KEITH WHITTINGTON ON WHY DESANTIS NEEDN’T FEAR A HIGHER-EDUCATION TIT FOR TAT:

Imagine a left-wing DeSantis comes to power and is quite willing to meddle in universities to advance their own ideological vision using the kinds of tools DeSantis is now using and might use in the future. Should conservatives fear that possibility and so restrain themselves now? Not really and here’s why. The status quo in universities ALREADY looks like that is the case. They are already ideologically captured. What would a left-wing DeSantis do to get universities to behave more in accordance with his preferences? Probably nothing. Mission already accomplished.

From a conservative perspective, there is little to fear from breaking down the norm that keeps politics out of universities. From their perspective that norm is already gone. Politics is already in the universities, but it came from the inside. The calls are coming from inside the house!

Indeed. The left should have worried about tit for tat when it shattered norms, but it didn’t.