By Thomas Ryan
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 10, 2006
On January 9 and 10, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives will hold a new round of hearings at Temple University on the question of political advocacy in the classrooms of the state’s public universities. The hearings are the result of HR177, a resolution passed by the House last July calling for the formation of a Select Committee to inform the legislature of the state of intellectual diversity and academic freedom in Pennsylvania higher education.
This past November, Stephen H. Balch, President of the National Association of Scholars, was the first witness to testify before the House committee at its opening hearings in Pittsburgh. Balch described an ideological battle occurring in universities between education and advocacy. Education, Balch said, opens minds and promotes inquiry, while advocacy on the part of professors promotes a single ideological position and thereby terminates inquiry and closes debate. Noting that John Dewey, founding president of the American Association of University Professors, remarked in 1915 that a teacher should not take “unfair advantage of the students’ immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher's own opinion,” Balch told the Pennsylvania legislators that advocacy of the sort occurring in their schools “transforms education into indoctrination.”
David Horowitz and others testifying in the second round of hearings will further Balch’s message and show how Temple itself has become afflicted by indoctrination. They will be able to use as examples of figures such as Temple professor Melissa Gilbert, an associate professor of Geography and Urban Studies who teaches the course “Urban Society: ‘Race,’ Class, and Gender in the City.” Gilbert is a self-described proponent of “service learning,” which she defines as providing students with “opportunities to participate in community activist organizations,” thus exposing them to “contexts for supporting community and grassroots efforts at social transformation.”
The syllabus for Gilbert’s “Urban Society” course, which fulfills a University requirement, states that the objective of the course is to “explore how contemporary urban issues such as poverty, employment, and immigration are based on assumptions about ‘race,’ gender, and class in order that students can better evaluate debates surrounding these issues.” But the only “exploration” in this class is only of Gilbert’s own views and of the agendas of radical organizations and political movements she favors.
In the introductory section of the course, “The Social Construction of ‘Race:’ Racism and White Privilege,” Gilbert uses a number of readings that indict the U.S. as a locus classicus of systemic, “institutional” racism. One required reading, Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” summarizes the view Gilbert embraces:
It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.
Other readings for this course include “Smells like Racism” by Rita Chaudhry Sethi; “Racial Disparities Seen as Pervasive in Juvenile Justice,” by Fox Butterfield; and other articles. Gilbert also requires texts that are equally one sided and extreme: The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics by George Lipsitz, and Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror.
posted on January 10, 2006 09:02:50 PM new
I've read that this is a project Horowitz has made his work to become involved with....not just in this ONE niversity but in all where the liberal bias that's being taught to our college age students can so clearly be seen.
It's called indoctrination...to their way of seeing the world. And I hope they can make a 'dent' in doing something to stop it. It's gotten out of hand, imo.
posted on January 10, 2006 09:29:33 PM new
I've never run across any of this personally, which is somewhat strange considering my major- you'd think I would run into someone with a strong opinion!
But I have heard plenty of secondhand stories about some of the professors at my school. There is at least one "Black Racist" and one "America-is-Evil Middle Easterner" that I know of.
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Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum sonatur.
posted on January 10, 2006 09:32:37 PM new
...But as I apply to grad school, I do suddenly wish I were a blind black girl. Anyone who thinks life is easy for us white guys hasn't tried to apply for anything involving the government recently.
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Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum sonatur.
posted on January 11, 2006 04:44:11 AM new
If David Horowitz had his way, there'd by no right wing agenda in universities...nah.
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posted on January 11, 2006 06:27:28 AM new
I'm just curious as to why it is that everyone feels that 18-22 year olds need to be protected from liberal ideas. How is it that you feel that they are mature enough to die for their country, mature enough to make their own decisions regarding leadership on election day but somehow not mature enough to hear concepts that you don't agree with.
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Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on January 11, 2006 07:28:54 AM new
Colin - I don't remeber knowing any conservatives when I was 18. Everyone I knew had defined views on what they thought of the world around them and they were all pretty liberal.
Young people generally start out idealistic - everyone should be treated the same, there should not be ultra rich, there should not be ultra poor etc, etc. College does not instill that, basic humanity does. Then comes life experiences. You start losing some of that idealism as you learn realistic aspects of economics, business acuman etc etc etc.
College cannot make a conservative a liberal and someone that could not care less about politics and the like is not going to take politically motivated class.
College courses are also not going to keep an individual from learning from real life experiences when they leave and it's those real life experiences that really form lasting political views.
I just don't see the whole point of trying to censor the ideas that students freely choose to expose themselves to. It's one thing if you are talking about a class that is a grad requirement where students must echo the values of the instructor but I have not seen any incidents mentioned where these types of classes are required or where dissent is punished.
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Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
[ edited by fenix03 on Jan 11, 2006 08:58 AM ]
posted on January 11, 2006 01:27:44 PM new
Yes, profe, that's exactly what he's working to do. Get a tiny bit of balance back in our liberal schools.
MORE power to him and the group that works with him in this area.
Since only about 1 in 10 public/university/college teachers are conservative/republican....most can see there's QUITE an imbalance of political agenda there.
posted on January 11, 2006 03:01:13 PM new
College cannot make a conservative a liberal and someone that could not care less about politics and the like is not going to take politically motivated class.
You'd be naive to think that.
I’ve seen some very manipulative professors, very pro communist, people with an agenda. I think it may be worst today.
You don’t believe the 18 to 22 crowd is easily led?
If you add beer or dope, you can lead them anywhere.
Beer, liquor and cigarette companies have been doing it for years
Amen,
Reverend Colin http://www.reverendcolin.com
posted on January 11, 2006 03:39:00 PM new
Why is it that so many college educated people are liberal? The same reason that so many red-neck, trailer trash, tobacco spittin' fools with "git 'r dun" bumper stickers and rebel flags on their cars are conservative...
posted on January 11, 2006 04:03:14 PM new
Yeah, I dropped out of college, because I learned it all, but your stat about the higher the level of education the more conservative is full of shat.
posted on January 11, 2006 05:42:55 PM new
Prove it. How many CEO's are liberals?
You must mean people with doctorates in basket weaving, philosophers, educators before they get their master (or if they get their masters at a sh*t school) and Socialist science teachers.
Amen,
Reverend Colin http://www.reverendcolin.com
