Source: United States Senator for Florida Marco Rubio
Education Bureaucrats Are Trying To Bully Schools Into Going Woke
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
June 8, 2023
Daily Caller
Wokeness has penetrated virtually every institution in America. School accrediting agencies are no exception. Increasingly, they are demanding that schools incorporate DEIA into their policies and curricula—or else….
This poses obvious threats to free speech. Conservatives are already close to 100 percent underrepresented in the academy. When DEIA is forced on every college, liberals will feel all the more justified in censoring their political opponents on campus….
But censorship isn’t all we have to fear from DEIA. The more accreditors force leftist ideology on colleges, the more those colleges will stray from their academic mission. Because every dollar, every second spent on political indoctrination ultimately detracts from real education…. America is in the midst of a conflict with the Chinese Communist Party that will define the 21st century. We need educated citizens to counter Beijing’s ambitions, not armchair ideologues.
To be frank, the challenges of the 21st century also require less emphasis on college in general and greater investment in alternative pathways, such as apprenticeships and vocational training…. But college will remain an important part of our education system, and it needs protecting.
That’s why Senators Rick Scott (R-FL), Mike Lee (R-UT), and I have introduced the Fairness in Higher Education Accreditation Act, a measure to prevent accreditors from using the presence of a DEIA office, or the lack thereof, as a criterion for school accreditation….
[I]n the end, this isn’t about politics. It’s about preserving free speech and ensuring quality education for future generations. That’s something all Americans should support—and it’s vital to the national interest.