State Lawmakers Can't Ban Critical Race Theory on College CampusesState legislatures have leeway to regulate K-12 curriculum, but attempting the same on college campuses is a violation of academic freedom.
By Corey Walker
January 31, 2022
Legislators in at least 10 states have introduced bills to regulate speech by professors on college campuses, according to a recent report by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
Bills introduced in Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, and South Carolina "contain unconstitutional bans on what can be taught in college classrooms," writes FIRE's Joe Cohn, who adds that "they must not be enacted in their current form."
While legislators have "broader (but not unlimited) authority to set K-12 curriculum," Cohn writes, "the First Amendment and the principles of academic freedom prevent the government from banning ideas from collegiate classrooms."
Iowa's House File 222 and Oklahoma's House Bill 2988 would reduce state funding to public universities that teach American history with the use of The 1619 Project, a controversial collection of essays that attempts to "reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the United States' national narrative," John McWhorter wrote for Reason.
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Source:
https://reason.com/2022/01/31/state-lawmakers-cant-ban-critical-race-theory-on-college-campuses/
