The AP reports that legislators and right-wingers in Georgia are citing budget shortfalls as the justification for trying to fire college professors who teach things they don’t like:
Upset House Republicans are mounting a campaign to purge Georgia’s higher education system of professors with an expertise in racy sexuality topics as the state grapples with a $2.2 billion shortfall.
State Rep. Charlice Byrd of Woodstock took House well on Friday to announce a “grass-roots” effort to oust professors with expertise in subjects like male prostitution, oral sex and “queer theory.”
“This is not considered higher education,” she said. “If legislators are going to dole out the dollars, we should have a say-so in where they go.”
Byrd and her supporters, including state Rep. Calvin Hill, said they will team with the Christian Coalition and other religious groups to pressure fellow lawmakers and the Board of Regents to eliminate the jobs.
“Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math,” said Hill, a vice chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee. He said professors aren’t going to meet those needs “by teaching a class in queer theory.”
