Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

George Mason’s Orwellian “Just Societies” Requirement. Courses that take DEI principles for granted cannot be intellectually honest.
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | March 1, 2024 | Bryan Caplan

Posted on 03/03/2024 7:14:11 AM PST by karpov

I recently discovered that George Mason University, where I teach, plans to adopt a “Just Societies” course requirement. “Students entering Mason in Fall 2024 or later will be required to take two Mason Core courses that have the Just Societies flag.”

If you read any closer, you unsurprisingly discover that this is a thinly veiled woke-indoctrination requirement. Students are not exploring substantively different views on justice; they are hearing about “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” in all its Orwellian wonder.

...

What’s so terrible about the Just Societies framework? Let me count the ways.

First, the requirement plainly takes the correctness of the DEI view of justice for granted. How can you possibly “ensure an accurate understanding” of DEI while granting that it might be a smokescreen for horrible injustice? Are we supposed to imagine the professors declaring, “Let’s respectfully engage with the view that I’m engaged in radical leftist indoctrination”? Can you seriously imagine the faculty musing, “Maybe DEI itself is the obstacle to justice and equity we need to address. Maybe the best way to address these obstacles is to get rid of classes like mine. Let’s consider the arguments”?

Second, taking the correctness of the DEI view of justice for granted would be bad even if the DEI view turned out to be correct! When deep controversies exist, an intellectually serious class starts by frankly acknowledging them and trying to resolve them. What alternatives, you ask? Let’s start with color-blind meritocracy, which, by the way, is a lot more radical than it sounds.

Third, the DEI view of justice turns out to be fundamentally incorrect. My book Don’t Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice explores why. So do a long list of other books.

(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: college

1 posted on 03/03/2024 7:14:11 AM PST by karpov
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: karpov

I made a tragic career mistake. I taught at Arizona State University in Tempe. But the intensity of the sun finally got to me (melanoma) so we decided to head back east. I landed a job at George Mason University in Fairfax. I only knew of the economics and law faculty. Turns out the business school is terrible by national standards.

But DEI was happening the entire time I was there. It was getting crazier and crazier. At one faculty meeting, the Dean of the Business school asked everyone to tell an embarrassing story about themselves. I refused. I said “Can you imagine faculty at a top ten business school like Chicago doing something like this??” I walked out.

Our Associate Dean was gay. She had the business building filled with “Want to know what gay life is life?” IOW, a dating site for gays pushed by The Dean’s office. I protested to the Provost. The signs were taken down, but i paid a price for standing up.

GMU is a clown show, particularly the business school.


2 posted on 03/03/2024 7:24:52 AM PST by Kaiser8408a (z)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

No wonder white men are eschewing college.


3 posted on 03/03/2024 7:32:43 AM PST by Ge0ffrey
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ge0ffrey

I can see a huge business opertunity for lower ranked schools to become top tier academic institutions by recruiting competent non DEI professors and teaching intellectually rigorous courses on subject that matter. Some math and science may be required.


4 posted on 03/03/2024 7:45:58 AM PST by AndyJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Kaiser8408a

Thanks for posting the realities at GMU.

What year/s did the DEI$ happen?


5 posted on 03/03/2024 7:46:53 AM PST by Grampa Dave (“Surrender means wisely accommodating to what is beyond our control.” — Sylvia Boorstein.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Grampa Dave

2009-2023.


6 posted on 03/03/2024 7:48:44 AM PST by Kaiser8408a (z)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: karpov

So glad I finished college and grad school before the worst of this nonsense became required. I still had to take various required, (i.e., non-degree BS stuff to pad their profits) courses, but none of this men can get pregnant mess we have now. Work still requires the various DIE training, but it is on their dime and as long as my pay is the same, I don’t really care what they have me do.


7 posted on 03/03/2024 7:52:29 AM PST by AlanSC (As Andrew Wilkow has said of AOC: she has the body of a lingerie mannequin and the brains to match)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

THE DEI THAT DID-IN HARVARD’s PRESIDENT-—source: Fr thread

Harvard deleted nearly all DEI materials from its website following President Claudine Gay’s disastrous congressional testimony, in which she declined to say whether advocating for the genocide of Jews is permissible on campus. Recovered DEI documents through an Internet archive show
<><>DEI urges students to internalize the Critical Race Theory narrative,
<><>that America is systemically racist,
<><>that it is riddled with white-baiting code words
<><>words like “police brutality,” “white supremacist violence,” “weaponization of whiteness.”
<><>students are told to “unpack” their so-called “white” and “male” privileges,
<><>to consider their “white fragility,”
<><>ghetto-nurtured DEI says white privilege accrues to whites
<><>b/c of a society that protects and insulates them from race-based stress.


8 posted on 03/03/2024 8:08:59 AM PST by Liz (This then is how we should pray: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: AndyJackson
I can see a huge business opertunity for lower ranked schools to become top tier academic institutions by recruiting competent non DEI professors and teaching intellectually rigorous courses on subject that matter.

I's bet that the actual teaching at "lower ranked schools" is already as good as that at "top tier academic institutions", but to be ranked as a top tier school would probably require it to tow the leftist line in every way.

9 posted on 03/03/2024 8:13:13 AM PST by libertylover (Our biggest problem, by far, is that almost all of big media is AGENDA-DRIVEN, not-truth driven.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: libertylover

I taught the same class at GMU that I did at University of Chicago. It was the Management faculty that was huge and terrible. Lots of propaganda (left of course). Easy A’s. They teach “strategy” and “how to be a CEO” by people who have never been CEOs or even worked in the private sector.


10 posted on 03/03/2024 8:22:46 AM PST by Kaiser8408a (z)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...

11 posted on 03/03/2024 12:43:44 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Get off Biden's back, he lost his son in Iraq, and has a fulltime job as a lyin' sack.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: karpov

The great Walter E. Williams was the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University. I often wonder what he would have to say about all of this DEI nonsense. He was a friend of Thomas Sowell and filled in for Rush on occasion. I loved his newspaper column and when he subbed for Rush.


12 posted on 03/03/2024 8:32:38 PM PST by Polyxene (Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice: Psalm 130)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson