Posted on 11/06/2007 10:16:03 AM PST by Nevadan
Group shines a light on PC nonsense run amok.
When the government funds education, it's always wise to be alert for the potential for a "two-tiered" curriculum.
The public curriculum is easy to ascertain. Ask those in charge of any university for an official list of the subject matter being taught. A handsome catalog is often available, bragging that students have wide opportunities to take courses in engineering and the sciences, in English and foreign literature, in history and psychology and any number of other disciplines.
But if your son was attending the University of Delaware in recent years, where in the catalog would you have learned that he would not be advancing until he had acknowledged that "systematic oppression exists in our society" and that those "systems of oppression must be dismantled"?
Where in the course catalog were parents or prospective students advised that they would be expected to demonstrate they had "changed their daily habits and consumer mentality" to reflect current politically correct notions of the "sustainability" of various forms of energy generation and resource extraction?
In fact, the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education learned that the University of Delaware has been carrying on just such an ideological re-education program, referred to by the university itself as "treatment" for the incorrect attitudes and beliefs which students have been bringing to the university from their home environments.
"The program's stated goal was for the approximately 7,000 students in Delaware's residence halls to adopt highly specific university-approved views on politics, race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy and environmentalism," the human rights group announced in a Nov. 2 release.
And mind you, these were not open debates on these topics, where dissenting views were granted a fair hearing and respectful treatment. Oh no. Under the program, students were required to attend training sessions, floor meetings and "one-on-one" meetings with their resident assistants (RAs), who apparently filled the same role here as the political commissars in the old Soviet Army.
The university even instructed their RAs to ask intrusive questions during these one-on-one sessions, including, "When did you discover your sexual identity?"
A student who responded "That is none of your damn business" was "according to the university's own materials, written up -- along with the student's name and room number -- as having one of the 'worst one-on-one' sessions."
With the aid of the Delaware Association of Scholars, FIRE went public, exposing the mandatory indoctrination program. Although the university at first defended the brainwashing, university President Patrick Harker announced Nov. 1 that he was terminating the program, effective immediately.
"Universities often cannot defend in public what they try to do in private," said FIRE president Greg Lukianoff last week, "and the situation at Delaware was no exception. While we are pleased that the program is over, it is stunning that it ever existed at a public university in the United States."
With due respect, perhaps Mr. Lukianoff needs to get out more.
"Under the First Amendment, state institutions have no right to impose mandatory ideological training on their students," the head of the individual rights group continued. "We are thrilled that this unconscionable and invasive program is gone, but ... FIRE will continue to monitor the situation at Delaware and to fight against other ideological re-education programs at schools across the nation."
Unfortunately, given the current popularity of unison chantings from the gospel of PC -- and the corollary tendency to denounce any dissent on campus as "oppressive hate-speech" -- the folks at FIRE may not have to look very hard.
Please Lord, don't let these people take over in the next election.
—good one—(I think I detect the influence of Vin Suprynowicz in this editorial)—
My son had to take “Gender Sensitivity” training (or something like that) at Virginia Tech, as part of freshmen year.
He said the class was stupid, and boring, and had the OPPOSITE of its intended effect. The reaction among several males in the class was “the only reason we have to take this class is because of some crazy feminists.”
He said many male students were MORE chauvinistic after taking the forced class.
Liberals will NEVER learn that pointing out one's differences constantly and using racism to combat racism does NOT work.
What? You expect liberals to learn from their mistakes???
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Sorry, I could not resist. It would be nice. It would even given one a sense of hope.
I am beginning to think they don’t care if it works or not.
I suspect that the basic message is “We are in power. You are the peasants. Whatever ideas you have, you will shut up about them or we will get abusive.”
In other words, a message of power to the powerless.
My kid transferred into University as a junior after getting his AA at the local CC. One good thing about doint it this way was he got to completely skip the “diversity” classes that were required, and jump right into the courses for his major. When he went in with his AA, they just crossed off the first two years of required courses, two of which were diversity and ethnic related.
Thanks for the tip!
The indoctrination ran deeper than anything I had ever imagined or feared. My sense was that any graduate would be ill prepared for private sector employment outside of a non-profit. They were just too far from the realities of real-life in a free market economy. Ironically that economy provides the growth and tax heavy funding they need to support their false world of socialist idealism.
Unfortunately, Delaware is the epitome of the "good old boy system" however this is the University's very misguided way of addressing the institutionalized racism in this State. I don't agree with these tactics.
If the incompetent people in "the system" were just fired and replaced with people who can actually think, it would go a long way to ending the racism and unfair treatment that is prevalent in Delaware.
This of course, is just my two cents. My family is mixed race and since we're "outsiders" we were made a target just for the fun of it. I didn't want to believe it but Delaware houses some very nasty and racist people in positions of power that they don't hesitate to abuse. Admittedly, not all of them are white, but the ones who did discriminate in my case were.
My stepdaughter and her ex-boyfriend attended UCSC. There is hope for my stepdaughter. Notwithstanding her education at UCSC, she retains an open mind. There is no hope for her ex-boyfriend. I gave him a well researched and well written history of Israel during the period from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire through 1948. He refused to read it or to even discuss any topic related to Israel. He believes National Review to be as far right as The Nation is far left. He thinks CNN is the fair and balanced network.
UCSC is paying a price for its well deserved reputation as haven for the Left. Check out UCSC's average SAT scores at collegeboard.com and compare them to the other UC campuses. To the extent that those scores indicate how attactive and selective a school is, UCSC is not faring well. In that regard, my youngest daughter will be starting college next fall. She will not be attending UCSC.
This was discussed on Hannity and Colmes.
It seems that the program was abandoned.
Colmes thought that should be the end of the discussion.
THE PEOPLE WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA ARE STILL IN POSITIONS OF POWER AT THE UNIVERSITY.
That’s the problem, big Al - understand?
Three thoughts:
Diversity training is conformity training.
The objective of diversity training is to make whites subservient to victim group demands. It’s just a get over.
Oprah just fired the entire staff at her SA school for collaborating in abusing kids. DU was psychologically abusing these kids. Why haven’t the staff involved in this abuse, starting with Pres Harker, been fired?
“state institutions have no right to impose mandatory ideological training on their students”
That is all each and every university is about these days; liberal (read:Communist) indocrination. Money first, education if it happens.
Residence Life diversity program halted
Harker made decision three days after controversy
by Wesley Case
Issue date: 11/6/07 Section: News
The diversity-training program in residence halls was immediately suspended as of Nov. 1.
The university’s diversity-training program, which was implemented in residence halls by Residence Life, has been immediately suspended for the duration of the academic year, according to President Patrick Harker.
In an interview on Monday, Nov. 5, Harker said the program would no longer conduct activities under the current framework, which includes one-on-one conferences between resident assistants and residents and monthly floor meetings.
-—This is from The Review which is the student newspaper.
Canceling the program doesn’t matter. What occurred was a crime. According to student testimony, revolting RA’s jobs were threatened if they didn’t comform. Reports were written on nonconforming students. Kids were subjected to psychological terror.
This was not a just rogue program. It was organized crime. DU trampled on these kids civil rights. The adults in charge are criminals. Starting with Harker, they should be arrested and frog walked before cameras.
They are not “irrational”, they know exactly what they are doing. They won’t “take over” at the next election because they took over a long time ago.
The truth of your statement is already evident as seen in the interview in the student newspaper with Harker: “Harker said the program would no longer conduct activities under the current framework.” That says to me that the program is not dead. It will be back. It will be changed somewhat, but the underlying messages will still be intact. The Left never concedes defeat. It keeps on going until the opposition gets tired of fighting.
I’ve been saying that for some time. A degree outside of business, engineering, and science (i.e. any of the Liberal Arts / Victims Studies majors) makes you less suitable for employment than a H.S. degree and good SAT scores, due to the likely indoctrination and potential for employee lawsuits.
Are you kidding me? They are all part of the 1st State Cliques & Cronies Club...aka Mafia...these people can never be fired, or held responsible for anything. Even if they stood in the street and shot you in cold blood before witnesses, somebody would cover it up and threaten the witnesses.
We can't even get high school principals fired around here, though they richly deserve it.
Are you kidding me? Suppose you were a representative of a diversity program and took a black, teenage girl into a room and asked her when she discovered her sexuality.
Not only you, but everyone you worked for would be looking at ten years.
Also having a family tree that dates back to before the civil war seems to help them, too.
Any other profession, yes. But not in education.
I live in Ct..it’s worse here.
What a joke. It's the school administrations in all the education systems in Delaware who are the major purveyors of oppression, civil rights violations, racism and classism...you name it, they do it under the banner of "zero tolerance." Now they come up with this brainwashing course as a solution? It may backfire in more ways than one.
ping
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