Florida proves that too many professors at public colleges might be better employed as dish washers
As noted by the Spirit of Christmas Present in Dickens’ The Christmas
Carol, “This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both,
but most of all beware this boy.” It appears Florida has taken this
warning to heart. Click for movie.
Last year the Republican-controlled state government in Florida passed legislation requiring its public universities to do what are called “post-tenure reviews” on all their tenured professors every five years, as part of an effort to eliminate what Governor Ron DeSantis called “deadweight” and “unproductive tenured faculty.” The bill not only limited the ability of professors to protest termination decisions, it was also aimed at eliminating “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs across the board.
At the University of Florida the first round of tenure review has now produced some startling numbers, literally proving DeSantis’ claims.
The report said that, out of 262 professors up for review, 31 “either retired, entered retirement agreements or resigned during the review period.” A further 34 didn’t meet expectations and five were dubbed unsatisfactory. Add those categories up, and it’s 27 percent.
In other words, when faced with a real review of their qualifications, more than a quarter of the professors either quit or were removed. Though it is unclear whether those who quit did so because they knew they’d be fired anyway, that conclusion is a reasonable one to make. By resigning, they avoid having a stain on their record and thus increase their chances of getting work elsewhere.
What these numbers tell us is that tenure has not really achieved its main goal, of allowing academic freedom. Instead, it has made these teachers either lazy or arrogant. The lazy ones realized they weren’t required to do their best to keep their jobs, and so they slacked off. The arrogant ones instead became the activist leaders, pushing leftist agendas and using office politics to discourage the hiring of anyone with a different political viewpoint.
The review uncovered these unqualified teachers, and forced them out. As a result students attending the University of Florida can expect a more open environment and a better classroom experience. Standards have been raised.
As always, the success of this kind of law will entirely depend on the people who administer it. While it appears the University of Florida showed good faith to use the law as intended, cleaning house of its worst teachers, other Florida public universities have appeared willing to defy it in any way they can.
Florida State University told Inside Higher Ed it placed zero in the “unsatisfactory” or “does not meet expectations” categories. And the Independent Florida Alligator student newspaper reported only around 11 percent in those categories at the University of Central Florida, 5 percent at Florida International University, 7 percent at the University of West Florida and 6 percent at the University of North Florida.
While it is very possible these other colleges had less deadwood, and even a less politicized faculty, I have great doubts. For example, the University of Central Florida was sued once over firing a teacher for criticizing BLM and affirmative action and then sued again over how its Gestapo-like bias response teams squelched free speech and harassed conservatives. When it settled the latter case it did not make it clear how it would fix the problem.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis
Florida State University meanwhile is ranked the fourth least open university nationally, its administration eagerly supporting a student club, Students for a Democratic Society, that aggressively works to silence debate, blacklist opposition, and intimidate conservatives on campus.
In order to make sure this law achieves its goals, it will take a major review not just of the faculty (as the law provides) but of the top administrators at each school. Those who wish to flout the law must be fired, and this is something that the governor of Florida can do, quite easily. When DeSantis begins to do so, expect a lot of squealing and howling of agony from academia, aided and abetted by the leftist mainstream propaganda press.
Since that press was largely indoctrinated by these bankrupt schools and is thus entirely in league with them in their effort to promote Marxism, DEI, and the queer agenda, that press should be heartily ignored. And based on DeSantis’ track record, he will do so with a sense of grand amusement.
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DeSantis gets another ‘A’ for his report card.
We can only dream of a country with 50 like-minded governors and legislatures.
As someone whose first job was as a dishwasher, I resent the implication that being dishwasher requires lower qualifications than professors. My town had a big three story establishment with the bottom floor being the kitchen, restaurant and bar with the top two floors being party rooms for wedding receptions, bar mitzvahs, baby showers, etc. More to the point, the ground floor and second floor had sculleries with commercial dishwashing machines. I had gone looking for a summer job as a waiter but was told by the partner I talked to that I would have to start where he did – as a dishwasher. After several weeks of apprenticing with the downstairs crew, I was transferred upstairs. It supported the top two floors and that meant mainly Friday night through Sunday night (we might begin as early as noon for daytime events). By the end of the Summer, I was the straw boss of the upstairs crew of pot wallopers and was told I’d get promoted to waiter when a slot opened up. Three years later, I was running my own team of waiters/waitresses for a party room on weekends under the overall direction of the partner whose turn it was to run the place that day.. Great experience to describe in the essay portion of my college applications.
Col Beausabre: In private emails to others I have already noted that I am certainly insulting dish washers with my headline.
Nonetheless, a dish washer is not qualified to teach the kind of stuff that colleges are supposed to teach. The tragedy is that today, many dish washers are likely more qualified that many professors.
Zman:
Is it true that every white Jewish guys wishes they were black?
Why is that? Are they not happy just being white and Jewish, that is not enough?
https://youtu.be/CBOWCjpCaGM?si=p-IiqXqqBZg5MAB9
Is it because they all want to play basketball like Michael Jodan?
Any feedback on this truth laid down by Ben Stiller?
I was speaking with some older Jewish ladies the other day. One worked in NYC mayors office, she is Jewish.
DESPISES Adams and the radical Leftist Democrats. Tells me that she is a registered Democrat but always votes Republican.
Her friend is with her, also Jewish.
She tells me “She is a Democrat”.
I ask her “So tell me, who will you be voting for in November?”
She looks down, tells me “I am staying home”.
I tell her that I respect that decision. Gave her two thumbs up.
I actually met Jewish, and these were no spring chickens, ladies who made sense.
There are three choices to be made in November:
1. you vote Left.
2. You vote Right.
Or 3. You stay home.
Choose one.
What will the Jews do?
Florida is leading the way in cleaning up their DEMOcrat damages – other states need to take heed – THIS is POPULAR!! Most AMERICANS are SICK of the left’s decadence and destruction! We’re SICK of being denigrated and dismissed as unfit to breathe the globally warmed air!! We’re SICK of perverts running Our Schools and POISONING the minds of OUR CHILDREN!
I’ve always been against “school choice” for ONE REASON ONLY! We have SCHOOLS that WE PAY FOR – NOT the Teachers’ Unions!! The Teachers WORK FOR US – or at least they USED to!! Abolish Teachers’ Unions! Abolish the Dept of Education and return governance to the States! Abolish the INDOCTRINATION of OUR CHILDREN! Return schools to learning the basics and leave the perverted sexual conversions to after school and OFF CAMPUS! Arrest and CONVICT anyone doing OFF CAMPUS what the TEACHERS’ UNIONS CONDONE ON CAMPUS!! I’m fairly certain if some old guy in a park was showing little girls and boys those books the LEFT finds so enthralling he would be ARRESTED or possible beaten to a pulp by a loving Father! Hey, I’m OLD!
Say what you want about DeSantis, but he’s actually delivering governance results, in ways you can feel and see on the ground.
Col Beausabre,
You wrote: “As someone whose first job was as a dishwasher, I resent the implication that being dishwasher requires lower qualifications than professors. …I had gone looking for a summer job as a waiter but was told by the partner I talked to that I would have to start where he did – as a dishwasher.”
Your own paragraph explains why a professor should require more qualification than a dishwasher. Dishwasher can be a summer job, but we want our professors to be well trained in the subject matter that he teaches, and we want him to be established as a good teacher. These require years of education and training.
Way back in high school our local university had a unique professor. Mathematician and engineer.
Every Sunday everyone would drag their garbage cans out to the curb for a Monday pick-up.
Every Monday morning the brilliant professor would back out of his drive and run over his own garbage cans. He would then yell out of the car window at his son and scream about the neighborhood kids throwing the garbage all over the place and tell his son to pick it all up.
This happened at least twice a month.
One morning I watched him drive off with the can trapped under his car. Found it a block away in the middle of the road.
I wouldn’t trust that man to watch my dog.
I had a friend who moved out of state—he had a high IQ, but had not just epilepsy but was slow of speech.
All he did for a job was wash dishes–no one gave him a chance to do anything else.
He was humble and thankful for work –but I remain angry how even bright people can be overlooked.
So help me–I wish COVID had killed sports…now colleges are paying dumb jocks.