Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor and a potential Republican presidential prospect, says he wants to mandate a “core curriculum” in public universities as a way to ensure young Floridians are grounded in Western civilization. To the nation’s higher education leaders, that idea is political kryptonite. In the modern era, students typically pass from a high school where most courses are prescribed to a college where they are free to study pretty much what they want. Leaders of academia argue that their job is to teach students how to think, problem-solve and interact with the world, not to assign a list of essential books.
