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Townhall...
Academic Rot
By Walter E. Williams
The average American, as parent, student and taxpayer, has little idea
of the academic rot at so many of our colleges. Save for a tiny handful
of the nation’s colleges, what distinguishes one college from another
is the magnitude of that rot.
One of the best sources of information about our colleges is the New
York City-based Manhattan Institute’s quarterly Web magazine, Minding
the Campus, edited by John Leo, former columnist for U.S. News &
World Report.
The magazine’s Winter 2010 edition contains an article by Dr. Candace
de Russy, former member of the board of trustees of the State
University of New York (SUNY), titled “Hate-America Sociology.” De
Russy’s colleague sent her a copy of a student’s exam from an
introductory sociology class found lying in a room at an East Coast
public college. The professor had given it a perfect score of 100. Here
are some of the questions asked and the student’s written response:
“Question: How does the United States ‘steal’ the resources of other
(third world) countries?
“Answer: We steal through exploitation. Our multinationals are aware
that indigenous people in developing nations have been coaxed off their
plots and forced into slums. Because it is lucrative, our
multinationals offer them extremely low wage labor that cannot be
turned down.
“Question: Why is the U.S. on shaky moral ground when it comes to
preventing illegal immigration?
“Answer: Some say that it is wrong of the United States to prevent
illegal immigration because the same people we are denying entry to, we
have exploited for the purpose of keeping the American wheel spinning.”
...
“Question: What is the interactionist approach to gender?
“Answer: The majority of multi-gender encounters are male-dominated.
(F)or example, while involved in conversation, the male is much more
likely to interrupt. Most likely because the male believes the female’s
expressed thoughts are inferior to his own.
“Question: Please briefly explain the matrix of domination.
“Answer: The belief that domination has more than one dimension. For
example, Males are dominant over females, whites over blacks, and
affluent over impoverished.”
Out of retaliation fears, de Russy withheld the name and university of
her colleague who sent the exam. Teaching students hate-America
indoctrination is widespread, as I’ve documented in the past.
A few years ago, according to UCLA’s Bruin Standard, Mary Corey, UCLA
history professor, instructed her class, “Capitalism isn’t a lie on
purpose. It’s just a lie.” She continued, “(Capitalists) are swine. ...
They’re bastard people.”
Rod Swanson, a UCLA economics professor, told his class, “The United
States of America, backed by facts, is the greediest and most selfish
country in the world.”
Professor Andrew Hewitt, chairman of UCLA’s Department of Germanic
Languages, told his class, “Bush is a moron, a simpleton and an idiot.”
The professor’s opinion of the rest of us: “American consumerism is a
very unique thing; I don’t think anyone else lusts after money in such
a greedy fashion.”
An English professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey tells
his students, “Conservatism champions racism, exploitation and
imperialist war.”
University officials are aware of this kind of academic rot, but not
university trustees who bear the ultimate responsibility for the
university’s welfare. Trustees are mostly yes-men for the president.
Legislators and charitable foundations that pour billions into colleges
are unaware as well. Most tragically, parents who cough up thousands in
tuition to send their youngsters off to be educated, rather than
indoctrinated, are unaware of the academic rot as well.
You say, “Williams, what can be done?” Students should record classroom
professorial propaganda and give it wide distribution over the
Internet. I’ve taught for more than 40 years and have routinely invited
students to record my lectures so they don’t have to be stenographers
during class. I have no idea of where those recordings have wound up,
but if you find them, you’ll hear zero proselytization or discussion of
my political and other personal preferences. To do otherwise, I
consider to be academic dishonesty.
Read it at Townhall
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