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.
Yes, it is a money chase. That characterizes it the problem, but it does not identify the cause. It is an imbalance between the number of adequately prepared applicants and the number of four-year institutions. Nearly 40 percent of high school graduates require some post admission remediation. In aggregate, our secondary schools are certifying too many of their graduates as college ready. That is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. On the other side of the imbalance, there are too many institutions fighting to stay alive. A measured tightening of four-year admissions standards could prompt a positive rebalance.
Please differentiate between elementary-trained teachers, and their secondary counterparts (and the Liberal Arts teachers from the Math and Science teachers). Not ALL teachers rank low on the scale.
Ah, but this is only confusing if we somehow still believe that the purpose of College is education…the production of an informed citizenry….lux et veritas. If that were true, yes, we’d be absolutely baffled by the abysmal failure so evident in the reality we all wrestle.
But if the mission of College is NOT education, rather the production of degreed graduates….well, that’s another matter.
Obama made this abundantly (some might say absurdly) clear way back in ’09 declaring that “by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” And of course to do that, we would have had to more than double college enrollments, to about 40 million students as of two years ago. Fortunately, that idiocy did not come to pass…. but the enthusiasm to produce just lots and lots of people holding sheepskins….that obsession (revenue driven) is with us still. And obviously, even to maintain the graduation rates for our current 20M we must continually reduce our standards (for entry & completion) and remove the hurdles (like writing and reading competency) which otherwise would stand in our way.
By God we will produce college graduates by the bushel! That is our job!
Unfortunately those who would employ our newly minted alumni continue to tell us they can neither read nor rite nor handle rithmetic. Hmmm. Perhaps we should hire another VP in Marketing? Or maybe offer remedial courses, on-site, for brand-new corporate hires??? Just think of the revenue possibilities!
Well said. “Higher” education has become just another industry.
In a word, money.
I’d agree with both EB and George Leef. The main reason colleges admit them is for the money. I remember years ago when I was working at a fairly selective public university and being appalled to hear the university president at the time talk about the need for “not just K-12 education, but K-16 education,” meaning, college for all. A few years later, Obama was elected and started pushing the “college for all” narrative, rationalized largely on the misinterpretation of basic statistics about the relative incomes of college graduates vs. those of high school graduates, as though the degree and not the ability to do college level work accounted for their subsequent career success. College administrators always seem to be in favor of growing enrollment because it means more funds flowing to their campuses, even if many of those students never graduate or accrue a fortune in debt while they are enrolled.
Beyond that, though, are factors such as grade inflation and calls for increased diversity on campus. Grade inflation frequently means that students who are incapable of doing college level work look like they are qualified or capable as a result of their grades in high school, but when they get to college, they are not able to keep up. And the topic of skills mismatches following from affirmative action in admissions has been well-established by researchers.
Yup. If thy say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
Obama was talking about increasing the proportion of HS grads who go on to any type of post-secondary education, and he included (and emphsized) certificates that can be earned in 3 months to a year. That is where continued emphasis should reside (along with technical 2-year programs), but the 4-year and 2-year institutions and programs, especially liberal arts, are fearful for their futures if they don’t fill those seats.
Money. Colleges have to fill their seats, and they also have spent the last 50 years expanding in a never-ending competition. At the same time, they refuse to realize that the education they are offering is not appropriate for HS grads in the bottom half of their class. While it’s true that post-secondary education in the past failed to make room for well-prepared but low-income students, they have now over-compensated and are admitting poorly-prepared students from all economic levels.
I think that, given the dumbing down of the curriculum and pressure for grade inflation over the last several decades, the problem is less that the students admitted can’t do the work (such as it is), but that many of them just don’t want to. They’re used to schooling that’s easy and expect college to be more of the same.
Why does John Leo ask a question that he doesn’t answer in his opinion piece? Education doesn’t need more rhetoric; it needs answers to questions and solutions.
And you just perfectly summarized the entire problem, Professor Tommy. You can put it back to committee and see if they can help you out.