Posted on 04/24/2005 11:38:25 AM PDT by freespirited
I started teaching at the University of Denver in 1969 and, except for serving as Colorado s governor for 12 years, have been there continuously. I became a full tenured professor in 1973.
Some time ago I submitted the attached article, Two Wands, to The Source, the university newspaper run by our Vice Chancellor for Communications. The article was in response to a particularly offensive screed on white racism by one of our affirmative action officials. I felt it should not go unanswered.
The Source is run by the administration, separate from our student newspaper. To my amazement, the article was turned down as too controversial. I protested to no avail. So I confidentially went to our provost to get the decision reversed, and was doubly shocked when he agreed with the vice chancellor that the article was too controversial. Next stop was the chancellor of the university, who has been a friend for 25 years. Ever the diplomat, he said he did not think of it as censorship and also refused to reverse the decision. I argued at length about academic freedom and that controversy was what universities were all about.
I recounted that I had attended the University of Wisconsin when Joseph McCarthy was senator and observed first-hand courageous academic administrators standing up to the power of the U.S. Senate, time after time risking their careers to protect what is the most basic freedom on a university campus. I reminded him that I come out of the liberal wing of the Democratic party and my first job out of law school was as a civil rights attorney. Our family marched in Selma. Certainly this was a viewpoint that deserved to be heard.
I argued and argued to no avail.
Is there a liberal orthodoxy at the University of Denver that threatens academic freedom? I append the letter below. You be the judge.
Two Wands Richard D. Lamm Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues
Let me offer you, metaphorically, two magic wands that have sweeping powers to change society. With one wand you could wipe out all racism and discrimination from the hearts and minds of white America. The other wand you could wave across the ghettoes and barrios of America and infuse the inhabitants with Japanese or Jewish values, respect for learning, and ambition. But, alas, you can t wave both wands. Only one.
Which would you choose? I understand that many would love to wave both wands; no one can easily refuse the chance to erase racism and discrimination. But I suggest that the best wand for the society and for those who live in the ghettoes and barrios would be the second wand.
This metaphor is important in correctly diagnosing one of the most significant problems facing contemporary America: the large economic, education and employment gap between Black/Hispanic America and White/Asian America. The problems of crime, educational failure, drugs, gangs, teenage pregnancy, and unemployment that burden certain groups threaten our collective future. They form a nation-threatening social pathology that must be addressed in broader terms than we have done to date.
Most discussion of minority failure blames racism and discrimination. I m an old civil rights lawyer and such racism and discrimination clearly still exists. But the problem is, I fear, deeper than the current dialogue. We need to think honestly about these problems with new sophistication. One of these new areas is to recognize that increasingly scholars are saying culture matters.
I'm impressed, for instance, that minorities that have been discriminated against earn the highest family incomes in America. Japanese Americans, Jews, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans all out-earn white Americans by substantial margins and all have faced discrimination and racism. We put Japanese Americans in camps 60 years ago and confiscated much of their property. Yet today they out-earn all other demographic groups. Discrimination and racism are social cancers and can never be justified but it is enlightening that, for these groups, they were a hurdle, not a barrier to success.
The Italians, the Irish, the people from the Balkans America has viewed all these groups and many more with hostility and suspicion, yet all have integrated and succeeded. Hispanic organizations excuse their failure rates solely in terms of discrimination by white America and object vociferously when former Education Secretary Lauro Cavazos observes that Hispanic parents don t take enough interest in education. But Cuban Americans have come to America and succeeded brilliantly. Do we discriminate against Hispanics from Mexico but not Hispanics from Cuba?
I suggest that those groups whose culture and values stress delayed gratification, education, hard work, success and ambition are those groups that succeed in America regardless of discrimination. I further suggest that, even if discrimination was removed, other groups would still have massive problems until they develop the traits that lead to success. Asian and Jewish children do twice as much homework as Black and Hispanic students, and get twice as good grades. Why should we be surprised?
A problem well defined is a problem half-solved. We must recognize that all the civil rights laws in the world are not going to solve the problem of minority failure. Ultimately Blacks and Hispanics are going to have to see that the solution is largely in their own hands. Lionel Sosa, one of America s leading Hispanic businessmen, in his book The Americano Dream, titles his first chapter Escaping the Cultural Shackles.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan has insightfully observed, the central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.
Thus, morally, I would want badly to wave both wands; if I had to choose, I would wave the second wand. A Confucian or Jewish love of learning would gain minorities far more than any affirmative action laws we might pass.
No wonder the U of Denver would not print this. It has the distinct sound of a Democrat awakening from decades of party-conforming slumber.
Wonderful piece. I hope it gets the local airing that it deserves. Maybe Peter Boyles, or Caplis and Silverman?
Well thought out, neutral, racially unbiased treatement of the little secret that the racialists would love to keep in Pandora's box.
Thanks.
Liberals, demagogues, and Democrats think that Freedom of Speech applies only to them; everybody else needs to be suppressed, censored and silenced.
Yup, cannot risk publishing the Truth. It is not very palatable. But SO refreshing. Keep on keeping on, Governor. Those who hear the Truth, their lives will be changed.
Bump for stating the obvious skillfully.
Ohhhhhh, this is soooo un-PC that I can't even count all the ways!
Totally and completely accurate.... but UN-PC nonetheless.
Great post, thanks!
--Richard Lamm-although I detested him as governor--does do some brilliant thinking--
They'll tell the writer that their article is "inappropriate" and then go on to publish something unreadable as well as irrelevant -- ensuring nothing meaningful can ever be discussed. This is the central issue:
"Daniel Patrick Moynihan has insightfully observed, the central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."
The former means that life is more than just government -- while the liberals would like to make government the extent of life and consciousness. Good government is temporary and eventually abolishes itself because its end is to create good people who then don't need government to conduct their affairs. Liberal (Democratic) government produces bad people who will need evermore government and governing. Also, they must sow the belief that people are inherently bad and are never to be trusted to govern themselves.
And that's why they need liberals, demagogues and Democrats to do their thinking for them -- to speak for, and as if, God.
Related article - discusses research done on child-rearing differences:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1389489/posts
I can understand what's in it for those at the top of these pyramids -- but I can't understand what's in it for all those dupes doing all the dirty work for their manipulators. They can't be that stupid, can they? I guess they think that if they pay their dues in this way, it'll all be worthwhile when they get to the top of the pecking order -- never realizing that there is no such plans for such a ridiculous eventuality. They are just being exploited by the countless con-artists who will always be better at it than they are.
But if we didn't talk about these things among ourselves, we would have no idea that these ideas exist at all -- because the other side is certainly not going to be discussing it. In fact, they will deny that anybody in their right mind could ever think such a thing. That's why it is important to manifest these things among your friends and any others who share these thoughts because you don't know if you share them -- unless you discuss these things. And then those well-articulated and well-establsihed values become the base for further growth and development.
The notion that you should not talk about an idea except to those hostile to your ideas, guarantees their failure, frustration and futility. You have to find the brotherhood of those who want and welcome what you bring to it. You can't bash people over the head to appreciate what you have to offer; they have to be ready and deserving of it.
I always ask before I discriminate.
This is what it means to create a sustainable culture; one thing builds on another -- but you have to start somewhere, and then eventually it gathers critical mass, and then a life of its own.
Didn't the democrats become too left wing for Dick Lamm awhile back?
My father taught us back about the time when Dick Lamm was
Gov. that to some people we would always be a dumb Mic(Irish) or dumb Krout( German) Our ancesters who came here
legally during the potato famine in Europe were discriminated in many circles -and had to earn their right to be called Americans. The set aside all things they left behind to become Americans. The problem with so many from Mexico is they have No desire to learn our language -or respec tour borders,nor to be part of our culture-but want Americans to embrace the country they left seeking a
better life.So I think th eprofessor has the horse behind the cart in some respects.
I am surprised they wouldn't print this article, it makes a lot of sense. In fact, this is what the former basketball player Charles Barkley said in an interview on NPR recently--that blacks must reform their culture and stop blaming racism. He didn't say there wasn't racism--he said that black kids should get an education, not have kids they can't afford, try to aspire to be doctors, lawyers, teachers rather than sports and rap stars and principally that they should not be ashamed of good diction and good education, Apparently he has written a book, and I was very impressed by his eloquence. Believe Bill Cosby is saying much of the same thing.
only a democrat or a minority could say such things without fear of being called a ....
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