Last week, however, in a stunning addition to Cunningham’s work, the Center for Media and Democracy’s Colleen Scerpella released a mass of current information about the think tanks and philanthropies pressuring Republican state legislatures to pass laws banning diversity, equity,and inclusion in higher education. Scerpella assures readers that the same groups have been promoting legislation to curtail what they claim is left wing bias in K-12 public schools and to discredit public schools altogether as they promote school privatization. None of us needs to remember the names of all of the organizations Scerpella lists, but her piece establishes the shocking scale of the current investment to destroy academic freedom in universities and to undermine the public schools that serve 50 million young people across the United States. She explains:
“More than 150 bills seeking to undermine academic freedom and intervene in university governance were introduced in state legislatures across the country during 2021-2023. While these bills are typically interpreted as an ‘organic’ consequence of increasing polarization among Americans, the current wave of legislation targeting higher education is a coordinated effort between wealthy elites, a network of right-wing and libertarian think tanks, and Republican politicians at the state level.”