How We’ve Gone from Institutions of Higher Education to Conformity Colleges. A new book by David Barnhizer diagnoses a serious problem.

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | March 29, 2024 | George Leef

[karpov]

Many Americans realize that our higher-education system is decaying, its standards in decline while costs continue to rise. Is this situation like a tooth with a cavity that can readily be fixed? Or is the decay so deep that we need something far more serious, such as a root canal?

David Barnhizer’s new book, Conformity Colleges, strongly suggests that we must have the latter. His subtitle explains that we suffer from “the destruction of intellectual creativity and dissent.” That’s an accurate diagnosis.

An emeritus professor of law, Barnhizer has written a no-holds-barred exposé of the tragic fall of our institutions of higher education. Our colleges, he states, “have turned into a one-sided process where true believers who see the world through an ideological lens have taken control.” Instead of graduating thoughtful, mature people who can employ reason to evaluate claims and arguments about the world, our schools produce increasingly large numbers of people who act as “social justice warriors,” single-mindedly following the lessons drummed into them in college.

The use of schooling to indoctrinate young people is an old tactic, our author reminds us. Those in power have always sought to mould a populace where the people all believe the “right” things, thereby cementing their control over society. Better yet, the people should be made intolerant of conflicting ideas to help deter outbreaks of dissent.

To an alarming degree, that’s how our colleges now function. Robust debate has given way to a “cancel culture” in which anyone who is out of step with the reigning orthodoxy is apt to be viciously attacked. Academic freedom is under siege, as even tenured professors can be put through a “living hell” (to quote Stanford medical professor Jay Bhattacharya) if they dare to speak out against what they regard as bad ideas

[NWFree]

Kind of like the Nazis

[cpdiii]

I graduated in Geology in 1975 and Pharmacy in 1985. In 1975 the professors use mostly subjective questions unless their was only one right answer in which case they used objective tests.

In 1985 in Pharmacy school almost everything was objective. The professors were protecting themselves from accusations of racial discrimination, thus they went to right or wrong answers. Those tests can be a real bitch.

Oddly in Pharmacology and Disease courses it was almost completely subjective as there are more than one right answer for disease treatment. By the time you get to these courses those that can not hack it in a tough major are gone as chem, physics, math etc. has already got rid of the weak. You will make it.

[Savage Beast]

The decay so deep that we need something far more serious. In fact, a root canal won’t do it.

[Reverend Wright]

Bill Buckley wrote “God and Man at Yale” in 1951.

So this is not a recent issue.

(the problem is that Buckley and NR spent the rest of his career gatekeeping and containment against the parts of the right that actually wanted to fight back)

[Savage Beast]

When I lived in Europe back in the 1970s, everywhere I went the intelligentsia were agog with admiration, envy, and amazement at the way students and everyone else in American education institutions were encouraged to think for themselves and to search for truth and accept it wherever they might find it.

"The more the student disagrees with the professor, the more delighted he becomes!" it was said.

This was the fast lane to Truth and more wonderful wonders than anyone could imagine.

This was the attitude that had brought the American Dream to the world and promised even more miracles to come.

Contrast that with the decadent, fascist system of today, when conformity is demanded, a diverse or contradictory opinion suppressed and punished, and the last thing any professor wants is for students to think for themselves.

In the decadent period of Western Civilization in America, all standards are lowered.

[Paladin2]

How was Ivertmectin covered?

[Grampa Dave]

Better yet, the people should be made intolerant of conflicting ideas to help deter outbreaks of dissent.

To an alarming degree, that’s how our colleges now function. Robust debate has given way to a “cancel culture” in which anyone who is out of step with the reigning orthodoxy is apt to be viciously attacked.

Academic freedom is under siege, as even tenured professors can be put through a “living hell” (to quote Stanford medical professor Jay Bhattacharya) if they dare to speak out against what they regard as bad ideas.good

Good reasons never to spend tons of money for any worthless Instant Unemployment Degrees.

[VideoPaul]

You should have seen and hard the leftist prattle that was foisted upon us in my master’s program. “Intersectionality” was presented as wholesale genocide to those with more than one tick of the minority cattle call.

Otherwise know as “Joe Biden’s employee pool”

[Political Junkie Too]

First, they want to drop standardized testing in K-12 schools because it shows the inability of teachers to teach.

Second, they want to drop grades in K-12 schools because it shows the unwillingness of students to learn.

Third, the want to drop advanced placement programs and "gifted student" schools because it highlights the groups of students who are not.

Fourth, they want to drop secondary math and science classes from the 9-12 curriculum because it shows how far behind the proficiency curve American students have fallen.

Fifth, they want to drop high achievement awards because the wrong students are winning them.

Sixth, they want to drop the courses that students can't pass and replace them with "participation" classes that boost students' self-esteem and false sense of accomplishment.

Seventh, they want to drop the SAT and other college admissions requirements because American students are no longer qualified to attend.

Finally, I'm not surprised to find that the academics who recommended all these things have falsified their credentials all along the way.

-PJ

[Jim Noble]

it shows the inability of teachers to teach

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Teachers are weak, but that's because strong people won't lie and claim they will do the impossible.

Our educational bureaucracy is demanding a curriculum fit for a 90% white country where vocational schools are plentiful, disruptors are expelled, and where expelled students or dropouts go to work at 16 in manufacturing or trades.

None of those factors exist anymore. The schools are collapsing - good, becuse it hastens the end of the Empire of Lies,but bad because of all the human tragedies that are going to be caused.

[Jim Noble]

Kind of like the Nazis

The Nazis had excellent schools.

[VideoPaul]

You should have seen and hard the leftist prattle that was foisted upon us in my master’s program. “Intersectionality” was presented as wholesale genocide to those with more than one tick of the minority cattle call.

Otherwise know as “Joe Biden’s employee pool”

[Political Junkie Too]

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

I appreciate the wisdom of your comment, but I fear it is just as anachronistic as the educational bureaucracy that you go on to describe.

Now that we have insights into the true nature of the academic backgrounds of the new "leaders" of academia from back when they were graduate and post-graduate students, we can infer how those moral judgements trickled down to the rank-and-file students who weren't "Dean" material and chose to go into "teaching" instead.

In other words, look at the leaders of universities today, and realize that their fellow students of yesteryear are the teachers of our children in K-12 today.

-PJ