The headline which I cribbed from an article in The Atlantic magazine was prompted by statements from Florida's Governor Rick Scott on Monday of this week that he hoped to shift more higher education funding to STEM programs (science, technology, engineering and math). Specifically, he said:
"If I’m going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I’m going to take that money to create jobs. So I want that money to go to degrees where people can get jobs in this state. Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don’t think so." ~ Inside Higher Ed
It isn't an unusual political statement and I suspect it isn't much different from the feeling of the population at large. Successful businessman appointed to boards of trustees have made similar comments. They're often surprised then to find that their school gets the most bang for the buck from liberal arts courses which require little in resources than a room, chairs, and someone with credentials to blither on compared with a hard science course with labs, equipment, supplies, special reporting regulations in addition to the credentialed blitherer.
In writing this I learned from Wikipedia that there was no definitive version of Niemöller statement, but Niemöller's preference would be something like this:
First they came for the communists,I'm sure that there are parodies in every liberal arts departments across the world ("First they came for the Structuralist, then the Deconstructionists, then the Formalists, and when finally they came for the Hermeneuticists..")
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
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