INGRAINING IGNORANCE: Associated Press-obtained emails via
FOIA show former Indiana governor turned university president Mitch Daniels “requested
that historian and anti-war activist Howard Zinn’s writings be banned from
classrooms and asked for a ‘cleanup’ of college courses.” Daniels also “talked about cutting funding for a program run by a local university professor who was
one of his sharpest critics.” INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — though the former governor
had “pledged to promote academic freedom” when he assumed the university presidency
in January, the emails show that as governor Daniels had “attempted to
eliminate what he considered liberal ‘propaganda’ at Indiana’s public
universities.”
Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
In a biographical sketch of Daniels is the citation of the
July 2013 Associated Press-obtained emails in
which Daniels asks for assurances that the textbook The People’s History of the United States by historian Howard Zinn “‘is
not in use anywhere in Indiana.’”
Ban ideas “we” don’t like
“Daniels wrote in 2010, ‘This crap should not be accepted
for any credit by the state.’ His e-mails were addressed to his education
adviser Scott Jenkins and a top fundraiser and state school board member David
Shane. “Part of Shane’s input was that a statewide review ‘would force to
daylight a lot of excrement.’
“Daniels and his aides came to agreement and the governor
wrote to them: ‘Go for it. Disqualify propaganda ....’”
Defund “our” critics
“In a separate and unrelated round of emails composed in
2009, Indiana Education officials shared concerns with Daniels about the
lobbying resources and activities of the Indiana Urban Schools Association.
Daniels asked that the administration ‘examine cutting them out, at least of
the [funding] surge we are planning for the next couple yrs.’
 |
| More accurately DEVOLUTION of intellectual freedom |
“The executive director of IUSA is Charles Little (Indiana
University-Purdue University at Indianapolis professor of education) who had
criticized (Daniels). It wasn’t immediately clear if the audit went through.
Daniels said he had never heard of Charles Little.”
Politician turned “Educator” (?)
Manipulator, mind control agent
Mitchell Elias (Mitch) Daniels, Jr. (b. April 7, 1949, in Monongahela,
Pennsylvania) is a U.S. politician who became president of Purdue University after
holding the Indiana office of governor for two terms (2005-2013). During the
George W. Bush administration, he was Director of the Office of Management and
Budget (January 20, 2001 – June 6, 2003) He academic credentials were taken at Princeton
University; Indiana University- Indianapolis, and Georgetown University (Washington,
D.C.)
U
|
niversity of Illinois Professor Cary Nelson told the
Associated press, “‘It is astonishing and shocking that such a person is now the
head of a major research university, making decisions about the curriculum,
that one painfully suspects embodies the same ignorance and racism these
comments embody.’” Nelson is also president of the American Association of
University Professors (AAUP), which investigates cases of censorship from
university officials. Continuing his reaction, Nelson said:
Academies, through the unique
system of tenure, once enshrined freedom of opinion and inquiry (but) now
frequently are home to the narrowest sort of closed-mindedness and the worst
repression of dissident ideas.|
I
|
n his July 22 article “Boycott Purdue,” PRAVDA.Ru editor David
Hoffman makes the case even stronger and more poignantly when contextualizes
ignorance and its consequences.
Worse than “stupidity,” which when viewed positively not pejoratively
can provide an essential uniqueness and diversity in the world, Hoffman says, “Ignorance
is damaging in all its forms. Ignorance is the development of faulty
perceptions or opinions that evolve through the use of incomplete and/or
inaccurate information or knowledge that, in turn, emanates from the inability,
failure, or refusal to examine all sides of an issue.
One type of ignorance is self-inflicted and internal ─
…making a person incapable of
empathizing with any interests or opinions other than one’s own
…making one loath to read, watch,
or listen to anything that deviates from one’s own preconceptions.
…spawning racism, prejudice,
intolerance, and injustice
Another type of ignorance, he says, “is imposed externally
by corrupt, unethical, self-serving individuals who believe their ambitions, lusts,
and greed can only be satisfied by keeping others ignorant.
This is normally accomplished through a
combination of censorship and control over a state or nation’s educational
system.
Enemy of freedom, humankind
Mitch “Daniels-the man who worshiped at the altar of
privatization while serving as governor; the man who helped make the corporate
voice the only politically effective voice in Indiana; the man who lowered the
incomes of thousands of Indiana workers; the man who sought to quash academic
freedom; the man who denounced college courses as ‘propaganda,’ yet had no
compunction about using propaganda himself; the man who attempted to abuse the
authority of his office to silence critics-continues to feed at the taxpayer
trough as president of Purdue University,” Hoffman writes.
|
“
|
The greatest gift a human being possesses is the ability to
think but thinking is not enough,” Hoffman says. “Human beings must also have
access to the information (denied by enemies, the ilk of Mitch Daniels) that
permits them to make fully informed decisions.
And this means having access to all learned points of view.
“Therefore enemies of academic freedom are the greatest
enemies of humankind, because they seek to control others’ thoughts to achieve
their own selfish ends.”
Whispered promise, potential
A legacy Americans cannot afford to continue squandering is
whispered in words attributed to America’s fourth president (1809-1817) James Madison:
The advancement and diffusion of
knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
Knowledge will forever govern
ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves
with the power which knowledge gives.
Sources and notes
“AP Exclusive: Daniels looked to censor opponents” (Tom LoBianco),
July 16, 2013, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-daniels-looked-censor-opponents
“Boycott Purdue” (David Hoffman), July 22, 2013, http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/22-07-2013/125207-boycott_purdue-0/
David R. Hoffman, Legal Editor of Pravda.Ru
Copyright © 1999-2013, «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our
materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The
opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view
of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.
Daniels bio, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Daniels
Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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