Governor Noem appointed Brock Brown as the student member of the Board of Regents in 2020 when he was a junior at SDSU. Regent Brown is now a law student at USD. Governor Kristi Noem appointed former Republican legislator Tim Rave to the Board of Regents in 2021. He now presides over Regents meetings. Given their experience as leaders in higher education and especially Brown’s experience as a student at South Dakota’s two biggest universities, Brown and Rave would surely be aware of any examples of the “indoctrination and harmful, divisive ideologies” that the Governor says run rampant in our universities.
But yesterday, at the opening of this week’s meeting of the Board of Regents in Madison, Rave and Brown said the liberal corruption that Noem alleges is nowhere to be found in the institutions they lead:
While the roundtable didn’t touch on those concerns, the legislators did ask if political activism “seeping into universities” is a problem in South Dakota, which Noem also alleged in her letter.
The short answer, Rave said, is no. Student Regent Brock Brown, a law student at the University of South Dakota, gave legislators an example of how diverse, vigorous and respectful debates were used in a class.
“Never once did I think my voice was stifled as a conservative in the classroom,” Brown said [Makenzie Huber, “After Noem’s Criticism, Legislators and Regents Discuss Solutions for Higher Ed,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2023.06.21].
Noem’s own appointees to the Board of Regents are supporting the idea that Noem’s propaganda campaign against higher education in South Dakota is, like her entire governorship, a wild goose chase calculated to grab headlines for herself rather than address real problems and make genuine improvements for the people of South Dakota.
Ultra conservative politicians tremble at the mere thought of liberals infiltrating their hallowed universities. To them, it represents a contagion, a disease that threatens to corrupt the pure minds of their impressionable youth.
Their fear is rooted in a deep-seated belief that liberal thought runs counter to the American dream, to the ideals of individual freedom and personal responsibility. They view professors as the gatekeepers of knowledge, entrusted with the sacred duty of molding young minds in their image, and any deviation from the conservative gospel is seen as a betrayal of that trust.
They yearn for a return to a simpler time when knowledge was unquestioned and the status quo unchallenged, but in the end, the world is a changing place, and the winds of progress wait for no (choose pronoun). .
KN’s advanced meany training with Lewandowski really honed her natural tyrannical attributes.
So, what’s Kristi Noep’s next move? Did she really think the venerable S.D. Board of Regents would buy into her lies that South Dakota’s public universities are overrun by “woke” ideology?
Is Kristi going to go “full DiSanto” against SDBOR President Tim Rave and have her Disney moment? Or will she, as the late Bill Janklow once said, realize it’s time to take that dumb idea out of the microwave and put it back in the freezer?
Kristi’s blather about liberal ideology taking over our institutions of higher education is the equivalent of her “no grocery tax” idea. It is a great bumper sticker for self-promotion, but is going nowhere fast.
The Regents ought be smarter than the governor . . . that’s a l o w marker.
The governor uses the oldest authoritarian trick in the book: invent an enemy, tell the people they are threatened, rally them to an imaginary sunny day. Julius Caesar used the rhetoric.
Updated here: “Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.” Hermann Goering
I’ve been retired from NSU for more than 20 years, but like many colleagues, I still engage in sholarship and writing and keep abreast of the status of the profession in the state. My first year in South Dakota was the first year that the state college faculty operated under a collective bargaining agreement. That agreement did not cover rates of pay, but it did establish the professional performance standards that were expected of professors and the due processes that developed excellence, integrity, and effectiveness. Those days are gone. A couple of years ago Noem signed into law a ban on faculty unions. That ban constitutes a revocation of academic freedom and removes that contract which guaranteed that the system met high academic standards. Now, it is openly a system in which the governor rails against teaching anything commensurate with the standards of freedom, equality, and justice that enable our public universities to engage in respectable and effective scholarship and teaching. South Dakota is not a desirable place to work nor are the degrees it confers attestors that its graduates have met the standards of honest and competent scholarship.
The effects of Noem’s intrusion into higher education cab be seen at NSU. Two years ago Dr. Downs was fired as president because some legislators were enraged over some diversity measures he was implementing. That firing was a symptom of the intellectual restrictions imposed on the university. Under such a blatant revocation of academic freedom, the accreditation of the university is called into question. And the faculty seems too cowed to even comment on that firing. But while NSU seems to have a slight drop in headcount enrollments, it has hit a rock-bottom registration in full-time equivalents. Last fall it registered 3,344 students, but only the equivalent of 1,681 going full-time. That indicates students may attend NSU for fundamental course work, but go elsewhere to obtain their degrees. Noem complains that the systems lags with 47 percent graduation rate, compared with a national rate of 63 percent. Her political takeover of the system drives students to go where degrees are not so academically tarnished.
Next month Dr. Downs takes over the presidency of the University of Minnesota Moorhead, a member of the same conferences as NSU. South Dakota students can go there for the same tuition they would pay in South Dakota under a reciprocal agreement. What savvy student would waste tuition at one of Noem’s concentration camps? And what kind if faculty put up with it? There are better choices all around us.
And Dr. Newquist, what savvy student would attend a few classes at UM Moorhead, graduate from there, and return to SD for anything but holidays with Mom and Dad?
Apparently commenter John, above, gives us an accurate quote:
“…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.” Hermann Goering [one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party. wiki].
Trump is essentially the present day Nazi Hermann Goering of the GOP.
You think we jest?
Well … yesterday, special prosecutor John Durham testified, and was subsequently cross-examined under oath in the Jim Jordan’s Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee hearing (by, among others, disparate Representatives Adam Schiff, a Stanford/Harvard educated 1990 prosecutor of an FBI Soviet spy, and Matt Gaetz, who was a practicing lawyer until replacing a Florida state representative on corruption charges in February 2010. His 2007 graduating law class members among 400 petition signers denounced him as incompetent. Gaetz’s questioning of Durham is incompetent and embarrassing, and like Trump, throws Durham under the bus.)
Some background:
In April 2019, U.S. Attorney General William Barr had tasked Durham with overseeing a review of the origins of the Russia investigation and to determine if intelligence collection involving the Trump campaign was “lawful and appropriate”.[7][8] Barr disclosed in December 2020 that he had elevated Durham’s status to special counsel in October 2020, ensuring that the Durham special counsel investigation could continue after the Trump administration ended.[9][10] wiki
Durham released his 300 page report last month. Rep Jim Jordan’s committee examined the report at yesterday’s congressional hearing.
US Attorney Bob Mueller’s 500 page 2019 report investigated Trump “collusion” with Russia in his campaign defeating Hillary Clinton in the 2015 electoral college, finding:
that the “Russian government interfered in our election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” Mueller continued:
“[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its election interference activities. We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term.”
PROFOUNDLY, Barr then conspired with Trump, in my opinion, to quash investigator Mueller’s report, and then Barr directed Durham’s “investigation of the investigator.”
( Of course true to form as a criminal Republican president, Trump just “promised to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the Biden family only hours after his arraignment on 37 federal felony charges in Florida.” https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/13/trump-on-offensive-after-indictment-00101865 )
Durham’s 300 page report attempts to counter Mueller’s 500 page report. It does not.
And, NOT according to Adam Schiff.
In a heated cross examination Schiff exposes Durham as being “unaware” that “the Russians released stolen emails, that that information was helpful to the Trump campaign, and that Donald Trump touted those stolen documents on the campaign trail more than a hundred times”.
Durham: “I am not aware of that.”
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1671561024846327808/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1671561024846327808¤tTweetUser=Acyn
In other news that same day the House censured Schiff for his role in Trump’s impeachments.
Schiff, the former Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial will now be subject to an ethics investigation. The 213 to 209 House vote was on the censure resolution that says Schiff claimed Trump colluded with Russia’s election interference.
Don Jr. said “I love it” at the time (to the promise of Russian dirt on HRC) from Trump Tower.
Noem acts no differently than Trump and the GOP that continues to protect Trump from accountability. Just what Hermann Goering was famous for in the Nazi party.
“Stifled voices”
…for a bit more of Schiff examining Durham and hus report:
https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1671562659525689347/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1671562659525689347¤tTweetUser=rgoodlaw
P. Aitch,
Some years back a group of faculty were assembled to address the outmigration from the state. We found that the first wave came at high school graduation when kids left to go to college or find jobs. The second came at college graduation. Very few students considered returning to South Dakota.
So, one of the reasons I left the academic track after getting a Master’s degree was that faculty were too conservative, or too timid. I was interested in changing things. If faculty had a choice between entering a lecture hall to talk about changing things or actually doing something to change things, you would find them in the lecture hall. People don’t realize that academia is basically a conservative institution. It changes, but very s-l-o-w-l-y. Sociology departments are more liberal than the average department, but it’s still housed in an institution that is creeping along at 0.1 mph.
The diversity, equity and inclusion argument has been going on since the 1960s with little improvement at colleges and universities. They might take baby steps to improve things, but then some fascist politician get their hands on the budgetary process and decides the institution must protect white privilege, and we go back 40 years. There is nothing more white than higher ed unless it’s a Ku Klux Klan rally. The only thing saving higher ed are students, who, whether they are conservative or liberal, understand that facts matter. Noem wants to clean the facts out of higher ed, and that’s why students will leave.
South Dakota students are simply props in Mrs. Noem’s script for her biggest role yet? What’s next for her: the wet t-shirt contest at the Chip?
Mr. Kurtz…the wet T Shirt contest for the Governor at the Buffalo Chip is an interesting concept for the Governor’s staff to develop into a winning tourism focused event. After all the 50 year old, Grandmother Governor is younger than about 80% of Bike Ralley participants.
Kristi Lynn’s pole dancing at The Full Throttle during Rally, larry.
A testimony to the suggestion that education’s progress can barely be tracked on a centennial winter count is provided while comparing two occupations in the last 200 years. Two centuries ago, doctors used wooden tools, harmful elixirs, and made home visits. Nowadays, there are specialists, sterile workspaces, and ol doc doesn’t smoke on the job. The innovations have made a doctor’s office almost unrecognizable today.
On the other hand, a classroom from way back in the day is virtually identical to the present. The delivery hasn’t changed much either. Pupils still sit in rows and listen to a lecture followed by a graded examination. It may be the successful pedagogy for a few, and that has been the standard. Really? So many educators have been stunted thanks to cretans who are intimidated by progress when it benefits the lower and middle realms of the socioeconomic scale. I know we have game-changers out here. To hell with gender traitors like KN and go, baby, go.
Our Lady of the Arroyo was an OR nurse for a plastic surgery group in Albuquerque before she retired. Mrs. Noem would be a perfect candidate for augmentation.
Noem needs to follow the yellow brick road and receive a heart, a brain, a conscience and a clew or two. And a shock collar for everry time she lies her ass off.
I note that the Dakota Scout’s coverage of the Regents’ meeting this week reports corrections in the numbers Ditzy Kristi cited regarding the graduation rates at South Dakota colleges. But I also note they quote a legislator stating that three out of four graduates choose to stay in South Dakota. That number disagrees dramatically with what previous officials have called the “brain drain.”
This is a reminder that anything that comes out of South Dakota government needs to be fact checked.
Young Mr. Brown may have a different opinion if the same woke-ism that the Messrs. Rave and Partridge brought with them to the Black Hills College is allowed to spread to his east river institute.
Don’t ‘ya love it when grudznick picks up new words to try and insult liberals. He’s just like a little kid.
Wokei-ism? He even puts a little hyphen in there.
Stay pertinent, grudzie. 👍🏻
Early goat!
Noem has set-up a tip line to report “Liberal thinking” in our universities. Am I the only one to find this far right tactic to be totally outragious? Where is the media in this state?
I suppose a rant about the Facist tactics of Kristy Noem to catch the attention of & then perhaps be a long sight big shot in Trumper world would be unwelcome here. My English is usually much more precise & better than this, but I’m pissed-off & I doubt you’ll post it anyway.
Bob Burns was mostly woke when I was at SDSU in the mid 70s. Today Tim Schorn is a radical professor and so is Brian Bengs both are exceedingly critical of South Dakota’s nutball governor and its mostly limp-wristed congressional delegation.
Professor Emeritus David Crain was fervent in his criticism of American hegemony, too.
I recall not getting much of a laugh when I suggested transubstantiation was ritual cannibalism during one of Professor Burns’ civil liberties’ classes back when we could smoke cigarettes in the Rotunda.
They don’t get much woker today than Black Hills State’s Professor Courtney Huse-Wika.
& I doubt you’ll post it anyway. Looks like you’d be wrong about Cory not posting it. Noiem has nomchance of veep spot. Arizona flake Lake has all but moved into Mara a lago and spends her days likely humping drumpf’s leg to gain his attention.
My guess if you’re truly woke, you are diametrically opposed to anything Grudznick has to say. Thus, I am all for protecting the free speech, free academic rights of Professors and instructors suspected of being “woke,”by whoever it is that bothers to take on that ignorant role of being thought policeman in charge.. It could be they are socially responsible people interested in the free and open exchange of ideas. That’s what college is “a market place of ideas.”
Dr. Newquist. I would posit that your statement may be accurate for SD’s PUBLIC Universities. Meanwhile, this PhD. can relay that at least one private university provided him with an undergraduate level of excellence and depth that exceeded any of that enjoyed by his fellow graduate school classmates from various public universities in several states. In fact, much of the course-work for that doctoral program was only a slightly (SLIGHTLY) more detailed rehash of the same undergrad materials, knowledge and investigatory depth received there, and some in some areas even fell a little short. Skol! Proud Harvard of the Prairies alum here.