I have been privileged to witness the abrupt destruction of higher education in America. It’s been dramatic and dizzying — federal scientific institutions taken over by crackpots, research funding cut, politics inserted into the university system (well, it’s always been there, but not quite so overt), and condemnation of open-minded analysis in favor of puritanical, religious, cult-like dogma. I would rather not be seeing this.
The cool thing about it all is that it is quantifiable. We can measure the repression of our universities! The Academic Freedom Index assessed the autonomy of universities worldwide — universities are increasingly constrained by political demands. The US in particular is being hit hard.
Institutional Autonomy, Development for the US and the Average Peer Country in Western Europe and North
America from 2015 to 2025.
I don’t think we’ve hit bottom yet. It’s going to get worse, I predict.
For a crystal clear example of an oppressive reduction of university autonomy, we can look to Texas. This may be the future fate of the rest of the country, which really should be looking on Texas with horror.
A new memo at Texas Tech University establishes a sweeping and draconian censorship policy toward LGBTQ+ people, creating a campus equivalent of “Don’t Say Gay” in one of the most extreme anti-speech policies ever imposed at a public university. The memo bars professors from discussing LGBTQ+ topics in core and lower-level courses and eliminates entire fields of study across the five-university system. It even requires that if an industry-standard textbook includes content on sexual orientation or gender identity, instructors must skip over it and avoid discussion around it. Most troubling, however, is that the censorship regime extends beyond professors to students themselves: the memo states that “no degree-culminating student research within the TTU System will be permitted to center on SOGI [Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity] topics,” a total ban on LGBTQ+ mentions in dissertations or graduate thesis work.
The memorandum, which was issued by Chancellor Brandon Creighton—a former Republican state senator who authored Texas’s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at public universities and a campus protest restriction law that a federal judge blocked as unconstitutional—went out to the presidents of all five universities in the Texas Tech University System this month. The system serves approximately 64,000 students across Texas Tech University, Angelo State University, Midwestern State University, and two Health Sciences Centers. Under the new policy, all majors, minors, certificates, and graduate degrees “centered on” sexual orientation or gender identity will be eliminated. Provosts at each university must identify every affected program and submit finalized lists to the chancellor’s office by June 15, 2026, at which point an immediate admissions freeze will take effect—no new students will be allowed to enroll in or declare any of the targeted programs. Currently enrolled students will be allowed to finish their degrees through a teach-out process, but once the last of them graduates, the fields will cease to exist at Texas Tech entirely.
I repeat, by authoritarian dictat, “fields will cease to exist at Texas Tech entirely”. Entire domains of research will be eradicated, not because the evidence makes them invalid, but because the narrow religious dogma of a small number of conservative zealots, and the social pressure from a deluded, ill-informed public, has decreed that they do not exist. The rest of the world will continue to study, measure, and analyze these very real sociological and psychological and biological phenomena, but Texas will close its eyes and ears and punish anyone who dares to acknowledge their existence.
the narrow religious dogma of a small number of conservative zealots, and the social pressure from a deluded, ill-informed public,
If I were to place blame, it would be on a deluded, ill-informed public
Humans are easily entertained. Too many faces in their phones twittering their lives away. Most Americans are busy drinking, texting, driving and not paying attention to the signposts. The lack of attention to the important issues will end up costing all of us.
Free to be……one of the two choices in column A, and none of the choices in column B. So much for the Texas version of personal freedom.
Isn’t this a giant exercise in…Cancel Culture?
Well sure.
The right wingnuts never actually valued freedom and freedom of speech and thought.
When they have the power, they immediately cancel both of these constitutional rights.
As for dumb, ignorant Zod-botherers look at how USA got into the war. Everyone in Pentagon knew a ‘decapitation’ strike would not topple the regime in Iran. But Dumbseth is super-religious with a romantic view of the crusades. The temptation to deal a mortal blow to the eevul mohammedans overrode whatever judgement he has.
.
The Bible mentions abortion only once saying a woman suspected of carrying a child not of the husband should drink an abortion-inducing potion while a rabbi reads an incantation that makes only the child of another man be miscarried. So the drivel in the book and the drivel they spout are different things…
I could go on forever.
Terrible news for USA (Christian Lysenkoism) is good news for the European Union. Their universities are working to pick up the best and brightest researchers fleeing abroad.
Surely, this has exposed them to a legal challenge on First Amendment grounds. Teaching about a topic is not the same as advocating for a topic. An educational institution has a duty to provide students with the best available information about a given topic. Banning any reference to a topic because it offends some people is unjustifiable. There is no recognized right not to be offended in any of the major declarations or bills of human rights and any such would be impracticable on its face since it would offend me and others. Whose sense of being offended should prevail in such cases? I would hope the ACLU is taking a close look at this.
I spy with my litte eye… an evolutionary mismatch.
“Oog like orange chieftain. Also want more atlatl. No such thing as too many atlatl.” (goes away to drink fermented bear juice).
And, tRUMP’s war on science escalates, WTF
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-fires-national-science-board
here is a consequence of that tRUMP malicious blunder:
https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/26/china-surpasses-us-in-research-spending-the-consequences-extend-far-beyond-scientific-ranking-and-clout/
The National Science Foundation is now all but gone, thanks to Trump.
And combining a couple comments above with Professor Myers’s (entirely justified and intellectually righteous!) concerns in which he decries state-government interference in the curricula and research agendas at state universities:
Where they don’t have government interference, they try indirect government interference… like the Hegseth list of "too inappropriately biased for military sponsorship/support" universities, almost all of which (including my alma mater and that of other family members) are private and thus beyond direct gerrymandered-state-government control. Only three of those schools are not entirely private, and both of them have substantial parallel private endowments. (Don’t be deceived by names — the Universities of Pennsylvania and Southern California are entirely private, while Cornell is wound up having part of it as the land-grant university of New York.)
Meanwhile, the ICC watches with interest. And I do not mean the Interstate Commerce Commission.
I am interested in the definition of ‘peer country’.
Just like the collapse of international contracts with the US defense industry, this is now a problem that will continue well beyond this administration. Even if the next lot immediately reverses everything Trump and his cronies have done to damage academia, all the people who have gone elsewhere will stay away as there is simply no way to be sure that another equally damaging idiot won’t be elected in the not too distant future.
It is not possible to educate people who reject education and consider reason to be the work of the religious fantasy: devil.
In 2012 the Texas GOP publically stated that they were against the teaching of critical thinking. Claiming that “life origins” (being pro creationism) and global climate (denialism) should be subject to challenges in public schools, and the schools should not be allowed to undermine parental authority or religious beliefs. In other words, do not educate our children, we need them to just as stupid as their parents. And numerous GOP apologists have tried to explain how this GOP platform is not “really” anti-education, etc. Such critical thinking leads to doubting the veracity of flat Earth writings like Noah’s big box. Virginia Foxx insists that the Noah fable is actual history (as did idiot Reagan), and she is not alone in that level of stupidity in congress: Louie Gohmert, Michelle Bachman, Rand Paul, Roger Marshall, MTG, Lauren Boebert, Kevin McCarthy (ex), Matt Gaetz (ex), and Susan Collins (who is always really “concerned”, but votes GQP anyway). Of course there are additional morons, this is just a sampling. There are way too many corporate Democrats who will vote with Republicans just to keep their worthless jobs, ignoring the actual Democratic frauds like pro-coal Manchin and Sinma.
https://truthout.org/articles/texas-gop-declares-no-more-teaching-of-critical-thinking-skills-in-texas-public-schools/
seachange, I get your little joke, but FWIW, from the adduced link:
seachange @11: “I am interested in the definition of ‘peer country’.”
The US peer nations will soon include Chad (lowest adult literacy rate: 27%) and Mali (31%).
At least 40% of the US adult population endorses creationism, and over 50% have a less than 6th grade reading and comprehension level. And destroying public education will obviously increase those numbers (the very reasons why that destruction has been continually happening). Now that they are in power, this educational destruction will obviously accelerate.
According to aggressive willfully ignorant creationists, the US educational levels are too damn high:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx
https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics
Heinrich Himmler, early in his stint as Reichsführer SS, wrote: “The non-German population of the eastern territories [areas of Poland conquered by Germany] must not receive any education higher than that of an elementary school with four [grades]. The objective of this schooling must simply be to teach: simple arithmetic up to 500 at the most, how to write one’s name; and to teach that it is God’s commandment to be obedient to the Germans and to be honest, hard working and well-behaved. I consider it unnecessary to teach reading. . . .”
Further evidence of the destruction of American science: The other day I was looking through papers on PubMed. None of the servers would connect me. So I tried following links to the universities that hosted copies of these papers. About half of them wouldn’t connect. I thought it was odd since this has never been problem before. Then I tried a VPN set to the US and everything worked perfectly.
In other words, some insular moron in the US university sector decreed that only Americans should be able to access American research…even though 70% of the papers on PubMed come from non-US research.
If Figure 6 from the Academic Freedom Index report looks horrifying, Figure 7 is even worse.
Not that I expected consistency from these idiots or anything, but… doesn’t this policy break itself? If you pass a rule banning mentioning a thing, surely that rule mentions the thing in order to specify what you’re banning mentioning?
devnll, drollish, but the ban is not about merely mentioning stuff, it’s about teaching or discussing it:
Harold Velde, an Illinois representative who became the chair of HUAC in 1953, spoke against funding a mobile library service for rural citizens by warning, “Educating Americans through the means of the library service could bring about a change of their political attitude quicker than any other method. The basis of Communism and socialistic influence is the education of the people.”
Trump famously loves the poorly educated and is keen to crerate as many of them as he can.
The Repugs as a party want people stupid enugh to vote for them and destroying education and increasing religulous brain-washing creates those.
One of the many key differences between the parties since the Democratic party supports education, critical thinking and encouraging well educated intelligent voters which are thereby likely to vote for them based on evidence and facts.
Generalisation but pretty much right and something that most people already know and have done for years.
Yet some still argued and voted against the Democratic party and against Kamala and therefore for Trump despite knowing this and despite being warned of the consequences Sigh.
everything I see regarding the “conservatives” as represented by the elected politicians shows the same thing a deliberate abdication of leadership on the world stage. Educational and research withdrawal into protected spaces is clearly the objective. As well as treating the rest of the world as enemies, competitors.
acting like we do not need allies nor friends setting us up as against anyone who does not surrender their autonomy any time we ask. the rest of the world will make their own choices those who make the wrong choice will surrender their prosperity, their security and their influence.
It was all going so well, robotics, soace exploration, life expectation, environment protection, human rights. Then suddenly we have been set back probably a century. At age 64 that is horribly disheartening.
This draconian unconstitutional-bullshit may end up being just the thing that wakes people up to fight this type of abuse. I imagine Texas tech is counting on them to be good little snowflakes and run away to safer confines, or choose to wear the shackles of conformity. It’s nothing more than ‘manufactured inequality’ incubating at a major university.
But, you know what they say: “When it’s 5 o’clock in New York, it’s 1972 in Texas.”
This type of crap proves it.
@21 StevoR
The clock didn’t start in November of 2024, Stevo. The endumbening of America started generations before that. Decisions from the top matter, but it takes much longer than four years, or even eight years, for any course correction to become apparent.
Politicians who send their children to elite private schools are part of the problem.
@ ^ Trump-helping bad faith Troll “Beholder” : The metaphorical clock FINISHED in November 2024 when third party spoilers, non-voters, voter suppression and maybe some cheating by Musk robbed Kamala Harris of the Presidency she should – in any sane universe – have won.
Yes, there was a lead up to that and, yes, the USA was in decline but Trump’s Fascist take over was where future historians will say it died.
Which could have been avoided had Kamala Harris succeeded Joe Biden as President.
There is zero doubt that Trump becoming POTUS has made the USA and the entire pale blue dot we live on and share a vastly worse place. Thanks to you and those in your Trump supporting – both directly and indirectly mob.
Of course the lead up to the end of the USA iand another big factor in its suddenly very steep decline ncluded the 2016 election and Trump’s first term which should have seen the absolute rejection of third party spoilers like Stein afetr they enabled Trump’s first term along withthe berniebros, Assnage and Comey plus the anti-democratic Electoral College system which saw the woman who got more votes lose to the sad excuse for a man who got less.
I don’t think Chancellor Brandon Creighton is as cuddly as those monkeys.
@26 StevoR
I hate to break it to ya, Stevo, you’re absolutely wrong. Quit riding the 2024 DNC campaign’s flaccid penis for just a second and take a look around you.
This was baked in. What we are facing right now is probably a direct outcome of decisions Reagan made when today’s teachers were in kindergarten. It’s like I was saying, a course correction is not immediately apparent. What we do matters, though, and in the 2070’s our quaint backwater American education system may just be recovering from an early-21st-century neoliberal clusterfuck because of actions we take in the next few years.
@27
If you think Julian Assange and the Bernie Bros did this then you deserve to continue losing.
I was speaking to an elderly relative yesterday, and she advised me against growing old. What with the physical infirmities and all. But what really worried me was a bit later on when she was talking about ‘kids today’ (really!) and I offered to show her long term crime statistics showing things were getting better over all. ‘Nonsense! You need to get out in the real world.’.
Save me from THAT kind of infirmity please.
@29. Bad faith Trump aiding troll “beholder” (BFTATB)
LOL! No, obviously I am not. The error is as usual all yours BFTATB. Obvs if Kamala had won we would NOT have a Fascist takeover by Trump. Trump would now be in jail, or a courtroom or facility for the criminally demented where he belongs.
Interesting that you use a gendered slur / insult there and assume the identity of that campaign which had a notably female candidate is male. That says more about your underlying misogyny than anything about the Democratic party clearly.
No, it wasn’t. As noted in previous part about the Trump takeover specifically.
No. It’s the direct outcome of Trump becoming POTUS for a second time – something you de facto voted for and argued for by constantly and only attacking the SOLE ALTERNATIVE to Trump.
@29. Bad faith Trump aiding troll “beholder” (BFTATB)
LOL! No, obviously I am not. The error is as usual all yours BFTATB. Obvs if Kamala had won we would NOT have a Fascist takeover by Trump. Trump would now be in jail, or a courtroom or facility for the criminally demented where he belongs.
Interesting that you use a gendered slur / insult there and assume the identity of that campaign which had a notably female candidate is male. That says more about your underlying misogyny than anything about the Democratic party clearly.
No, it wasn’t. As noted in previous part about the Trump takeover specifically.
No. It’s the direct outcome of Trump becoming POTUS for a second time – something you de facto voted for and argued for by constantly and only attacking the SOLE ALTERNATIVE to Trump.
Continued @29 BFTATB :
Is it? How? Show your work. The typical lack of any substantial causative mechanism or argument here by BFTATB is duly noted.
Yes, Reaganomics was bad and Reagan has a dreadful, lingering legacy but responsible for what we’re facing now with Trump? In 2026? Nope.
Clinton – Bill, Obama, and Biden among others tried to correct the course if you refer to the Repug trajectory vs the Democratic trajectory for the USoA.
Incidentally, if things were really so “baked in” becoz Reagan why did you argue so hard for Trump by arguing so venomously and misleadingly against the Democratic party for many years leading up to and during the final legitimate~ish USA election? Indeed, why are you still arguing against and hating on the Democratic party which opposes Trump’s fascism and its policies?
Huh, what were you just saying before about things being “baked in?” What do you think you did that mattered and changed things? Did arguing against Kamala Harris, Biden and the Democratic party make a positive difference or a very negative one? Did third party spoilers help or hurt? You made our planet vastly worse “beholder” and must know that even if you still refuse to admit it and apologise and change accordingly.
Actions like?
May eh? Perhaps or we may all be dead in WW III sparked by Trump and Netanyahu’s war getting even more out of hand and destroying the world as we know it through a nuclear apocalypse as well as the coming Global Overheating and economic catastrophes that Trump’s rule is bringing us.
Bringing All of us planet-wide many of whom are already dead now and would NOT have died had Kamala been POTUS (eg USAID cuts, RFK Jr’s disease epidemics, Ukraine, Iran war and, oh yeah, the Gaza genocide that Trump made worse but you no longer seem to give a toss about) and NOT just the benighted USoA.
We take?
Trump’s regime which YOU installed takes you mean Bad Faith Trump Aiding Troll “beholder.”
One more – hopefully making this less wall of text and more readable by splitting in separate comments. Apologies for the double posting too, dunno why that happened. :
It’s a matter of known fact here NOT opinion Bad Faith Trump Aiding Troll “beholder”
Assange via wikileaks :
Source : https://www.electionanalysis.ws/us/president2016/us-election-analysis-2016/section-6-internet/taking-julian-assange-seriously-considering-wikileaks-role-in-the-us-presidential-campaign/
As for the Berniebros :
Source : https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds
Plus :
Source : https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-trump-2016-election-654320
Have you forgotten or mentally blocked out the reality of what happened in 2016? Are you genuinely that wilfully lacking in understanding – or (as seems more likely simply trolling in bad faith BFTATB?
Of course, it isn’t just me “losing” here – very typically Trumpian and Trump supporter language noted BTW. Ultimately everyone on our planet is losing and suffering immensely and in all too many cases fatally. For starters, due to the Climate Consequences of getting Trump’s billionaire Fascist regime in charge of the world’s rogue superpower.
Kinda hard for me to fathom how some rando blog commenter singularly “installed” the Trump regime. Methinks beholder is standing in as the scapegoat in some periodic ritualistic practice here, perhaps willingly? Cathartic yes. Sad too.
There is something to be said for distal causes and not entirely focusing upon the proximal unforgivable transgressions of the summarily evil blog commenter known as the beholder (demonic string-puller and kingmaker extraordinaire).
Clinton was a neoliberal wet dream and played no small role in a superpredator crime bill and the financial deregulation that ushered in the subprime crash, so…Reaganism inspired him to be a new Democrat, though Southern Democrats were always sus given Jim Crow. Remember his campaign photo-op at Klan stronghold Stone Mountain? Dog whistle Dixiecrats much Bubba?
Biden was a snake from a usury state. Obama was a milquetoast who couldn’t push a public option for crying out loud. Quite cozy with the financial sector BTW.
@ ^ 35 Hemidactylus : Not “singularly” but the Trump supporting trolls here including “beholder” as well as others (eg Vicar who to their credit has stuck the flounce) did work and argue tediously and regularly to make Trump POTUS by attacking the only alternative. They did so here and I presume elsewhere as well & they should be called out and held accountable for that, don’t you agree?
Again, note and compare to the alternative Repug options.
You don’t get ideal Unicorn candidates in USoA politics.
Politics is about compromising and choosing the better vs the worse options. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, I wish it were different. It isn’t.
Reality is what it is – political as well as scientific reality.
BTW. Trump helping Disingenuous Troll “beholder” see here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/04/17/humans-are-awful-creatures/comment-page-1/#comment-2299314
and answer the questions asked of you – by your own request – there. Or here. Pretty safe bet that they won’t but still.
@ ^ 35 Hemidactylus : Not “singularly” but the Trump supporting trolls here including “beholder” as well as others (eg Vicar who to their credit has stuck the flounce) did work and argue tediously and regularly to make Trump POTUS by attacking the only alternative. They did so here and I presume elsewhere as well & they should be called out and held accountable for that, don’t you agree?
Again, note and compare to the alternative Repug options.
You don’t get ideal Unicorn candidates in USoA politics.
Politics is about compromising and choosing the better vs the worse options. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, I wish it were different. It isn’t.
Reality is what it is – political as well as scientific reality.
BTW. Trump helping Disingenuous Troll “beholder” see here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/04/17/humans-are-awful-creatures/comment-page-1/#comment-2299314
and answer the questions asked of you – by your own request – there. Or here. Pretty safe bet that they won’t but still.
@ 35 Hemidactylus
Right? The punchline is; as far as I or anyone else can make out, the commenter Stevo relentlessly bullies over and over again did not even vote for Trump.
Stevo’s fanatical hatred has no rational basis of any kind. It’s unhinged.