{"id":1478,"date":"2016-04-08T21:47:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T01:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2016-04-08T21:47:43","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T01:47:43","slug":"systemic-ideological-bias-in-higher-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/04\/systemic-ideological-bias-in-higher-ed.html","title":{"rendered":"Systemic Ideological Bias in Higher Ed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the variety of other topics that it explores, my book, The American Offensive: Dispatches from the Front<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>discusses at length the intellectual and <\/em>moral corruption that pervades much of the humanities and liberal arts in the contemporary academy.<\/p>\n

The examples of the corruption are legion. Recently, at San Francisco State University, a white student, Cory Goldstein, was accosted, harangued, and assaulted<\/a> by a black woman\u2014a university employee\u2014for\u2026wearing dreadlocks.<\/p>\n

Evidently, Goldstein \u201cmicro-aggressed\u201d against this woman specifically and blacks generally, for he is guilty of \u201ccultural appropriation,\u201d of appropriating a hair style that is distinctive of \u201cblack culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMicro-aggressions,\u201d \u201ccultural appropriation\u201d\u2014these are just some of the terms of the esoteric insider-speak to which college students are daily exposed courtesy of their professors.<\/p>\n

To repeat, college students are taught <\/em>to view their experiences in terms of the template of grievance <\/em>imposed upon them by their instructors. <\/em><\/p>\n

In a sane world, a world within which people hadn\u2019t forgotten that the university is an institution whose raison d\u2019etre<\/em> has been the promotion of Western civilization<\/em>, the ideological abuses to which the academic world has been subjected would constitute nothing less than an epic scandal.<\/p>\n

In a sane world, taxpayers wouldn\u2019t part with one red cent to subsidize this perversion of the university\u2019s historic mission.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re not living in a sane world.<\/p>\n

Recently, Charles Murray\u2014long-time scholar and co-author of The Bell Curve, <\/em>a study of IQ and its practical implications that was published over 20 years ago\u2014was invited to speak at Virginia Tech University. When, however, certain students got wind of this information, they demanded that the university disinvite him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Black and white leftist student activists issued a statement in which they charge Murray with being a \u201csocial Darwinist\u201d and an agent of \u201chate\u201d and \u201cprejudice:\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time when rising racism, misogyny and anti-intellectualism have moved to the forefront of our national consciousness,\u201d the statement reads, \u201cthere is no better place than a college campus from which to focus our efforts against the voices of prejudice and hate [.]\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray\u2019s \u201csocial Darwinist take on intelligence, ability and morality\u2014and his assertion of the inherent inferiority of non-whites and women\u2014do nothing but promote a white supremacist agenda, cast in the guise of \u2018scientific discourse.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Containing as it does all of the vapid, but emotionally-charged and politically effective, buzzwords\u2014\u201cracism,\u201d \u201cmisogyny,\u201d \u201cprejudice,\u201d \u201chate,\u201d \u201csocial Darwinist,\u201d \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d\u2014this statement, besides being poorly written, is a classic textbook example of precisely the sort of \u201canti-intellectualism\u201d of which it convicts Murray.<\/p>\n

Yet it is no less insubstantial and ideologically-driven than the statement issued by the faculty<\/em> of the Africana Studies Program. The latter accused Murray of being \u201cengaged in a mission to use discredited pseudoscience to perpetuate the subordination of people of African descent, Latino\/as, Native American Indians, the poor, women and the disabled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray\u2019s thoughts served to promote a narrative that promised to \u201cvisit violence upon marginalized populations\u2014recalling the history of forced sterilization, unjust institutionalization and incarceration, and denial of basic human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comparison of these two statements, one by students, the other by faculty, is telling in that it underscores what critics of the contemporary university have been saying for far too long:<\/p>\n

While there is indeed much learning that occurs in our institutions of higher learning, far too little of it is higher <\/em>learning.<\/p>\n

Students, that is, are learning from their professors how to become leftist ideologues.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re learning that \u201cthe personal is political\u201d and, as such, both that every aspect of life is politicized and <\/em>that it must be<\/em> politicized in the image of their<\/em> ideology.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, though, they are not <\/em>learning how to think. <\/em><\/p>\n

And if the statement by the faculty of the Africana Studies Program is any indication, students aren\u2019t learning how to think because at least some of the faculty isn\u2019t up to the task of teaching them.<\/p>\n

The faculty statement at Virginia Tech is indistinguishable from that of the students insofar as it consists of such stock terms in vogue as \u201csubordination\u201d and \u201cmarginalized populations.\u201d Moreover, like that of their student counterparts, faculty too lambast Murray\u2019s work as \u201cpseudoscience\u201d\u2014even though, like their students, you can bet dollars to donuts that none <\/em>of them have ever so much as thought <\/em>to read any <\/em>of Murray\u2019s scholarship, much less have they read The Bell Curve. <\/em><\/p>\n

In an institution devoted to education, <\/em>instead of political activism, neither faculty nor students would think to regurgitate fallacy-ridden canned statements and uninformed ad hominem attacks against scholars with whom they disagree. Rather, at an institution of higher learning, both faculty and students would know a thing or two about how to make cogent arguments to substantiate their views, and they would welcome opportunities to genuinely listen to <\/em>and critically engage the exponents of those positions that they question.<\/p>\n

But demonizing one\u2019s opponents with a little abusive language jammed in between bumper sticker slogans is so much easier than conversing with them. It\u2019s easier in that it requires less time, less knowledge, and a whole lot less courage: There\u2019s no better way to immunize one\u2019s own beliefs against criticism.<\/p>\n

As I and others have been contending, the corruption of academia is systemic. <\/em>It isn\u2019t just the faculty and student statements at Virginia Tech that reveal this. The administration as well issued a statement that illustrates the groupthink<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tim Sands, the president of the school, released an \u201copen letter\u201d to the school community. To his credit, he refused to rescind the invitation to Murray. Yet he referred to Murray\u2019s work (particularly in The Bell Curve<\/em>) as \u201clargely discredited\u201d and \u201ca flawed socioeconomic theory that has been used by some to justify fascism, racism and eugenics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLargely discredited\u201d [read: pseudoscience]; \u201cflawed\u2026theory;\u201d \u201cfascism,\u201d \u201cracism,\u201d \u201ceugenics\u201d: This could\u2019ve easily been written any of Virginia Tech\u2019s student activists.<\/p>\n

Murray replied, claiming that President Sands was \u201cunfamiliar either with the actual content of The Bell Curve\u201d <\/em>or \u201cwith the state of knowledge in psychometrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

My guess is that, like his students and faculty, Sands was unfamiliar with both.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the variety of other topics that it explores, my book, The American Offensive: Dispatches from the Front, discusses at length the intellectual and moral corruption that pervades much of the humanities and liberal arts in the contemporary academy. The examples of the corruption are legion. 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