of the time with blacks as servants and any representation of gays were as villains. This is the goal that people like DeathSantis and his supporters such as Lib’s of Tic Tok or the Mom’s of Liberty are pushing, which they have shown they are willing to force this ideological indoctrination in all schools both public and private. They are willing to force their views on all of the public, even though the majority doesn’t agree with them. Because they are the Christian Taliban. Hugs
Ron DeSantis just signed a new law requiring all transgender ADULTS in Florida to obtain “written consent” from multiple oversight boards whose members are appointed by DeSantis in order to get gender-affirming care.
Greg Abbott is taking a brief pause from using immigrants as political pawns to attack trans kids in yet another Republican-led effort to harm LGBTQ+ people in America.
The gay-hating Texas governor announced yesterday that he plans to sign Senate Bill 14 into law ASAP. The bill, which is currently en route to Abbott’s desk, blocks trans kids from receiving gender-affirming care and effectively forces those already in the process of transitioning to de-transition and start over after they turn 18.
“I’m not going to make any secret about it. I’ll be signing it. This is about protecting children,” he misled reporters on Thursday. “A person under 18, they don’t have the mental capacity to make a life-changing decision.”
Authored by New Braunfels Republican Sen. Donna Campbell, SB 14 would prohibit trans Texans under the age of 18 from accessing transition-related medical treatments including puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries — though surgeries are rarely performed on kids.
The bill would also require trans youth who are already getting this care to be “weaned off” in a “medically appropriate” manner. This is slightly out of step with the abrupt cutoff mandated by the version the Senate approved last month, but the upper chamber has chosen not to ask for a conference committee to iron out the difference.
Other states have passed similar legislation but the laws have been stalled in the courts. The same will likely happen in Texas as the ACLU, Transgender Law Center, and Lambda Legal have already announced plans to sue, citing the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
“These laws are patently unconstitutional,” Paul Castillo, senior counsel for Lambda Legal, told reporters this week. “They interfere with the decisions of families in consultation with their doctors, and certainly no care should be stopped.”
Given the number of these laws being passed, as well as the number of lawsuits challenging them, it’s likely the matter will eventually end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, where things have gotten so chaotic that it’s hard to say which way the high court might rule on it.
Pollsters say the wave of bills targeting transgender healthcare in red states could backfire on Republicans in 2024 the same way the Roe v. Wade debacle backfired on them in 2022.
Things are certainly backfiring on Abbott and his colleagues on Twitter right now. Here’s what folx are saying…
Republicans are against big government unless when they want to make the lives of the LGBTQ community miserable
This is an important article and I hope everyone takes a minute to read it. Then think about what happened. A teacher had permission slips to show Disney catalog of movies to her students, and every parent said yes they were OK with their children seeing the Disney movies. Then this movie Strange World was show and one parent freaked out and filed a complaint against the teacher. Think of it, again one maga right winger maybe highly religious parent gets to derail the public education of all students to push their rabid right wing agenda.
So what was in the movie that could be that offensive, you ask? I did ask that, so Ron and I bought the movie for 20 dollars off Amazon Prime. Almost from the start, I saw what these MAGA right-winger republican types would hate. The parents were a loving couple who loved to smooch and kiss as they made breakfast, all very clean and not sexual / porn, just mom and dad quick cute kisses. So what is offensive about that to the maga? Well if you have seen the trailer you know that the mom is black and the dad is white. Which leads to the next maga issue.
The son, Ethan Clade, is a mixed race drawn with darker skin tone openly gay boy who is accepted by his family and his friends. In the opening get to meet the characters part of the movie, Ethan’s friends show up with some kind of game cards. With them is a boy Ethan has a crush on and the movie plays out letting us know in a funny sweet way of Ethan being shy around the boy. But the movie also makes it clear that the boy Ethan has a crush on likes Ethan as well along with all the friends being OK / happy with the boys being gay and liking each other. That is when the dad interrupts them and does the dad meeting his son’s boyfriend stating to Ethan how he likes the boy, saying something like he can see why Ethan likes him. I thought the movie was cute at this part, as most teenagers are embarrassed of their parents around their friends and to meet the one they have a crush on.
Which leads us to the the last part I think the maga people get angry at. Remember I have only gotten about a 1/4 of the way into the movie but in the movie the mother, who is black remember, is the outgoing adventurous one who manages to swoop in and save the flying ship. Imagine the maga people going crazy that a black woman acts to save everyone while the white people cling to the ship trying to hang on. Oh and also the women in the movie so far are more the adventurers and seeming more capable than the main white man character so far. Another thing I guess makes maga right-winger upset, the movie destroys their gender role stereotypes.
In all I like the movie so far. It is inclusive in a way that real life is. It is drawn and colored in bright vivid colors. The dialog and action is fun to watch. I have not watched a lot of movies in the last few years and I have not watched any animated ones. But I am really enjoying this one. But I can see why the republican right winger maga want to destroy Disney and take over what kinds of shows / movies they produce. This movie is a very far place from the stereotypical gender role models and public social standards of the 1950s that the maga are desperate to return the country to. Hugs
Purported investigation after screening of Disney animated movie comes amid governor Ron DeSantis’s attacks on educators
DeSantis has claimed, without evidence, that there is ‘indoctrination in our schools’. Photograph: Daniel A Varela/AP
Florida education officials allegedly told a school teacher that she was under a misconduct investigation after, her friend claimed, she showed students the Disney animated film Strange World.
The purported investigation following this alleged showing of Strange World comes amid rightwing Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s attacks on educators that include book censorship and limitations on discussions of race and sex as he jockeys for his party’s presidential nomination with “anti-woke” talking points.
———————————————————————————
‘The point is intimidation’: Florida teachers besieged by draconian laws
“My friend showed Disney’s Strange World in a Florida classroom and one student reported it to their parents. Now she’s under investigation by the state,” Carl Zee tweeted on 11 May. “Florida is not safe for teachers, DO NOT MOVE HERE.”
The film involves a group of explorers who try saving a “mysterious land from losing its vital energy source”, per Variety. It also has a prominent gay character – a rarity in children’s animation.
Zee included a photo of a letter from the Florida department of education, stating that “following receipt of a receipt of a complaint, this office has determined an investigation is warranted into allegations that you engaged in inappropriate conduct”.
“If you have evidentiary witnesses or documents pertinent to the case, send them to this office no later than two weeks from receipt of this letter,” the alleged missive continues. CBR.com first reported on Zee’s Tweet.
The alleged letter does not state specific allegations against this teacher. The Florida department of education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In response to a Twitter user who said that teachers who break the law find themselves under investigation, Zee wrote: “She has signed permission from every parent in the classroom to show Disney & Dreamworks movies in class, even offering lines to specify specific movies parents didn’t want shown. Not one exception was written down, so no she didn’t break the law. Try again, doofus.”
News of the alleged investigation is in keeping with Florida teachers’ concerns that they are being stymied and intimidated by new legislation championed by DeSantis. He has claimed, without evidence, that there is “indoctrination in our schools” and allowed his press secretary to claim that teachers are “grooming” pupils.
A new Florida law has effectively resulted in book bans, with classrooms and libraries removing books over concerns they contain “inappropriate” content.
One high school English teacher in Palm Bay, Florida, told the Guardian that a librarian took away a third of the books in his classroom – among them a collection of Emily Dickinson’s poems, which was not on her list of green-lighted books.
DeSantis has also assailed Disney as a company after the entertainment titan pushed back against his “don’t say gay” legislation. He hit back at Disney by signing a bill that took away Disney’s status as a self-governing special district near Orlando.
Disney fought back against DeSantis, filing a federal lawsuit contending that he retaliated against the company for expressing its first amendment right to free speech. In the suit, Disney is asking to stop the governor’s attempted takeover of the special district.
My friend showed Disney’s Strange World in a Florida classroom and one student reported it to their parents. Now she’s under investigation by the state.
Tell the teacher to show the kids Song Of The South and all will be forgiven. It’s hard to find since Disney threw it in the vault and ate the key, but the DeSantis crowd will love him/her for it.
I’ll bet that teachers and medical professionals will also be leaving, as well as high school graduates who want a real college education. It’s a crime what republicans are doing.
Yep, my daughter’s teacher friend from Florida already packed it in and moved away to a blue state where she gets paid a LOT more and has more freedom to teach. She is urging her fellow teachers stuck in that hell hole to get the fuck out now.
They’ve already got a plan in place to hire less-than-honorably-discharged ex-military and rogue cops to teach the kids. They will be armed at all times so the kids will be totally safe.
So, there literally is a war against one of the most popular companies in the world right there in Florida. Evangelicals can literally destroy anything.
Investigating a teacher for showing a Disney film? Migrant workers are leaving your state in droves, which will affect construction projects, the gathering of crops, the hotel and hospitality sector of tourism, and God knows what else, and you’re still trying to stomp on Disney by going after a teacher for showing a film? Lord love a duck, just how stupid are you, Ron?
Don’t forget that the SEAWEED MONSTER has come to destroy their beaches and recreational tourism, but let’s focus on a fricken kids animated movie that might have a gay cartoon character in it.
One parent complained. ONE. So nobody gets to watch it. That sure sounds like cancel culture to me. I’ll bet the parent who complained didn’t even have any children in the school.
This is another attempt at a Christian take over of the US. As is pointed out, the idea that the US was founded as a Christian nation is a complete fabrication fantasy by religious zealots. But these Christian warriors won’t stop, won’t be deterred by facts, and will keep pushing until they manage to take over the US and create the Christian Taliban to force the public to live by their religious doctrines. Think of it, everyone forced to live by the dictates of the worst of the fundamentalist of the Christian religion. We have seen this in other countries where religion has taken over the government. Think of Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia. Women lose all rights, no other religions tolerated, schools do not teach facts or science but instead push religious text as the truth no matter how impossible or debunked they are. You think the bans on abortion, trans people including adults allowed medical treatment to transition, and bans on drag shows are the end of what these religious zealots want? No, they want complete control to force their religion, their religious way of life on all the public. First they took over the Republican Party and then the courts. Now they are taking over state governments and school boards. Back in the 1980s Christian leaders pushed their most harden followers to go to homeschooling. Because it is clear that education shows the flaws of fundamentalist religious beliefs. The more liberal a church tries to force people to believe in the bible / holy texts the more good education based in science and historical fact disproves it. So the solution was to ruin public education. And that is what has been happening by the Republican Party driven by corporate greed and religious zealotry. I just read some more actions of Florida to force government to pay for private / religious education. Interesting fact, countries that do not have private schools have the greatest quality public education. Because if the wealthy have to use the same schools as the public or the poor, they make damn sure those schools are well funded and have the best teachers possible producing the best outcomes for all students. In the US you have expensive private schools that have the best education for the smallest amount of students, public education system for the majority of students that struggle to provide an education, and the worst possible homeschooling or charter schools which can mean anything from a single focused education on one subject to simply pushing religious dogma as truthful accepted education. The children are the future as everyone knows, so the ideology and religious zealots are trying to change the future by keeping the children from learning true science, true history, true biology, and true understanding of reality. Hugs
Senate Bill 1515 would require a poster of the Ten Commandments to be in every public school classroom in the state. Under Senate Bill 1396, public school districts would be able to adopt policies allowing for a moment of prayer and a reading from the Bible or other religious text during the school day. Senate Bill 763 is a measure that would allow school districts to employ chaplains to serve as school counselors.
Republican state Senator Mayes Middleton of Galveston authored both SB 1396 and SB 763. During the layout of SB 1396 on the Senate floor, he told his fellow lawmakers that the bill is needed to expand religious liberties in public schools. “The reality is that our school children and faculty spend much of their lives in the school building and classroom…and our schools are not God-free zones,” said Middleton.
Waving a copy of the Ten Commandments and a 17th-century textbook, amateur historian David Barton recently argued that Christianity has always formed the basis of American morality and thus is essential to Texas classrooms.
“This is traditional, historical stuff,” he told a Texas Senate Education Committee last month. “It’s hard to say that anything is more traditional in American education than was the Ten Commandments.”
For nearly four decades, Barton has preached that message to politicians and pews across the country, arguing that church-state separation is a “myth” that is disproven by centuries-old texts, like the school book he showed senators, that reference the Ten Commandments and other religious texts.
As Right Wing Watch has doggedly reported for years, Barton’s claims that foundational US documents directly quote the bible are completely false.
Mayes Middleton is a former board member of the anti-LGBTQ Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is behind the state’s ongoing pogrom against trans people.
Republican lawmakers in the Lone Star State are backing three bills that would embed Christian teaching and practices in public schools and allow school districts to hire faith leaders as employees. @KirkReportsNewshttps://t.co/jUqX6F3KQl
Certain bills navigating the Texas Legislature this year represent the latest battles in what Christian leaders have framed as a long-running and existential war with the secular world—rhetoric that has helped fuel Republican priorities. https://t.co/UdY1KK4Udw
Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton keeps falsely claiming that the Constitution is full of "verbatim quotes" from the Bible. We are starting to think that he doesn't know what the word "verbatim" means. pic.twitter.com/GZu84BETqe
Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton claims that Patrick Henry and George Washington quoted numerous Bible verses in their speeches and writings. We decided to take a look at Barton's "evidence" and—surprise, surprise—he was lying. https://t.co/6U0sfA5eHdpic.twitter.com/fetyq3BxqF
Nobody who has actually read the Bible would conclude, as religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton does, that the message of 1 Samuel where Saul is anointed king of Israel is that spiritual leaders should be choosing our elected officials. pic.twitter.com/dl8Het9tw0
Religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton claims that the Second Amendment guarantees your right to own any weapon the government possess, including nuclear bombs. https://t.co/u3xwrXND1Zpic.twitter.com/drc7SzuBEC
Pseudo-historian David Barton is constantly finding new "proof" the US was founded as a Christian nation. Lately, he's been claiming that 1st & 2nd grade public schools students in 1816 were required to memorize large portions of the Bible. They weren't. https://t.co/4fWoDnQL0mpic.twitter.com/iam7YY4h7x
When I was in public school I was very religious. I prayed often. Of course my intent was to pray not to make a big show of praying. I did it as often and in the way I wanted. I didn’t need anyone to tell me when or how to do it. This is still true. To quote George Will (yes, I know but it’s a good quote): “As long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in the public schools.”
This isn’t about God being in schools. This is about staking out territory and making those who aren’t their specific brand of Christianity feel marginalized. That’s the point. A good many Christians are uncomfortable with these measures, not because they don’t think children should learn about religion or pray, but because the teachings are not in line with what they teach at home and at their churches. Evangelicals love to talk as if they speak for all Christians. The rest of American Christianity really needs to stand up against their tyranny.
Yes, your schools are technically, God Free Zones. If you want God in your school, that’s what Catholic and Christians and other religious schools are there for. Please don’t try to push your “Christian Morals” on everyone in Public Schools. Because not everyone follows what you believe in.
Please remember that what the republicans say this is about and what is really happening it two different things. The republicans claim she violated decorum by claiming that she accused them of killing kids. That is not at all what she said. She said if the republicans pasted the bill denying trans kids medical assistance would cause kids to try to commit suicide, which is true, so the people passing the bill would have blood on their hands. No one doubts the validity of that statement. But this was the opening they used with republicans claimed victimhood and talked of how badly they were being abused by being accused of having kids blood on their hands. Yes the big bad in charge republicans were the victims here.
What this really is about is the fact Rep. Zooey Zephyr is trans! And the republicans want her gone! That is what this is about. They don’t care her constitutes not only voted her in to office to represent them, they have increased their support for her after this happened. So they are trying to make her life so miserable, hoping she will just go away. That is what the anti-trans and anti-drag people bills are about, trying to make those people so miserable they will just go away. It is what red states with the don’t say gay laws are doing in schools, just trying to make gay / trans kids just hide and go away. How proud the republicans must be to make people hide who they really are just so republicans can feel good in their lives.
Please note every act the republicans took was to make her life miserable which included locking her out of the work areas and bathrooms. She is forced to work and vote representing her voters from a public hallway, so this week some hateful people made sure to show up and occupy the only seating available, causing an elected official to be forced to stand all day and work from a food counter. This is not democracy people! This is one party trying to make those they don’t like to disappear from the public. Hugs
Republicans moved to sideline Zephyr further by canceling some meetings of the two committees on which she serves and moving the bills they were to hear to other committees, Democrats said.
She spent the first day of her exile last week battling to use a bench in a statehouse hallway. Her key card to access Capitol entrances, bathrooms and party workspaces was deactivated, according to the lawsuit.
Zephyr spoke briefly during a House Judiciary Committee meeting Monday morning. The full House — minus Zephyr — reconvened in the afternoon. Zephyr cast votes from a statehouse snack bar because several people occupied the bench.
Read the full article. As you can see in the photo below, the bench seats three people and the evil bitches have a fourth woman on standby as a seat-filler for bathroom breaks.
@ZoAndBehold works from the lunch counter outside the House of Representatives chamber today because a group of women have been occupying the bench she used last week. #mtlegpic.twitter.com/ImMaYdaioS
I agree. What the slave state legislatures like Montana’s are doing is trampling on any and all minorities’ civil rights. She didn’t break decorum. She was very measured and impeccable with her word. She never raised her voice. Her crime was that she told them the TRUTH. People will die. There IS blood on their hands.
I’ve tweeted to Montana Dems, the Montana ACLU, and Montana Pride with a plea for allies to come tomorrow and hold the bench for Zooey. I added that a couple of drag queens would be a nice touch.
Joe, I’d like to see someone bring in a comfy folding chair for her, even though both state houses would vote, and the governor would sign, a bill banning them on capitol grounds the next day.
I was just looking for that photo, that is EXACTLY what I was reminded me of. I hope they know they are on the WRONG side of history on this issue, and will be shamed for many years.
The authoritative right wing governor who is against woke and pushed through the don’t say gay bills in schools including up to 12th grade (yes no child has internet and heard about gay people by the time they are legal able to vote) has appointed a board to judge each teacher / professor by their ideology. If they are not republican enough, then they get fired or denied tenure. Remember the point of tenure was to ensure that political influence was removed from higher education teaching. That has not worked well for Republicans that are now a dying minority desperate to hold on to power. This is scary as everything DeathSantis has managed to do in Florida has been copied in other red states. Hugs
During a contentious Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday, five professors at the New College of Florida were denied tenure—even though they had already received approvals at every other point in the process.
Those professors are the latest casualties of the culture-war politics that led conservative trustees appointed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis to spearhead a self-declared “hostile takeover” of the college.
The tenure denial prompted the abrupt resignation of Matthew Lepinski, the faculty trustee on the board, who accused fellow members of destabilizing NCF. Lepinski walked out after the vote, announcing suddenly that he was “quitting the college.”
The school’s interim president, DeSantis ally and former state House Speaker Richard Corcoran, said in a memo to the trustees that he wanted the professors’ tenure denied or delayed in part because of the administrative changes and because of “a renewed focus on ensuring the college is moving towards a more traditional liberal arts institution.”
The trustees denied tenure for all five professors on identical 6-4 votes, with the new conservative board members in the majority. Shouts of “shame on you!” came from the audience afterward.
The five professors denied tenure are Rebecca Black and Lin Jiang, who both teach organic chemistry; Nassima Neggaz, history and religion with a focus on Islam; coastal and marine science professor Gerardo Toro-Farmer; and Hugo Viera-Vargas, whose specialty is Caribbean/Latin American studies and music.
— The Chronicle of Higher Education (@chronicle) April 28, 2023
In my 13 years in the Florida State University System I have NEVER seen a Board of Trustees overturn a tenure decision. The justification here were vague "extraordinary circumstances," with one board member citing "questionable publication histories." A 🧵on why that's bunk:
All 5 New College professors going up for tenure were denied today, despite approval from the college's faculty and previous administration. Every academic should be paying attention to what's happening there, now. Florida is very likely your future. https://t.co/9ZyvU7meyP
Tenure isn't just a rubber stamp. It's a years long process involving all levels of university governance, and it's incredibly thorough. These are the steps those candidates would have gone through before the Board decided to overturn it on a whim:
When you're hired to a tenure-track position, you receive both annual performance evaluations and annual tenure appraisals from your department chair. These monitor your progress towards tenure, and provide guidance for hitting the relevant marks.
At the midpoint between hiring and tenure, you undergo mid-tenure review. This involves compiling an exhaustive dossier of your accomplishments, which is appraised by a committee of your colleagues, your chair, and the dean.
All candidates must go up for tenure by their 6th year in a tenure-track position. If you go up early, as all of these New College professors did, it's because your case is a slam-dunk. You also tend to get extra scrutiny from your colleagues for going up early.
The tenure dossier is literally hundreds of pages, and it's a colossal amount of work to assemble. I've been through this process twice, once for tenure, and again for promotion to full professor. It's not fun.
Once your dossier is complied, it goes through multiple levels of review pursuant to established departmental, university, and CBA criteria. Most cases are approved (self-selection), but even then it's not 100%. Rejections happen, and it sucks for everyone involved.
By self-selection, I mean that weaker candidates tend to be weeded out earlier. Their appraisals and mid-tenure reviews make it clear that they are not progressing adequately, and they look for other positions rather than face rejection. Denial of tenure is a really bad look.
Tenure cases are reviewed by external referees, a committee of departmental faculty, the department chair, the dean, the university promotion & tenure committee, the provost, and the university president before ever getting to the Board of Trustees.
The university promotion and tenure committee is where most rejections happen. It consists of faculty from all over the university, and they take their job very seriously. The time commitment is immense, and I have the utmost respect for my colleagues who take this service on.
This basic process is used at every Florida SUS institution, including New College. There are some variations. New College, for instance, has divisions instead of departments, and a provost's advisory committee rather than a tenure and promotion committee, but you get the idea.
So by the time these cases arrived on the desks of Chris Rufo and his fellow partisan hacks, they had already gone through an exhaustive internal and external review process at the university level, and been found to have satisfied all of the relevant tenure criteria.
A note about the Boards of Trustees in the Florida State University System. They consist of 13 members: 6 appointed by the governor, 5 appointed by the SUS Board of Governors, as well as the student body president and the faculty association president.
DeSantis made 6 appointments to the Board back in January. They voted unanimously to deny tenure, and they were the only Trustees to do so. The vote was 6-4 in all five cases. I haven't seen any reporting yet on why three Trustees did not participate in the vote.
So there you have it. Five exceptional academics were voted down by a board of partisans appointed by a governor who's using the nation's highest ranked system of public universities as a political football in his quest for higher office.
Since these professors went up early, they can still apply for tenure again next year. But the more likely outcome is that they'll look for jobs elsewhere, as talented university faculty across Florida are now doing in ever-increasing numbers.
i just got a text from a friend in Florida this morning. Her husband has accepted a teaching position here in Connecticut. She’ll miss the climate, but not the crazy as she so nicely put it.
We had a job opening in our department over the summer. When Dodds was announced multiple people withdrew their applications. It was a nightmare filling the job because multiple people offered the job declined the offer. This after multiple interviews and all that. We wound up with a good hire in the end (which just shows how many qualified people there are for many of these jobs) but his wife did not come here with him so I doubt he’ll stay more than a couple of years.
They want to create Florida’s answer to Wheaton College. There are a few of these schools around the country that are known for indoctrinating students already right-leaning. They want a Florida version of that and creating it. There’s really not much anyone can do to stop them either. I have no idea what the result will be. Will they succeed or (more likely) just make a big mess of things. There are very few of these schools where you can get the liberal arts college experience/education at public school prices, so this and another school in Georgia (I forget the name) and I don’t know of many others. But be clear about this, control it or destroy it…either is fine with the far right.
The real reason faculty need tenure is so they won’t be fired at 50 and replaced with someone right out of school who will ask for less money. That’s the main reason workers fought so hard for things like seniority. I hear people sneer at that, but never anyone who was looking for a job after about 45. Yes, academic freedom is important. Your work should be judged by peers not business people who bought their way onto the board.
Scottie's Playtime 