Stop WOKE 1950's Style, The Ableism of Logistical Rigor, On the Value of Right Wing Sources, and Homophobic Responses to National Coming Out Day - Dinner Table Digest № 27
This Digest features two articles from The Chronicle of Higher Education, which has a hard paywall, making it more difficult for the average person to access the full article. As such, I have quoted the pieces to a greater extent than I usually do. I am grateful to my friend Bruce Janz at the University of Central Florida for forwarding me the full text of the articles so that I could feature them here. One article expounds on Stop Woke Witch-hunt in the University of Florida system in the 50s and 60s, while the other looks at how the fallacy of logistical rigor in academic classrooms unfairly disadvantages disabled students. Then I offer a brief interlude to explain why specifically include right wing and conservative sources in my Digests, before [Content Warning] sharing a piece from The Gospel Coalition, an evangelical fundamentalist website, offering counsel to parents on how they should react if one of their children comes out as 2SLGBTQ+ to them on National Coming Out Day. Spoiler Alert: It’s not pretty.
When Lawmakers Purged 'Immorality' from Florida's Universities - Emma Pettit - The Chronicle of Higher Education
By now I am sure that most of us have heard about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ various attempts to stop Floridians of all stripes from encountering the apparent boogeyman that is ‘critical race theory.’ The law is not limited just to educational institutions; in a governmental handout (.pdf), the law is said to “protect employees against a hostile work environment due to critical race theory training.” It turns out, however, that this isn’t the first time that a Florida governor was inspired by moral panic against 2SLGTQ+ people to conduct witch-hunts throughout the state university system. I am grateful to Bruce Janz, who teaches at the University of Central Florida, for sending me the text of this piece. Here is an excerpt:
[Florida Democratic Governor Charley] Johns wanted the legislature to create an investigative body, one that — in the language of the bill he co-sponsored — would probe “all organizations whose principles or activities ... would constitute violence, or a violation of the laws of the state.”
The language was vague, but its purpose was obvious: to interfere with the NAACP and block integration. Such committees became common across the South. One Florida lawmaker warned that the bill’s broad mandate would open the door to “witch hunts.” But opposition to the nascent civil-rights movement overpowered that concern.
On August 21, 1956, Johns got his wish. A state body was born, with a sweeping investigative mandate, a sizable budget, subpoena power, and little accountability to anyone. Initially the committee, which became popularly known as the Johns Committee, stuck to its original target. It sought to undermine the NAACP by exposing the Communists who were supposedly behind it. The misconception that the civil rights organization was linked with Communists was common among Southern politicians, says Steven F. Lawson, a professor emeritus of history at Rutgers University. In that era, “if you challenged racial inequality and white supremacy in any way, you were thought of as a radical.”
The committee’s efforts to destroy the NAACP stalled, in major part because the group fought back in public hearings and in court. But the committee found other enemies: Homosexuals on campus and in the public schools. Alleged Communist sympathizers. Provocative professors or those whose classroom texts included curse words. In its ideology, they were all ingredients in the same dangerous recipe — one that could poison American life.
Moreover, as the 1959 legislative session loomed, Johns and his colleagues — having failed to persuasively link the NAACP to Communists — needed to make a case for continuing their work another two years. Homosexuals on campus emerged as a solution. In a later report to the legislature, the committee described what it had found as “absolutely appalling.”
And the lawmakers, like many people at the time, did view homosexuality as genuinely dangerous, especially to impressionable young people. The 1950s and 1960s was the worst time to be queer in American history, says John D’Emilio, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies the history of sexuality. The persecution of gay people, not just in Florida but across the United States, was the “most aggressive and sustained” it had ever been.
When ‘Rigor’ Targets Disabled Students - Katie Rose Guest Pryal - The Chronicle of Higher Education
This piece focuses on the fallacious, but pervasive view that students who request disability accommodations are somehow gaming the system or attempting to gain unfair advantages on their classmates. Not only is this not true, but it discriminates against students with disabilities by inappropriately minimizing the real ways that their legitimate medical concerns affect their ability to learn. Guest Pryal offers a refutation of the Logistical Rigor Fallacy, and offers some ideas on how educators can make their classrooms friendlier for people with disabilities.
Logistical rigor infantilizes students and reveals a professor’s deep mistrust of them. Mistrust sounds like this: Students are absent from class because they’re slackers; they’re turning in assignments late because they’re taking advantage; they only want lecture recordings so they can cut class and party. And honestly, how many dead grandparents can one student have? This suspicious and adversarial pedagogy is what Karen Costa, who trains faculty in online teaching and trauma awareness, has called “toxic rigor.” And it targets disabled students — perhaps not intentionally, but powerfully. Discrimination against disabled people is insidious and built into cultural norms, including teaching norms. From a toxic rigor of view, disabled students are out to con professors. The mistrust professors feel toward their students in general is multiplied when they face their disabled students. Mistrust of disabled students sounds like this: Not another student with a disability note. Honestly, how does every kid have a diagnosis these days? I’m teaching to the lowest common denominator. They’re faking ADHD to get extra time on tests. The accommodations model is part of the problem. Accommodations are exceptions made for specific disabled students. To receive accommodations, students must jump through invasive and expensive hoops — for example, educational testing that costs thousands of dollars. They must provide extensive proof before professors will relax logistical standards to give them equal footing. And even then, toxic rigor tells professors that disabled students have it easier, that they get a watered-down version of the curriculum, that they just need to work harder. We should strive instead for accessible teaching. Accessibility, as I define it, means the existence of a space (such as a classroom) that is hospitable to and usable by all disabled people, always, all the time. ...
“Addressing extensions is not about anticipating failure [or] dismissing the importance of
deadlines.” Instead, she says, these discussions nudge students to “explicitly
examine what it will take to meet the deadline and whether they have frankly
assessed both their skill and preparation.”
Students who have ADHD, anxiety, depression, and other mental disabilities
struggle with meeting deadlines. These conditions are linked to procrastination —
which is a symptom, not a character flaw. Students who have chronic illnesses may
have unexpected doctor appointments that interrupt their work plans.
Extensions are the real world. But you can’t assume that your students know how to
ask for extensions. Some will, but most won’t.
Offering extensions and teaching how to ask for them is yet another way to create
an accessible classroom. Don’t require your disabled students to out themselves to
ask for extensions; instead, teach all of your students this important life skill. …Toxic rigor and accessibility cannot coexist. Accessibility demands compassion, trust, and understanding, qualities that are anathema to toxic rigor. Until we prune toxic rigor from our pedagogy, disabled students will bear a heavy burden to soothe professors’ need for control.
Interlude - Why do I include right-wing sources in my Digests?
Part of my goal with these Digests is to expose my readers to a variety of views, and in particular, to help progressives understand what is being said in conservative spaces. In short, I do the mucking around, bring it back to you, and add a little flavour. Why do I do this? Two reasons:
Progressive echo chambers can - and do - reinforce misconceptions about what the right wing thinks, what they believe, and how they act. If you are progressive, as I assume most of my readers are, this is my way of breaking your echo chamber.
Having been raised in a conservative Christian home, having participated in all of the culturally relevant aspects of evangelical Christianity, and, importantly, having sincerely held many current conservative beliefs, I can bring a unique perspective, a bit of inside baseball, if you will. That’s why I posted my recent piece about how progressives misunderstand Christian Nationalism.
With this brief diversion, my next piece comes with a Content Warning for extreme homophobia and transphobia. While I don’t usually append CWs, I think it appropriate in this case. If this piece is too close to home, please do not re-traumatize yourself.
How to Respond If Your Child Comes Out Today - Maria Keffler - The Gospel Coalition (Published on October 11, 2022, National Coming Out Day)
I wanted to include this piece because I wanted to “expose the deeds of darkness,” as it were. In this piece, intended to counsel Christian parents on their reactions to a child coming out of the closet as 2SLGBTQ+ on National Coming Out Day, anti-2SLGBTQ+ activists continue to spread outright lies about 2SLGBTQ+ people. Please be warned that the following may be triggering to some folks. All links in the quoted paragraph are in the original.
…investigate what brought your child to this conclusion.
How did your child arrive here? Is she a tween girl who got swept up in the social contagion of gender? Are you dealing with an adult man who slipped under the brainwashing influence of porn that encourages feminization? Does your child have a diagnosis of depression, prior trauma, or autism? The existence of other mental health or neurological diagnoses increases children’s susceptibility to activists’ insistence that they feel different because they’re transgender.
Figuring out what happened will inform how to move forward.
It’s important to recognize that same-sex attraction and transgenderism are two different ball games. A homosexual lifestyle runs counter to God’s plan for human intimacy, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to immediate physical harm. Transgender ideology, on the other hand, demands breast- and rib-crushing chest binders, development-inhibiting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones that wreak havoc on the body, and irreversible surgeries that mutilate primary and secondary sex organs. If your child says she is lesbian or he is gay, you may have some time to work through the issues. If your child wants to transition to a different gender, you should anticipate urgent conversations about permanent, body-altering medical treatments.
And finally, this thread on the difficulties of talking about evangelical religious trauma made so much sense to me
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