What Students Really Learn at University
Perhaps no one has written more about the plague of identity politics on America’s college campuses than MTC's contributor, Philip Carl Salzman. Salzman, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McGill 
University, and a contributor to many public policy organizations, has now published some of his most powerful essays in an e-Book collection called Universities Today. Salzman writes, "Since the 1980s, universities have increasingly turned away from producing and disseminating knowledge and taken up as their objective neo-Marxist radical social reform, often labeled ‘social justice.’ Today, universities focus on political propaganda and activism and are increasingly like closed religious cults."
Attention Middle Easterners! You Don’t Have to Be White Anymore
So says Harvard University in a convoluted explanation of race, identity, culture and white privilege. According to Harvard, “Since 1944, Middle Eastern- and North African-Americans have been legally “white,” having to check the “white” box on demographic surveys like the U.S. census.” OMG—what a burden! Well, fear no more my Lebanese and Syrian friends, my pals from Iraq and Iran—you no longer have the burden of being white—you can be a MENA! A middle-eastern north African. What a joy to shed the mantle of white privilege once and for all. How wonderful to have such a joyous moniker of peace, achievement, cultural contribution, and tolerance to wrap around oneself.
If You're On Time, You're a White Supremacist
The National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education, or NCORE, will feature a “pre-conference” session led by an educational consultant who believes being on time is a form of “white supremacy.” The story appears in The College Fix. NCORE is a function of the University of Oklahoma’s Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies. This year, Heather Hackman of the Hackman Consulting Group will speak about “…Racism and Whiteness and Achieving Racial Justice.” Hackman is a former professor of multicultural education at St. Cloud University who, at 2016’s “White Privilege Conference,” informed attendees that “the racial narrative of White” includes “making sure you’re not tardy.” Individualism, honesty, discipline, and rigor were other factors.
Peggy Noonan on the Coming Fall of ‘Woke’ Progressives
"The past decade saw the rise of the woke progressives who dictate what words can be said and ideas held, thus poisoning and paralyzing American humor, drama, entertainment, culture and journalism. In the coming 10 years someone will effectively stand up to them. They are the most hated people in America, and their entire program is accusation: you are racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic; you are a bigot, a villain, a white male, a patriarchal misogynist, your day is over. They never have a second move. Bow to them, as most do, and they’ll accuse you even more of newly imagined sins. They claim to be vulnerable victims, and moral. Actually, they’re not." -- The Wall Street Journal, January 4 -5
Let's Ban the SAT and ACT!
That's what a coalition of civil rights lawyers wants to do in California in order to end discrimination based on merit for Latinos and African Americans. According to a report in The New Yorker, the only tests the lawyers would allow are Advanced Placement exams. The shell game of accepting test results, then distorting them to achieve a "racially balanced outcome," has been known for years at some of the most prestigious schools in the country. But two events have prompted this action in California: One is the ongoing challenge by Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard to level the playing field for Asian students, who score high on grades and tests. The other is the changing makeup of the Supreme Court, which has become more conservative in the last few years. Does anyone care that American students continue to decline in global matchups against other developed countries?
If You're White, You're Wrong
Following a growing trend in higher education, a Dartmouth professor called for mandatory white privilege courses. Dr. Emily Walton wrote an op-ed in USA Today calling for all students to take courses in white privilege and black history. She accuses white people of being afflicted with "white blindness" or a state in which racial privilege is invisible. She also claims the K-12 public schools perpetuate "white blindness" (read discrimination) by not mandating ethnic studies classes. To top it off, she equates the meritocratic system of hard work with white discrimination against minorities.
Here’s a Thanksgiving take on this. When the Massachusetts Bay Colony first began in 1628, it was illegal to follow any religion other than the Congregationalism of the Puritans. There were of course disagreements, and among them was the separatism of the Pilgrims as opposed to the nonseparatism of the Puritans who came a few years later. (“Separatism” refers to the Congregationalists’ relationship to the Church of England.) One thing was sure, though, that competing religions were not permitted. Thus, in the 1600s and into the early 1700s the Quaker and Baptist faiths were illegal, and several proselytizing Quakers were hung.
Today’s campuses inherit the moral indignation of the early Puritans. It isn’t just capitalism that inherited the Puritan spirit, as Max Weber claimed. Today’s campuses see themselves as cities upon hills, as institutions that set forth the one true morality: Diversity is the highest good; racism is the greatest evil; income inequality is the second greatest evil; gays must get married; anyone who disagrees must be put in stocks; global warming is the hellfire in which those who benefit from capitalism will burn for eternity.
The rigid, insipid version of today’s campuses as far removed from liberal arts and from “liberalism” in any of its meanings as were the witch trials in Salem.
These students did not arrive with these ideas – be very clear here – these are faculty driven ideas.
Anonymous reporting : absolutely NO accountability for accusations made.
More [x] “studies” : gee – jobs for faculty and control of each dept. Is this going to “empower students” or faculty and admin?
This one is truly astonishing – it’s straight out of Mao’ism and Stalin’s days in the USSR:
“One confession of racism by a faculty member each week ”
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
These students are applying Marxist, Stalinist, and Maoist theory to their daily lives. They have learned these subjects well and are vigorously applying theory to their local situation. They have even done it in their spare time.
I think most of their teachers are sympathetic.
This shows that today’s students are not lazy and ignorant. They learn and apply learning well when they are interested in the subject and have some practical incentive such as the lust for power.
So? This stuff was already there, when I was in school, at every level they made it clear there was no such thing as “free speech” and they could control speech, dress and anything else they wanted.
It makes sense that the buyers of a service, paying a significant amount of money, can dictate the rules. That is the very basis of democracy, people gathering together and making demands.
If these schools don’t like it, they can stop taking federal loan money and stop charging these students, and go do something else to earn a living.
Shrug,
The interactions between a student and a college or university are unlike the relationship of a typical buyer and seller in at least two ways. One, the majority of students don’t pay for a large chunk of the cost of their education (this is particularly so at public universities). Two, a buyer may have quite a bit of information about the product or service which he is purchasing. Almost by definition, most students are ignorant of a good deal of the subject matter of their classes (why else would they be taking those classes). There may be other differences.
So you are basically acceding to all the worst quasi-fascist movement on campus.
All of these demands only serve the One True Demand. One Demand to Rule Them All.
“We demand an Oompa Loompa and we demand it NOW!”