What will KU do?
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Just read that 6 of the 9 schools Trump wants to sign onto his administration policies (in order to get preferential funding) have responded–all declined expressing no desire to have academic freedom curtailed or to be an organ for Trump. No word from the other 3 yet.
Also read that the “offer” has been extended to 3 more schools, including KU. So, will KU join the decliners or sell out?
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Guessing decline if it’s strictly up to KU. Your thoughts?
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@Crimsonorblue22 I’m not up to date on KU political atmosphere. I lost a lot of faith in Kansas education when I learned that the Shawnee Mission district in which I grew up had allowed outside influences to censor the curriculum and the libraries.
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Our state BOE is now mostly conservative. The rep from our district homeschooled their kids. They don’t have anything to do w/KU. Probably the board of regents makes those decisions.
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I’m sure they will decline but I also have friends who had their kids transfer from KU due to Professors pushing a democratic agenda in studies they shouldn’t.
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Wild how often fostering critical thinking is labeled pushing a democratic agenda. Lol.
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Here’s the text of the proposal https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Compact-for-Academic-Excellence-in-Higher-Education-10.1.pdf
Some of it is perfectly defensible like the institutional neutrality provision. But the immigration, gender/sex, and financial things are just straight up extortion.
My guess is it’s KU’s call at the end of the day unless KBOR steps in. I can’t see that happening because I believe most members were appointed by Gov. Kelly.
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@benshawks08 unless you are teaching a class that involves politics, if your students know your political affiliations, you have failed as an educator. Your job isn’t to push your agenda on others especially young minds. That is my stance on the subject
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@kjayhawks I learned the political leanings of many professors in numerous PolSci, Econ, History, and Religion courses at KU, and virtually all my classes in Law School. Our classes freely discussed issues from different points of view. In that environment, anyone who blindly adopted a professor’s viewpoint would have been in an insignificant minority.
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@kjayhawks An entirely reasonable stance until politicians begin to dehumanize your students.
I never shared any political beliefs with my students but they all knew where I stood by the way i treated them. It wasn’t tough for high school students to know that the teacher who yelled at them for speaking Spanish voted one way and the teacher who asked if their family was ok after ice raids voted the other way.
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What Agendas in what fields of study? Politics would be topical to some extent right now in Econ, Finance, Population health, education, journalism, supply chain management, Biology, religion, law, meteorology, anthropology, chemical engineering, civil engineering, public affairs, medicine, pharmacy, nutrition, etc.
Current events has always been a part of almost every class I’ve ever taken in college. Even something as dry as accounting will have “news”.
