Hundreds of professors at the University of North Carolina signed a letter opposing classes taught about Americas founding fathers.
Fox News reports that 673 UNC professors revealed their public letter on Tuesday that says that new legislation offered by the North Carolina House of Representatives would infringe on the universitys academic mic freedom.
House Bill 96, proposed by the North Carolina House of Representatives, would require stakes to take a 3-credit-hour course that covers American history and its founding. However, there seems to be some controversy in professors minds and others related to the requirement that students take this course.
Some of the required reading in the course would include the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, at least five essays from the Federalist Papers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter from Birmingham Jail, and the Gettysburg Address.
Fox News reports that the professors argue that the legislation violates core principles of academic freedom and substitutes ideological force-feeding for the intellectual expertise of faculty.
Another bill up for consideration is HB 715. That bill would eliminate tenure at UNC and its affiliated campuses. It would also establish minimal class sizes and require that the university report all non-instructional research performed by higher education personnel at the institution.
The professors who signed this open letter argue that the legislation attacks their expertise. They state that a course taught in the manner the State House recommends would amount to indoctrination. The letter reads, in part:
Our leaders continue to disregard campus autonomy, attack the expertise and independence of world-class faculty, and seek to force students educations into pre-approved ideological containers, and We must protect the principles of academic freedom and shared governance which have long made UNC a leader in public education.
The letter continues:
If enacted, we believe that these measures will further damage the reputation of UNC and the state of North Carolina and will likely bring critical scrutiny from accrediting agencies that know undue interference in university affairs when they see it.
HB 96 has passed the State House and is going to the State Senate. If it passes the Senate, it will make its way to the desk of Governor Roy Cooper. Cooper is a Democrat and has not indicated how he would act on this legislation if it reached his desk.
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