FYI- from a different thread but the links are from people I am citing and worth looking at- this social-cultural stuff- complex and thorny- for the doctoral students- I share as an introduction to issues hitting the professoriate, education, disability, and academia that you might not ordinarily see in your courses- as you can see- the professoriate from my colleague and good friends post (he wouldn’t mind I share)- the professoriate doesn’t speak with one voice on much and less on arriving at a “BIG T” truth statement or view- we are better with the “little ts” but the issues are ones sooner or later you will have to sort out for yourself- and should be thinking about- no one can escape the political and intellectual polarization in education, especially on social-cultural issues right now- best to acknowledge it and think about how to navigate… you should be engaged in critical thinking- what is valid/what is not- or what aspects of an argument is valid and which ones aren’t- all the while being charitable in interpretation and remembering that often “bright minds do not think alike” and that friction and debate are part of an open democratic society. MDB PS- we are working on a similar set up for the project DIVERSE and affiliated doctoral students as part of our goal to foster a “Community of Scholars” across the three universities…so will circle back around soon on it. Well…voting is almost always about the least worst choice… I think you have to return to the question of what about the opposition scares people or they dislike so much that they would be willing to vote for someone with his mob-boss tendencies- I would not count on moderates- and my guess we are in for a ride for the next decade as things swing back and forth- too many meta issues driving things to be worked out that people are passionate and polarized about and my guess- as sad as it is- making fun of people with disabilities is low on the rank ordering…if one actually believes that disabilities exist- which many don’t currently or else we would not see University of Kansas faculty proposing to move special ed to become a title program- both Pew and I think Gallup have fairly recent survey data showing the decrease of confidence in public institutions- Republicans one would expect, but now Independents and Democrats are trending in that direction as well… https://news.gallup.com/poll/508352/americans-confidence-higher-education... Really the same thing on a meta level that George, Jim, Gary Sasso and others have pointed out repeatedly in the past… https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/019874299802300308 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327035ex1402_2 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002246690103400401 Only now it has jumped out of academia into society and seems something that both the left https://quillette.com/2023/05/28/an-interview-with-susan-neiman/ And the right are starting to agree on as we move from modernity to post-modernity- Commentary is admittedly a conservative Jewish outlet- but I think this 2021 article has the right of it. https://www.commentary.org/articles/james-meigs/alan-sokal-parody-predict... My testable hypothesis- the general retreat from some form of empirical and humanistic truth seeking combined with suppression of speech and viewpoint diversity in academia- which is well documented now has eroded bi-partisan support for public institutions- especially K-12 and universities- and that is not good. Mack Mack D. Burke, Ph.D. Department of Educational Psychology Applied Behavior Analysis and Special Education Programs Behavioral Education & Assessment Research (BEAR Lab) School of Education, Baylor University What Trump Supporters Think When He Mocks People With Disabilities https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/03/trump-disabilities-s... <https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/03/trump-disabilities-s...