Commentary
Parents, legislators, taxpayers, and others footing the bill for college education might be interested in just what is in store for the upcoming academic year. Since many college classes will be online, there is a chance to witness professors indoctrinating their students in real time. So, there’s a chance that some college faculty might change their behavior. To see recent examples of campus nonsense and indoctrination, visit the Campus Reform and College Fix websites.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley warned congressional lawmakers that Antifa is “winning” and that much of academia, whether wittingly or unwittingly, is complicit in its success. In his testimony before Congress, Turley said: “To Antifa, people like me are the personification of the classical liberal view of free speech that perpetuates a system of oppression and abuse. I wish I could say that my view remains strongly implanted in our higher educational institutions. However, you are more likely to find public supporters for restricting free speech than you are to find defenders of free speech principles on many campuses.”
The leftist bias at our colleges and universities has many harmful effects. A University of California–Davis mathematics professor faced considerable backlash over her opposition to the requirement for “diversity statements” from potential faculty.
Those seeking employment at the University of California–San Diego are required to admit that “barriers” prevent women and minorities from full participation in campus life. At American University, a history professor wrote a book calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. A Rutgers University professor said, “Watching the Iowa Caucus is a sickening display of the over-representation of whiteness.”
A Williams College professor has advocated for the inclusion of social justice in math textbooks. Students at Wayne State University are no longer required to take a single math course to graduate; however, they may soon be required to take a diversity course.
Maybe some students will be forced into sharing the vision of professor Laurie Rubel, a math education professor at Brooklyn College. She says the idea of cultural neutrality in math is a “myth,” and that asking whether 2 plus 2 equals 4 “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy.” She tweeted, “Y’all must know that the idea that math is objective or neutral IS A MYTH.” Math professors and academics at other universities, including Harvard and the University of Illinois, discussed the “Eurocentric” roots of American mathematics. As for me, I would like to see the proof, in any culture, that 2 plus 2 is something other than 4.
Rutgers University’s English department chairwoman, Rebecca Walkowitz, announced changes to the department’s graduate writing program emphasizing “social justice” and “critical grammar.” Leonydus Johnson, a speech-language pathologist and libertarian activist, says Walkowitz’s changes make the assumption that minorities cannot understand traditional and grammatically correct English speech and writing, which is “insulting, patronizing, and in itself, extremely racist.”
Then there is the nonsense taught on college campuses about white privilege. The idea of white privilege doesn’t explain why several historically marginalized groups outperform whites today. For example, Japanese Americans suffered under the Alien Land Law of 1913 and other racist, exclusionary laws legally preventing them from owning land and property in more than a dozen American states until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. During World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned. However, by 1959, the income disparity between Japanese Americans and white Americans had almost disappeared. Today, Japanese Americans outperform white Americans by large margins in income statistics, education outcomes, and test scores, and have much lower incarceration rates.
According to Rav Arora, writing for the New York Post, several black immigrant groups such as Nigerians, Trinidadians and Tobagonians, Barbadians, and Ghanaians all “have a median household income well above the American average.” We are left with the question whether the people handing out “white privilege” made a mistake. The other alternative is that Japanese Americans, Nigerians, Barbadians, Ghanaians, and Trinidadians and Tobagonians are really white Americans.
The bottom line is that more Americans need to pay attention to the miseducation of our youth and that miseducation is not limited to higher education.
Walter E. Williams, Ph.D., is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax. Author of several books and recipient of many awards and honors, he currently sits on several boards of directors and advisory boards, including the Hoover Institution, Grove City College, Cato Institute, Institute of Economic Affairs, and the Heritage Foundation.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
