Economos: In Defense of Lars Jensen

By James P. Economos DDS, Opinion Contributor

Who is Lars Jensen and what was the need to defend him?

He was the guy allegedly committing the horrible crime of keeping high academic standards instead of going along with accepting lower standards. As many of you know, there’s been a general trend to dumb down students because if one excels it may not be fair to another if they are not. This is what Marxists do. They keep everyone on the same plane versus promoting and supporting academic excellence. I once had a Cuban tell me, “In Cuba the governmental lawn mower comes along to keep one blade of grass raised above another.”

Lars Jensen is a tenured mathematics professor at Truckee Meadow Community College (TMCC) in Reno, Nevada. The college wanted him to accept in its math classes lower standards. He was correctly complaining about incoming students not being prepared to continue math classes at the collegiate level. When TMCC went after him, he had to be silenced. One of the charges was for “insubordination” because he would not shut up.

This case started in 2020 when he was silenced from critiquing the policy at their Math Summit. TMCC Dean Julie Ellsworth wanted to suppress Jensen’s academic rights by telling him to not voice opposition to the lowering of standards.

However, he stood his ground, and they went after him.

While he was not actually dismissed, school officials made it very difficult to pursue his normal duties while there. He filed a lawsuit with a favorable ruling by the 9th Appellate Court pointing out free speech abuses.

This is a win for academic freedom indeed.