Arkansas governor says professors should be fired if they are ‘indoctrinating’ students

By ANDREW DeMILLO The Associated Press

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders gives the State of the State address to a joint session of the Arkansas General Assembly on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025, at the state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark. (Thomas Metthe/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette via AP)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Thomas Metthe]

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday said college professors should be fired if they are “indoctrinating” students, echoing rhetoric her former boss President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans have leveled against institutions of higher education.

Sanders, a Republican who served as press secretary for part of Trump’s first term, made the proposal as she delivered her state of the state address for this year’s legislative session.

“Arkansas students go to our colleges and universities to be educated, not to be bombarded with anti-American, historically illiterate woke nonsense,” Sanders told members of the predominantly Republican House and Senate. “We will make it so that any professor, tenured or not, that wastes time indoctrinating our students instead of educating them can be terminated from their job.”

It’s unclear how such a restriction would be enforced. Sanders’ office did not immediately give examples of the types of topics that would be barred under her proposal. Sanders made the vow as part of a plan to improve the state’s higher education system, including changes to its funding formula.

Sanders’ proposal to fire professors over “indoctrination” drew criticism from civil liberties and faculty groups. Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, called it a “grossly hypocritical false narrative.”

“Sanders is doing a disservice to Arkansas students by suggesting she will deny due process for faculty with ideas she disagrees with,” Wolfson said. “Maligning a system that is an engine of innovation and bedrock of our democracy hurts Arkansas students.”

Democratic Rep. Andrew Collins, the House minority leader, said he was worried the impact Sanders’ firing proposal would have on higher education.

“I’m not sure how you avoid excessive politicization of higher education when you introduce this kind of content control,” Collins said.

Sanders’ comments follow vows by Trump to go after “wokeness” and “leftist indoctrination” in education. He pledged to dismantle diversity programs that he says amount to discrimination and to impose fines on colleges “up to the entire amount of their endowment.”

It also comes as Republicans in other states, including Alabama, Idaho and Texas have enacted measures targeting higher education, particularly diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Colleges and universities have also been cutting majors and programs seen as unprofitable.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023 overhauled the board of trustees for The New College of Florida, a tiny liberal arts institution once known as the most progressive of Florida’s public campuses, appointing a new majority of conservative allies.

The proposal isn’t the first time Sanders has proposed ending “indoctrination” in education. A massive overhaul of the Arkansas education system she signed in 2023 included a measure placing limits on how race and sex are taught in public schools.

A federal judge last year ruled the state couldn’t use the law to ban two teachers from discussing critical race theory in the classroom. An appeal of that preliminary decision is pending before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.