NBC Think op-ed calls DeSantis’s anti-CRT efforts in higher ed ‘disingenuous,’ ‘problematic'

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Duval County School Board candidate April Carney and Miami-Dade County School Board candidate Monica Colucci on receiving endorsements from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

University of Kansas assistant professor of curriculum studies Nicholas Mitchell wrote a scathing piece on NBC News Think Tuesday aimed at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his anti-Critical Race Theory allies.

Mitchell suggested that the effort across the conservative movement to combat woke indoctrination in schools is itself a totalitarian form of rewriting history: "DeSantis’ desire to foster ‘viewpoint diversity’ on college campuses is disingenuous because neither he nor others in the anti-CRT movement understand what viewpoint diversity or diversity of thought means."

The writer claimed that conservatives are on course for a disastrous confrontation with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, that "have historically been and remain repositories of knowledge that was denied by the predominantly white colleges and universities that dominate academia."

Ron DeSantis sat down with Fox News Digital in Tallahassee.

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But beyond suggesting that conservatives are merely avoiding subjects they don't wish to discuss, the op-ed writer appeared to suggest instead that free thought advocates are actually running cover for open discrimination:

"Further complicating matters is that the coverage of people who don’t feel comfortable on campus sharing their opinions tends to omit the necessary follow-up question: ‘Beliefs and opinions about what?’ There is a stark difference between a disagreement over tax or foreign policies and a disagreement over whether Black people are genetically less intelligent or transgender people should have full civil rights."

Students walk on the campus of Howard University.    (REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger)

The blog took issue with the fact that surveys had been ostensibly distributed in Florida in the name of free speech in order "to measure ‘intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity’ on campus" and "to gauge ‘the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented.’"

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Mitchell suggested the "mere existence" of such material "is problematic in the current political climate." He went on to suggest instead that "The ‘viewpoint diversity’ battles roiling higher education are over whose knowledge is considered valid and who has the power to set curriculum."

People talk before the start of a rally against "critical race theory" (CRT) being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government center in Leesburg, Virginia on June 12, 2021.  (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

He offered a venomous assessment that "Like many social conservatives, [DeSantis] simply doesn’t like what Black knowledge in the humanities and social sciences says about America."

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Meanwhile, some black academics, like linguist and author John McWhorter, have criticized the rise of woke ideology in academia, suggesting that "antiracism" has increasingly become a dogmatic "religion" in itself.