Posted on 06/04/2014 7:24:19 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
Academia is doubling down on diversity and on anyone who comes near it offering diverse thoughts. condoleezza rice
A special supplement of The Chronicle of Higher Education features articles entitled:
“First-Generation at Georgetown—A broad support system helps students succeed among wealthier—and worldlier—classmates;” “Undocumented at Berkeley—A special program at Berkeley gives young immigrants a pathway;” “Navigating the Fafsa Wilderness—A U. of Buffalo professor’s project to help students fill out the complicated aid forms has helped more go to college;” and “Helping Hispanic Students Beat the Odds.”
Worthy goals to be sure, at least those that don’t skirt U.S. immigration law. Nevertheless, as African-American economist Thomas Sowell has noted, “The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask them how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”
They can’t even handle them once a year at commencement exercises, let alone in a faculty chair. “Unsurprisingly, political disagreement plays a significant part in prompting disinvitation attempts,” the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reports. “Instead of debating political differences, students and faculty are increasingly attempting to simply exclude speakers with whom they disagree. In fact, over 40% of disinvitation incidents have involved political officials. Of the 192 disinvitation attempts since 2000, 79 targeted speakers who served in a political position (elected or appointed) at the time of their disinvitation, or had previously done so. Of those 79 disinvitation incidents involving political officials, 23 were successful.”
“The data shows that speakers with perceived “conservative” viewpoints (which, as noted earlier, includes many speakers who might not self-identify as conservative) have faced a majority of the backlash. Successful disinvitations from the left of speakers are nearly double those from the right of speakers, with nearly triple the total number of disinvitation incidents.”
Moreover, these disinvitations went to VIPs who were invited to begin with. Not many conservatives receive such invitations from universities. Of 28 luminaries asked to give commencement addresses, mostly drawn from a list provided by The Business Insider, Accuracy in Academia found four nominal Republicans.
Since one of them was Condoleezza Rice, who withdrew from her commitment to speak at Rutgers, that ratio went down by a quarter. Don’t expect it to go up next year.
“For the first six years of the 2000s, disinvitation incidents averaged 7.5 per year,” FIRE reports. “From 2006–2008, the average jumped slightly to 11, and then to just under 18 per year from 2009–2011. Since 2012, the average number of disinvitation incidents has again risen, to nearly 25 per year. The average number of disinvitation incidents for one year within the 2012–2014 time frame is greater than the total number of disinvitation incidents from 2000–2002.”
“Disinvitation efforts are not new, but our research indicates that they are dramatically increasing.”
There are no males here and I am pretty sure there never will be.
Is THAT diversity?
Diversity is one of those meaningless words which liberals use.
There’s plenty of diversity in some places. For example, I had to go to a major local government office recently. In a large office, just glancing around, there was not a single white male working there. There was plenty of racial and ethnic diversity, but no white men working there.
On the other hand, in colleges, there is uniformity due to so much pressure to be liberal. That’s not diversity at all. Though there too, we see ethnic and racial diversity.
How important is diversity of skin color or background, but a lack of diversity of thought and opinion?
What drives the Left--the fanatic adherents, not the demagogues who exploit them as "useful idiots"--is a neurotic compulsion for uniformity. All of the antics you describe reflect not an appreciation for the very real differences in human aptitudes, personalities, levels & types of achievement, but a passionate effort to make them appear to go away. This is certainly not a way to help anyone. It is not altruistic, idealistic or benign; rather toxic to all afflicted with it.
William Flax
If a student is incapable of filling out aid forms. I highly doubt that they will be able to handle college.
You both make the mistake of arguing against the "newspeak" usage of crack-pot fanatics, as though it reflects rational thinking. The Left long ago largely abandoned what normal people would consider a rational argument, and has long focused on creating a human equivalent of Pavlovian experiments in conditioning dogs.
It is perhaps easier to see this technique, in the way anyone who dissents from their pursuit of "diversity," is hit by screaming epithets, such as "racist," "bigot," "elitist," or by their holding seminars on "White Privilege."
Lately they have overtly corrupted what used to pass as intellectually respectable "intercollegiate debate," staging complete farces under the label.
William Flax
If college standards were fixed, you would be on the mark. Unfortunately, the egalitarian collectivist who prattles or gobbles about "diversity," has a clear vision of how to fix the problem that you refer to.
Look, for example, of the process by which a High School diploma, with respect to basic subjects, such as English usage, gradually deteriorated to something less significant than a sixth grade education in 1900. The passion to make everyone appear to be equal is an absolute curse on every element of the population, but that of the demagogues & scoundrels, who know how to play the game; a game being played at the expense of not only America as a whole, but every State & community, family & individual, throughout the Union.
William Flax
Just one case. My sister's son, whom I love dearly went to a very challenging private high school. He's lazy and he just passed. Now he's at a public college and he has straight A's. He's no more industrious now then he was then.
As a high school teacher, I can tell you with some authority that a high school diploma is becoming worthless. No Child Left Behind was a mistake. It may have been well intentioned, but it was a mistake. Virtually the only metric that high school administrators are concerned with is "graduation rate." Everything else... proficiency on state exams, ACT/SAT scores, honors' diplomas... is completely secondary to that. Those things afford bragging rights if they come out well, but in the long run, it's graduation rate that matters.
No effort is too much, or too expensive, to drag the bottom-dwelling potheads across the line to keep the grad rate up.
So far as I am concerned, anyone who is not certifiably insane, who parrots the slogans of the Leftist cult, has abdicated any claim to public respect, much less holding public office. No one, absolutely no one but demagogues & scoundrels, benefits from this corruption of standards.
William Flax
In today’s edition of Newspeak, the answer to your question is “Yes, but only if there are no Caucasians in the crowd”.
Nothing is more inherently local & immediate than the relationship between a teacher and a student. Layering bureaucratic regulations over the process--and sticking a Federal nose into existing State & local bureaucracies amounts to precisely that--is as counter-productive as it is fiscally wasteful. It is also unconstitutional.
For a further discussion of relevant concepts: Public Schools: Issues & Reality; Education & Politics.
William Flax
Deals with a perception problem that must be faced, if we are to save our heritage.
True!
This thread deals with Leftist efforts that undermine a healthy America. The resulting issues need to be faced.
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