Scrutiny of university classrooms is being formalized, with new laws requiring professors to post syllabuses and tip lines for students to complain.
College professors once taught free from political interference, with mostly their students and colleagues privy to their lectures and book assignments. Now, they are being watched by state officials, senior administrators and students themselves.
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And several states, including Texas, Ohio and Florida, have created laws requiring professors to publicly post their course outlines in searchable databases.
The increased oversight of professors comes as conservatives expand their movement to curb what they say is a liberal tilt in university classrooms. In the last couple of years, they have found sympathetic ears in state legislatures with the power to pressure schools, and their efforts have gained momentum as the Trump administration has made overhauling the politics and culture on campuses a focus.
But all of this, some professors and free-expression groups say, is leading to a wave of censorship and self-censorship that they argue is curbing academic freedom and learning.
educated people tend to be left leaning, idk about the being liberal part
For most of Canadians and I think Americans, liberal = anything left of centre, while conservative = anything right of centre. I know that’s not what those strictly mean but that’s the generally accepted definitions here at least, and I’m pretty sure in the states too.
Canadians and Americans are wrong and it pollutes the discourse because it pretends that there’s nothing other than liberalism on the left. Not sure about Canada because there’s actually more than 2 parties, but the US Democratic party is not even left of center, it’s left of far right, but using the term liberal masks that and pretends they’re left. Doesn’t Canada’s “actually left from center” party still have a hard time getting recognized as a real alternative? Do they call that party liberal or do they distinguish it from that other “slightly more left than the conservatives” party?
For most people they don’t think of liberalism as a specific thing, they literally just consider liberal and left to be the same thing, and conservative and right to be the same thing. It’s not that they’re trying to say nothing left of liberalism is legitimate or something, it’s just that literally everything left is under the branch of liberalism. It’s not thought of as a specific subset of the left, it is the left, and various degrees of leftism are all considered part of liberalism. Again, not saying that’s correct obviously, it’s just how most people here see it.
Yeah, the NDP (New Democratic Party) is what you’re thinking of. They’ve only really had one good shot at having their party leader elected for Prime Minister, but then he got cancer and died from it. The NDP still wins local areas though. A lot of the right wing voters here aren’t even necessarily conservative, just anti-liberal. I’ve known lots of conservatives who would happily vote for the NDP too, just not the liberals. We also have the Green Party which is more of an environmental party who are useful for approving conservation efforts but don’t have a serious shot at PM. They have some great local leaders though. Then there’s the Bloc Québécois who are only in Quebec obviously, and they stand for French rights. They do quite well in Quebec typically but again, no shot at PM.
This Canada defines Liberal = banks and Conservative = energy