Would they though?
I feel like based on what you've explained a teacher would be able to:
- discuss statistical differences in outcomes for men and women in various areas of life, discuss rape statistics, describe the history of feminism etc, all those things would be able to be done, and the students could draw their own conclusions. You know, like they're supposed to.
- Women in Saudi Arabia factually have lower status than men in many legal and domestic affairs, a teacher could talk about this objectively by making only true statements and this would not be political speech
- The teacher could talk about the different statistical outcomes for different racial groups incarcerated in America, talk about the factual history of the criminal justice system, talk about different theories of criminal justice outcomes and present evidence for and against
- Whether Brett Kavanaugh experienced worse treatment during senate confirmation because he was a white man is an OPINION and the professor should not be presenting opinion as fact.
All these examples you seem to show, could easily be gotten around if a professor acted like a proper academic, encouraging critical thinking in the students based on factual evidence.
Like, if you're teaching on antisemitism in Arkansas - the question "should we do something about antisemitism" could legally be answered by: "well Billy, current statistics show that Jews still experience elevated statistics of hate crimes against them, a third of Americans don't believe the Holocaust happened... so what do you think?" and leave it up to them to make their own conclusion from the facts. And if the student kept baiting you for your own personal opinion you could say "well Billy I'm not paid to teach my personal opinion, I'm paid to teach you about the facts of history, many people think that there's work still to be done in combating antisemitism, the fact I choose to spend my time teaching this class could perhaps give you some ideas as to how I feel, but it's ultimately not my job to tell you what you "should" do with your own life".
The examples you give elsewhere of:
- anti-Christian discrimination panel: could be instead a panel on "differing cultural attitudes to Christians and Muslims in the middle east, an exploration of causes, context and current approaches by different groups to address this disparity" - that's not "promoting" anything it's just teaching facts and allowing the students to draw their own conclusion and take action IF THEY want to
- A pol-sci professor could set an assignment on a political debate by focusing the assignment on comparing rhetorical devices, use of language, different techniques etc in the debate itself. She just couldn't teach the class that one side of the debate is the "right" one. Because that goes out of fact and into her personal opinion.
- A law professor would not be able to use the word "discriminate" in such a broad sweeping way, you're correct, because each individual court case could have its own contextual factors that meant it's not discrimination. And I very much doubt that judges say "I am giving custody to the mother because I don't like men". So "discrimination" in this context is inferred from outcomes but is not necessarily the main reason or only reason why there is this disparity. It could be, you and I might have an opinion on why the disparity exists, but it's not firmly settled as being "systemic discrimination against men" so a professor saying it is, would be opining not teaching. What they could do though is teach the facts of the statistical differences between father and mother outcomes in custody cases and explore the different reasonings given in the law community, exploring how it changes across time and what factors could have gone into those things. They again focus on presenting facts and presenting theories in a neutral way, without using a value-judgement word like "discrimination" themselves.
- the evolutionary psychologist could indeed talk about how sex differences evolved in other animals, the influence of sex hormones on mood etc, but instead of saying "women are X" they would be able to talk about things in an objective way. Again sticking to facts.
Where does this legislation prevent a professor from teaching facts about something? Or presenting research? It just prevents professors from teaching students that there is only one conclusion to be drawn from a set of facts. Except in cases where that's actually possible (like in science or maths).
