Wednesday, February 22, 2017

The Crazy has spread to Iowa!



Sp you know how college campuses are full of young people and like liberals and progressives and what-not? Well, an Iowa state senator has a solution to that problem!



 



Senator Mark Chelgren Aims To Purge Democrats From Iowa Universities

February 20th, 2017




Well, to be fair, he only wants to get rid of about half the Democrats.




Chelgren wants to impose an ideological litmus test in order to create a “partisan balance,” based on how Iowa has voted in past elections.

Because if the corn farmers of your state all voted a certain way, that should affect the political makeup of your institutions of higher learning.





The legislation proposes that a “person shall not be hired as a professor or instructor member of the faculty at such an institution if the person’s political party affiliation on the date of hire would cause the percentage of faculty belonging to one political party to exceed by ten percent the percentage of faculty belonging to the other political party.

Because you know how much conservatives love affirmative action and quotas and social engineering to ensure "fair" outcomes.

By the way, he does know that there are more than two political parties, right?  You're trying to keep an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, what about professors who are registered Green Party or Libertarian, or Reform Party (is that still around?)
What about professors who are part of the American Independent Party or the Peace and Freedom Party or the Democratic Socialists? What about those who register as "no party affiliation" or aren't registered to vote at all?



The Secretary of State’s office would be directed to provide voter registration lists to the colleges so that new job applicants’ party affiliation could be checked before the hiring process gets underway. Graciously, Chelgren allows for people registered as No Party to slip through the process without facing the litmus test.

So anybody considering applying for a job at the University of Iowa just has to change their registration to "No Party" and the whole fascist system comes tumbling down?

You know, I could see where you might want to be sure that different viewpoints are represented in, say, the Political Science Department. Or the Philosophy Department, maybe the History Department. But what possible difference could it make whether the professor of Calculus is a Democrat or Republican? Or the Computer Science prof? Or, really any of the S.T.E.M. fields?  What is even the point of this proposal?

I would say that there's no chance of this bill passing, but it's 2017 and when it comes to right-wing politics, all bets are off.