Iowa senator wants political balance among university professors

[applegrove]

by Brianne Pfannenstiel at the Des Moines Register

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/20/iowa-senator-wants-political-balance-among-university-professors/98167182/

SNIP.........


A bill in the Iowa Senate seeks to achieve greater political diversity among professors at the state's Board of Regents universities. Senate File 288 would institute a hiring freeze until the number of registered Republicans and Democrats on the university faculty fall within 10 percent of each other.

"I’m under the understanding that right now they can hire people because of diversity," said the bill's author, Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa. "They want to have people of different thinking, different processes, different expertise. So this would fall right into category with what existing hiring practices are."

Asked whether the regents need greater diversity of thought, spokesman Josh Lehman said the board "expects the universities to hire the most qualified faculty to teach our students."

Chelgren would not say whether he believes Iowa's universities have become too liberal. Rather, he said, he's concerned about "extreme views on either side."

...........SNIP

[applegrove]

1. GOP must secretly give out cash prizes

to people who come up with wackadoodle right wing ideas.

[Phoenix61]

2. It's the Dumass Award

[madaboutharry]

3. Because party affiliation has so much to do

with teaching calculus or botany or Shakespeare.

This guy is an asshole.

[QC]

4. This is the same moron who wanted students to vote professors

"off the island."

http://www.chronicle.com/article/Iowa-Legislator-Wants-to-Give/229589/

[elleng]

5. Senator Mark Chelgren Aims To Purge Democrats From Iowa Universities.

'The party affiliation on your voter registration card could block you from employment at Iowa’s state universities were a newly proposed bill by Senator Mark Chelgren became law. Senate File 288, proposed by the Ottumwa legislator, could bring about a Soviet-style purge of liberal-leaning college staff in Iowa. Chelgren wants to impose an ideological litmus test in order to create a “partisan balance,” based on how Iowa has voted in past elections.

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.”

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.'>>>

http://iowastartingline.com/2017/02/20/senator-chelgren-aims-purge-democrats-iowa-universities/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10515405

[bronxiteforever]

6. Authoritarians need thought compliance

Pesky questioning of things gets in the way.

[charlyvi]

7. Worried about that demo, huh.

They know their party is dying, regardless of the 2016 election.

[lapucelle]

8. For what it's worth, comments are 100% against the proposal.

[Alice11111]

9. Thats like giving equal time to David Gergan on CNN and Kayleigh sp?, when she is a complete bimbo,

with no knowledge...she did not know anything about Planned Parenthood, other than it was an "abortion mill." She knew nothing about the history, funding, % of abortions, but she didn't care because, it is an "abortion mill." CNN, in their false equivalency pursuit was giving her equal time to someone like David Gergan, who has worked for 4 presidents and teaches Political Science, and he's always prepared.

It's like requiring 12 hrs of real science in college and 12 hrs of Creation Science. False Equivalency BS.

Let them go to Liberty University and study that the planet is 10000 years old.
We cant let them take over our universities as well. They have to be fact based institutions.
We already have them taking over our public schools.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. How is a person's political party registration any employer's business?

[justgamma]

11. My granddaughter

had a sociology professor who did nothing but bitch about Obama every single class. I got a lot of questions from her and had to set her straight on many things.

[Initech]

12. Yeah good luck with that!

[dalton99a]

13. This nitwit supposedly earned a degree from "Forbco":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Chelgren

Chelgren holds an associate of science degree from Riverside Community College. He also attended the University of California Riverside, but did not receive a degree.

Chelgren's Iowa State Senate biography states that at UC Riverside he studied "astro-physics (sic), geo-physics (sic), logic, and mathematics."

The Iowa State Senate Republicans organization asserts that Chelgren "has a degree in business management from Forbco Management school and attended the University of California at Riverside majoring in astro-physics, geo-physics and mathematics. Chelgren's Facebook page states that "Mark Chelgren received his education in Astro- and Geo-Physics at the University of California in Riverside. Chelgren worked through college as a Manager and Auditor for Forbco Management in Anaheim, Ca. and then as a Geophysicist for GeoSoils in Temecula".

[gratuitous]

14. Affirmative action for conservative knuckleheads!

Why should liberals get all the university jobs just because they went to those hoity-toity so-called "accredited" schools?

[Greybnk48]

15. Ok. Everyone register as Republicans!

Fucking idiots.

[ProudLib72]

16. So turn all Iowa universities

into christian fundamentalist alt-right colleges? Excellent way to decrease enrollment and have the students who already attend transfer out of state. In fact, I can see the CA state university system offering in-state tuition to anyone transferring from an Iowa university.