Higher Education

Trump Administration Reclassifying Professional Fields As NOT Professional: An Outrage Which Must Be Fought To Prevent!

Ronald 1 Comment

In a shocking development, the Trump Administration has determined to limit and undermine the veracity of many professional fields and degrees, and term then NOT Professional.

These include the following:

Nursing
Educators
Social Workers
Accountants
Architects
Audiologists
Speech-Language Pathologists
Business Masters
Engineering Masters
Physical Therapists
Occupational Therapists
Public Health Specialists
Counseling Therapists
Physician Assistants

Why Trump is promoting this degradation of these professional fields, which require a lot of undergraduate and graduate training, is beyond comprehension.

It seems it is all part of a plan to degrade American education, and undermine faith in the professionalism and expertise of these essential occupations.

This is a continuing attack on higher education, alongside the attack on the legal profession, the journalism profession, and all fields of independent thought, and cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged!

Fear And Concern About Safety Of College Campuses After Charlie Kirk Assassination On University Campus!

Ronald 26 Comments

This author, scholar and blogger had the privilege of serving as a college professor of History and Political Science for 53 years, teaching, either full time or part time, at a total of eight different colleges and universities, four in New York from 1972-1989, and four in south Florida from 1989-2025.

Never in those years did the thought of someone speaking before college and university students being assassinated, with thousands looking on, cross my mind.

So the shocking assassination of right wing advocate Charlie Kirk in Utah has hit every person, who believes in dialogue and tolerance of differing views, with a sense of shock and disbelief.

It makes one have to worry that college and university campuses may be in danger of being new battlegrounds of dissidents using weapons to attack their rivals, a situation that is intolerable and horrifying!

Higher education is supposed to be the location for open, challenging debate of ideas, but not a location to set out to eliminate those critical of others, and unwilling to have a civilized dialogue.

It is clear that colleges and universities will have to bolster their law enforcement operations as essential actions, but also a sad commentary on the growing threat of political violence!

It is also essential to listen to Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox, who promoted dialogue and understanding in the wake of the shooting, arguing for the need to tone down the rhetoric and accusations, particularly since the young man who committed the terrible act was from a Republican and Trump supporting family, not from a so called “leftist’ background!

Scott Pelley Of “Sixty Minutes” Issues Warning On Authoritarianism!

Ronald 10 Comments

Journalist Scott Pelley of CBS’s “Sixty Minutes”, has many years of reputable work at that news source. He gave a scathing commencement speech at Wake Forest University in North Carolina a week ago, against the authoritarian ideology of Donald Trump, which has provoked wild, vehement accusations from Fox News Channel and its disgraceful talk show hosts.

Pelley, rightfully, warned of the threat to freedom of speech and press represented by the Trump Administration’s attack on journalism, higher education, and law firms.

He also condemned the arrest of foreign students on visas for their use of their right of freedom of speech to criticize the Israel-Gaza War, as well as the attacks on voting rights being perpetrated by the federal government under Donald Trump.

Pelley condemned the fear being promoted by Trump loyalists who are working to undermine the Bill of Rights, and his rhetoric was uncompromising, setting an example for Americans who are terrified at the authoritarian bent of Trump and his supporters.

Pelley has been attacked as being “unhinged”, another of a multitude of examples of “projection”, accusing critics of Trump of what Trump and his supporters do regularly, speak and act in an “unhinged” manner.

Pelley is doing a great service in using his reputation to promote opposition to the dangerous trend that is running amuck around Trump, the movement toward authoritarian Fascism.

If Americans lose the First Amendment, then democracy and the rule of law is lost long term.

The War On Science, Health, Education, Public Safety Is Pure Insanity!

Ronald 39 Comments

After four months of the Trump Second Term Presidency, it is alarming the extent of the war on science, health, education, and public safety, clearly pure insanity!

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has undermined confidence in the ability of the federal government to deal with the realities of science, and with the health needs of 330 million Americans.

The attack on vaccines, and the admitted lack of knowledge of the lunatic, RFK Jr, who admits he should not be paid attention to, and yet is making extreme policy changes, is a danger to all Americans, when and if there is a future health crisis, which likely would be greater than the COVID Pandemic.

Research in the Sciences and Medicine fields is being cut, and many talented scientists and doctors are being forced out of their careers, undermining the future of all Americans.

The war on education, particularly on higher education, is interfering with the search for knowledge, facts, and truth, in a whole host of fields of study. Cultural institutions, most notably but not only, the Library of Congress, are under attack, as well.

American Public Safety is also threatened by cuts in the National Weather Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among other agencies.

America is in unparalleled crisis, in many ways more than since the Civil War, and no easy alternative at this time!

Donald Trump’s War On Education And Foreign Students!

Ronald 9 Comments

Donald Trump has declared open war on higher education, and all education, as well as foreign students, attempting to dictate curriculum, funding, and expulsion of foreign students.

As an educator and a proponent of freedom of speech and open discussion and debate, all decent people must resist Trump’s attempt to create a government controlled curriculum of what knowledge and ideas are to be promoted.

Foreign students are being victimized, despite the fact that they are a major strength of our university system nationwide, and the movement to expel students for their beliefs and thoughts is a fight that cannot be allowed to be lost!

And the idea of universities having federal funding cut at the whim of the White House and its lackeys in the Presidential Cabinet is outrageous! For instance with Harvard University, but also many other institutions nationwide, Trump is trying to promote mind control, a tactic of authoritarian regimes to control curriculum, and what can be taught to students.

American universities are the envy of the civilized world, and the battle to prevent “Trumpification” of higher education, and even education below the college level, must be fought for without pause!

Donald Trump’s Promotion Of Return Of Racial Segregation!

Ronald 13 Comments

It is unfathomable how Donald Trump, 70 years after the unanimous Brown V Board of Education Supreme Court decision (1954) outlawed racial segregation, which promoted the Civil Rights Movement and transformed the nation, is working earnestly to reverse all of that progress, and promote the return of segregation.

In the 1960s, Alabama Governor George Wallace became a threat as a third party nominee with the same aim as Donald Trump, but he could not win the Presidency, thank goodness.

But now Trump is going full scale ahead to wipe out all of the racial progress, advocating discrimination returning as official policy, thrilling white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party supporters.

Trump is going beyond just race, but also gender, wishing to set back the vast progress of women in American life since the 1960s.

Trump has, by an extensive number of executive orders, promoted all end of DEI initiatives at all levels, including higher education institutions, corporations, federal government agencies, and cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington DC and across the nation.

Trump is working to destroy all civil rights litigation, and causing growing fear that police and law enforcement will return to the era of abuse toward racial and ethnic minorities.

All references to notable African Americans, Latinos, native Americans, women, and gay, lesbian and transgender people are being scrubbed from government websites.

And Trump is trying to totally close down the Department of Education created under President Jimmy Carter in 1979, to promote equal educational opportunity and funding for low income and marginalized students.

His aim is to promote White Male Supremacy and dominance, what people who would agree with him would consider “The Good Old Days” before the 1950s and since!

All decent, fairminded people must work to resist and overcome this clearcut racism, nativism, and misogyny of Donald Trump!

Trump’s War On Federal Government: Young Civil Servants, Higher Education, Veterans, And More! :(

Ronald 30 Comments

Donald Trump’s war on the federal government is an attack on the future and on so many other areas of life.

It is a war on young people who have and wish to enter public service, with many thousands of probationary workers now unemployed, due to major cutbacks in many federal agencies.

It is a war on higher education, cutting funding for training and educating an intelligent work force in the sciences, the humanities, and all other areas of public knowledge.

It is a war on our patriotic veterans, who are losing many government jobs, and a cutting of programs to help veterans who risked their lives, and now are being denied adequate consideration of their health and welfare needs.

It is a war on protection of our national security, with mass purges of dedicated intelligence, foreign policy, and defense personnel who have dedicated their lives and careers to protecting the homeland from foreign threats of authoritarian government, including Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.

It is a war on health care, science, and medicine, and endangers all Americans when it comes to threats from many diseases worldwide, that now will not be dealt with in an efficient matter, and will cost a multitude of lives.

It is a war on the environment, conservation, and the realities of climate change, guaranteeing worldwide disasters that will threaten human existence in the future.

It is a war on our long held alliances with democracies in Europe and in Asia, and antagonizing, unnecessarily, our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and inciting anti Americanism in Latin America. It is causing our closest allies in NATO and in Asia to reconsider sharing intelligence information.

It is a war on public virtue, with a certainty that we will witness the greatest level of corruption and concentration of wealth in the hands of a few evil individuals, ever seen in American history, far surpassing the earlier corruption that took place under Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and even the first term of Donald Trump.

The Trump Presidency is setting America back to an earlier time before all of the great reforms that took place from the Progressive Era of Theodore Roosvelt and Woodrow Wilson; the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt; the Fair Deal of Harry Truman; the New Frontier of John F. Kennedy; the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson; the movements forward under Republicans Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon; the accomplishments under Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; and the advancements under Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

“Build Back Better” Social Infrastructure Legislation Passes The House of Representatives!

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Congratulations are due to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, President Joe Biden, and the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives on successfully passing the “Build Back Better” Social Infrastructure legislation by a vote of 220-213, after a disgraceful eight and a half hour rampage speech by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and the refusal of any House Republicans to support legislation which makes life better for millions of Americans!

The legislation, once it gains approval of the US Senate with some modifications certain, will do the following:

Affordable Child Care
Child Tax Credits
Paid Family and Medical Leave
Universal PreKindergarten
Affordable Care Act Premium Tax Credits
Medicaid Home and Community Based Services
Raise State and Local Tax Deduction Cap
Medicare Hearing Benefits
Affordable Housing
Immigration Reform
Clean Energy and Climate Resilience
Climate Related Tax Breaks
Spending on Higher Education
A Corporate Minimum Tax on Large Corporations
A Tax Surcharge Targeting the Wealthiest Americans, over $25 million and over $10 million.

Billionaires Howard Schultz And Michael Bloomberg Are NOT The Way To Go, Following Donald Trump

Ronald 11 Comments

The campaign for the Presidency has begun with strong attacks by Billionaires Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg against the Democratic Party going too far to the Left, such as Medicare For All and Free Public College and University Tuition, for the first two years of higher education.

Schultz is the bigger threat, as he plans to run as an Independent, and by so doing, could help Donald Trump/Mike Pence to win another term in the White House.

But Bloomberg is also attacking progressive ideas as unworkable, without any concept of how to make health care and higher education, as well as environmental advancement, and even other issues, to advance to a more fair and just future.

After the disaster of Donald Trump, will the nation go for two billionaires who, while certainly not as conservative as Trump, and having a nicer facade, really do not understand the plight of the struggling middle class and the poor in this country?

And, while no one wishes to discuss this issue, the fact that both Schultz and Bloomberg are Jewish, in a nation where antisemitism still is prevalent in the South and Midwest, encourages more danger against Jews, by two men who have no clue as to what it is to live from paycheck to paycheck.

Their running for the Presidency, as they are making clear, only encourages more conspiracy theories on the Right, and also more left wing anger, and undermined the possibility of either, realistically, being able to promote political unity in the 2020s.

Trump Proposal To Eliminate Corporation For Public Broadcasting (PBS And NPR) Must Be Prevented, Best Bargain In Government

Ronald 1 Comment

The total federal government cost for PBS and NPR (Corporation For Public Broadcasting) in the present budget is $495 million, a half billion dollars to promote education, knowledge, public affairs, history, science, culture on television and radio.

Formed in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs, PBS and NPR have done great work and deeds for more than a half century.

How much tens of millions of Americans have gained from both PBS and NPR is incalculable.

It only costs $1.65 per person in the federal budget, with both PBS and NPR also asking for and gaining private contributions from millions of Americans, who appreciate the good work it does.

Considering so much wasted money that is spent by the federal government, this half billion dollars is a pittance, well spent and worth sustaining.

It is all part of a plan of conservatives, Republicans, and Donald Trump to promote ignorance, and discourage education, as ignorant people can more easily be controlled.

This is a battle worth fighting, and hopefully, both these valuable contributions to public discourse will be protected, along with the National Endowment For The Arts and the National Endowment For The Humanities, which promotes the arts and humanities in higher education.