Indefinite Detention
By Mitch Berg
Last week, I wrote about the U of M Department of Education’s plan to screen Education majors – aka “future teachers” – for political purity.
I was going to write a detailed fisking last week, but as expected, FIRE – America’s foremost academic freedom group – beat me to it.
I’m excerpting pretty lightly – it’s a big article, but an excellent read:
The college promises that it will begin using “predictive criteria” to make sure that future teachers will be able to develop an acceptable level of “cultural competence”-apparently, those who do not pass the political litmus test and seem too set in their beliefs will never get admitted. This is far worse than what Columbia Teachers College does with its own “dispositions” requirement, and far in excess of what the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) has ever mandated.
Fortunately, there is still time for the college to change course. A new set of “Phase II” task groups was established in October 2009 for the purpose of “moving forward on structural dimensions” of the plan. This year’s applicants are already being warned about the possible changes, but the new “[d]ispositions assessment” is not scheduled to occur until next summer.
It gets better:
Here’s the kicker: The college even realizes that its efforts to impose such a severe ideological litmus test may be unconstitutional. Here’s the plan for summer 2010:
Dispositions assessment for new candidates approved (includes consultation with UMN general council) [sic]
Indeed, the university’s general counsel ought to be weighing in really soon. If the Race, Culture, Class, and Gender Task Group gets what it wants, the result will be political and ideological screening of applicants, remedial re-education for those with the wrong views and values, and withholding of degrees from those who fail to comply.
FIRE is sending a letter to the U’s administration.
FIRE is deeply concerned about new policies at University of Minnesota-Twin Cities proposed by the College of Education and Human Development. According to documents published by the college (see http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cehd/teri), it intends to mandate certain beliefs and values-”dispositions”-for future teachers. The college also intends to redesign its admissions process so that it screens out people with the “wrong” beliefs and values-those who either do not have sufficient “cultural competence” or those who the college judges will not be able to be converted to the “correct” beliefs and values even after remedial re-education. These intentions violate the freedom of conscience of the university’s students. As a public university bound by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the university is both legally and morally obligated to uphold this fundamental right.
This is going to get interesting.
