When you think about colleges, you think about a place for self-discovery, a free-speaking culture of many individuals with many different views, and the time to be your own person. But lately, it hasn’t been this glorious.

Now, college students are anxious and afraid of addressing the elephant in the room: their own personal beliefs. The classroom, once a safe space for free curiosity, is now a guillotine for those who do not share the same beliefs as either the students or the professor. This has gotten so serious that it could cost students their grades or professors their jobs.

According to Kylee Barclay, a UT Martin Selmer Center student, politics is something students want to stay out of because it’s a divisive subject, and most professors do not run classrooms based on politics, so neither should school administration. I believe professors should be able to teach what they need to teach in classrooms, but where or when should the government step in?

I believe the government should never get involved in the education of our children. As Ronald Reagan stated, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” This is true because the government uses education as a football to kick around for re-election. However, it is now affecting students’ and teachers’ comfort in discussing their own personal beliefs. This should never happen.

According to Education Week, a special report newspaper, there are teachers afraid of how they should approach literacy. In North Carolina, a teacher states that she can’t read about climate change because it could start an uproar with conservative parents, and another in California refuses to teach her students about gender identity, which caused an uproar among liberal parents. Politics should not be involved in schools.

The real indoctrination begins in high school when you get to voting age and they constantly say “Do your duty to your country,” but when does that duty become your whole personality? According to Oxford Academic, your politics are shaped by how you were raised and your personality traits. This develops into college when you have the right to believe what you want because you are a growing mind and starting to think for yourself. Students should not be afraid of being recorded, or worse, for their beliefs.

According to Time Magazine, the Trump administration is starting to take away funding from schools that supposedly teach “woke” or anti-American ideology. But how much of this is true, and how much is it a con to get re-elected? It is time to stop politicizing education and start getting back to teaching the good old-fashioned way.

Just the facts and not the opinions of teachers. Subjects like science and history should be taught the way God intended them: just the facts and no fiction. Because eventually, we will confuse our kids so much that the democracy of our beautiful country will die out because people feel politics start fights and believe they shouldn’t get involved.

As Abraham Lincoln stated, “And if a house be divided against itself, that house shall not stand.” Politics in education is dividing the college campus more than ever, and students should never have to choose between their grades and their beliefs, or teachers having to choose between what they believe and their livelihood. That is what I’m afraid is happening in America right now.