Once again the news of the day spotlights an attempt by those who lives are deeply rooted in ignorance and superstition to do battle with the concept of academic freedom. This time, it's South Carolina, where backwater state legislators have taken umbrage at their state university's having students read a "graphic novel" on GASP! lesbian themes.
One state Senator is suggesting it's time conservatives "moved the debate" about academic freedom, by which he means setting limits that will ensure none of the hoary faux-religious claptrap of 150 years ago is ever challenged.
You might think there is a time warp here. Do people really think like this in the 21st century? They do. It imbues thinking about academic freedom, about gays, about religon, ...
and even about race. For this is South Carolina, where serious people insist that slavery in their state was too complex for outsiders to understand; where tour guides are trained never, ever to utter the word "slave," where Strom Thurmond was reelected an unprecedented 21 times (give or take a few terms) to the Senate, and where the "War of Northern Agression," coincidentally began. In short, these are a folk of traditional values. But they don't exist - and get elected to office - only in South Carolina.
The best that can be said about the continually recurring efforts of conservative politicians in various states to make academic freedom conform to their antediluvian worldview is that for the most part, they usually succeed only in calling attention to the peculiarly out-of-touch nature of that worldview. As the author of the novel that so offended conservative South Carolinians noted, "it's a wake-up call" [to realize that such views are still seriously - and tenaciously - held.]