College Student Alert: Beware of One-Party Classrooms

Townhall.com ^ | April 7, 2009 | Phillis Schlafly

[Kaslin]

How can we explain continued public support for Barack Obama's extremist spending plans, even though it is painfully obvious that his much-touted "remaking America" means mortgaging the financial future of young people with trillions of dollars in debt? Are the American people really willing to let the government be our nanny, manage our economy, federalize our schools, and decide which businesses can keep their doors open, what health care will be permitted, who will get new jobs and how extravagant will be the foreign handouts as Obama "rejoins the world community"?

One answer to these questions may be what has been taught over the last 30 years in U.S. colleges and universities, where the radicals of the 1960s have become tenured professors. David Horowitz has made it his life mission for the last two decades to expose the hypocrisy of professors pushing propaganda instead of education.

The latest of his several books on the academic left is called "One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy" (co-authored with Jacob Laksin; Crown Forum). "One-party" does not refer just to the fractious Harry Reid Democratic Party -- full-blown Marxist socialism is the "one party" that is indoctrinating students in the classroom.

Horowitz documented 150 college courses at 12 elite universities, from Columbia in New York to the University of California at Santa Cruz, which he calls "the worst school in America" and whose highest-ranking professors are the communist lesbians Angela Davis and Bettina Aptheker. Other institutions along the way include Duke, Penn State, the University of Colorado and the University of Southern California.

Horowitz quotes directly from the syllabus of each course he critiques, lists assigned readings, and reports on the credentials and background of the instructor paid to teach the course. The most offensive departments are women's studies, black studies and peace studies.

These so-called academic departments teach students to hate America, to believe that women, blacks and all minorities are the victims of oppression and racism, and that America is a land of injustice that needs drastic change in our social structure. The universities teach William Ayers-style "social justice," which is the template for a socialist political agenda.

Women's studies departments teach that gender is not a fact of nature or biologically determined, but is a socially or environmentally determined classification that ascribes qualities of masculinity and femininity to people, a peculiar view accepted by feminists as though it were a principle of Newtonian physics. Women's studies instructors consider it a given that women have been subordinated and discriminated against by an unjust male patriarchy and need government action by legislatures and courts to give women their just due.

At Columbia University, students who hope to be teachers are expected to adopt a radical view of American society and to attack the legitimacy of the social order. The courses dish out a running attack on capitalism and the free-market system.

Even at the University of Miami in Ohio, the women's studies department makes clear that its courses are organized around radical feminist theory. To get a degree in women's studies, the first requirement for the senior thesis is that it "must incorporate feminist perspectives."

If any course syllabus promises to include "critical thinking," that means criticizing men and the patriarchy.

The University of Texas uses required texts that take as their starting point the patriarchal structure of society. Twenty-five points of a student's final grade are determined by a gender journal in which students question norms about sexuality.

Typical readings assigned at the University of Arizona reveal the bias of the courses: "Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism," "Sexual Democracy: Women, Oppression and Revolution" and "The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism."

A course at the University of Missouri asserts that U.S. institutions exert social control over women's bodies to promote gendered inequalities, especially the media, the legal system and the medical profession. Missouri courses attack femininity as "a tool of self-oppression," and courses are frankly described as "a training course for radical feminists in radical feminism."

Women's studies courses don't assign readings by any of the great women writers: Jane Austen, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson or the Bronte sisters. Also blacklisted are those who criticize feminism, such as Christina Hoff Sommers, Carolyn Graglia, Daphne Patai and Camille Paglia.

The cultural Marxists have been teaching college students long enough to deceive two generations. The abuses of the liberal arts curriculum were set forth 20 years ago by Allan Bloom in "The Closing of the American Mind" and nearly 50 years ago by E. Merrill Root in "Collectivism on the Campus."

When are young people and their parents going to stop paying exorbitant tuition for the privilege of being brainwashed by the left?

[incredulous joe]

God bless Tom! Glad he is still doing it. He was one of the first locals that I got turned on to.

“and then to the localized and more settled Irish troubles”

There were some crazies with “the troubles” but I think very, very few tried to kill children. Certainly, none strapped explosives to their own.

Some of the Irish had a bad wrap with women, but none were ever gang raped in the name of religion, nor buried up to their neck and stoned, or beaten to death with a leather strap while the executioner held a Koran in one hand and the strap in the other.

This is all unique to the wonderful world of Islam.

[Albion Wilde]

My daughter...says everyone in the Automotive Technology and Corrections Management classes are right-wingers, though ;-).

Just wondering if she and her friends know about Mike Adams, a tenured professor of criminology from UNC-Wilmington. He is a born-again conservative, gun-loving, PC-skewering good ol' boy with a doctorate. His weekly columns sarcastically ridicule the feminist and multiculturalist excesses in universities all over the country. He is hilarious, and so are the hundreds of comments to his columns. This week he is commenting on the porn movie scandal at University of Maryland. Here's a quote:

"I can now turn my attention to another area where expertise is sorely needed... a new speech/seminar called “How Public Universities Can Waste Money in the Midst of a Recession.” I’ll be teaching that one and hoping Obama doesn’t cap my honorarium."

[Tax-chick]

Anoreth reads Mike Adams, but I don’t know about the rest of the Corrections class.

[Albion Wilde]

"David Horowitz has made it his life mission for the last two decades to expose the hypocrisy of professors pushing propaganda instead of education."

--A wasted life.

Obviously, you know nothing about David Horowitz. He is a giant among men, who has endured great punishment from the left on behalf of conservative causes. It was an honor to shake his hand at CPAC. Without his leadership, we would already have gone down the tube. Much of what he has done is very long-term and may not bear fruit until he is long gone, but his defense of principles of freedom is unparalleled in the education arena. Here are some of his sites. Any FReepers reading this who can afford to donate to his causes can do good for our nation's young people.

Students for Academic Freedom

The Academic Bill of Rights

The Student Bill of Rights

FrontPageMag.com

Discover the Networks: A Guide to the Political Left

Terrorism Awareness Project

Book Review: The One-Party Classroom

[Albion Wilde]

The Case Against the College Degree

What a brilliant, worthwhile article. Thank you so much for posting it. I forwarded it to my favorite young person who is working on a doctorate.

[Albion Wilde]

Excellent suggestions. American Constitutional traditionalists who hope to recover this country without a shooting war must recognize that we have lost a long-waged cultural war, and must start over from scratch evangelizing for freedom and organizing private education for our children.

[Albion Wilde]

Not everyone can afford to send their children to private schools and not everyone can home school their children. I certainly would not have been able to when my kids were school age.

I grew up in a neighborhood that was 50% Christians and 50% Jews in the 1950s.

My point is, the Jewish families had to educate their children at home about the ways in which they differed from the predominant Christian society, and they sent their kids to Hebrew school in the afternoons and to religious education on Sundays, when the Christian kids were also in Sunday school. Although most of the families preached against interfaith dating, we all got along pretty well and many of the friendships have lasted a lifetime, because the kids loved each other first from the age of 5 (kindergarten), and only later learned the ropes of their religious belief system.

There was a lot of prejudice and suspicion among the adults, without a doubt; and Jews were still treated unequally in employment and in some aspects of society then; many of them, especially those who served in WWII, still were very aware of the Nazi atrocities uncovered just 5 years earlier and were grateful for America; others blamed Christians reflexively and formed the backbone of the ACLU and the American Left. Today American Jews are about 90% secular liberals. Many have helped power the pendulum-swing away from public expressions of Christianity, such as the daily recitation of the Lord's Prayer in schools that we experienced. But sadly, most American Jews have abandoned their religion; whereas American evangelical Christians have become the best friends and supporters of Israel because of their belief in Biblical prophecy. Social change takes a long, long time, containing surprising twists and turns; and we must not abandon the fight.

Conservatives must operate with faith in the future, even if we must do it from underground and behind the scenes, to help the pendulum swing back again. The Bible has predicted that groups would war with one another even within families and communities: "I come not to bring peace, but the sword." The only thing we can do is equip our children privately with spiritual weapons so that they "can put on the whole armor of God" in the battle "against principalities and powers" for their souls.

[Tax-chick]

You’re right, that’s an excellent article.

[spacewarp]

I pay my ex-wife (who was cheating and threw me out because she was moving her new guy in, so don’t bother lecturing me on the evils of divorce; I already know them) $1500 a month in child support.

I cannot afford to homeschool.

I would love to.

If we could afford it, I can guarantee we would.

So, please stop trying to imagine this perfect world in which every conservative is financially able to do what you do.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Where does the expense come in? Do you mean one of two parents quitting a job to stay home full time? That would be a considerable expense, yes. If not that, what other expenses does homeschool entail?

[spacewarp]

My lawyers fees to get my kids back from my ex-wife. The expense of losing one of the two incomes. The expense of my van that’s on bankruptcy loan rates of over 18% due to the bankruptcy she shoved me into. The expense of an apartment in a nice neighborhood so that when the evaluation is done, I stand a chance of getting my kids. A few dozen other expenses. A brand new car my fiancee got a few months ago because her car died. The list goes on and on.

The big two are the expenses related to my custody battle with my ex-wife for my kids.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

That’s terrible, and you have my sympathy. You may indeed be that one in ten thousand who is behind such an eightball that homeschooling is unthinkable.
Even so, it’s been my experience that people in complex difficulties have not truly explored their options. There are often creative ways to extricate oneself from situations, that people never give serious thought to. There are alternatives to buying a brand new car when an old one dies (e.g., buy a used one, or take the bus).
But in your case, custody must come first. What you really can’t afford is to mess with that. You can’t take the chance that the judge might be a liberal moron with prejudice against homeschooling.
After that though...I’d be thinking outside the box whenever possible. When your life is a Gordian knot, the usual handiwork doesn’t always get it unraveled.
Good luck and God bless you and your loved ones!

[spacewarp]

Actually, one strange note, my attorney, who is one of the best in the state, actually worked on the case that the homeschooling furor came down from on the father’s side.