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Censoring Shakespeare: Agenda-driven education is plaguing our universities
Washington Examiner ^ | October 25, 2019 06:26 PM | Pooja Bachani

Posted on 10/25/2019 6:51:49 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

To assume an English major took a class in Shakespeare is a pretty safe assumption, or at least it used to be. Now, not even the Bard of Avon is safe from censorship, as university administrators and faculty use the education system to drive their own agendas.

At the University of California, Los Angeles, English majors are no longer required to study one of the greatest writers of all time. Instead, they have to take classes in “Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexuality Studies” and “Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies,” in addition to critical theory and creative writing.

Dost thou ask why? “To expose students to alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class,” according to the UCLA catalog.

Shocking, isn’t it? This English department took out Shakespeare to drive its own ideological agenda. While I didn’t particularly like Shakespeare as an undergraduate student obsessed with the modern American novel, this is still a tragedy.

The desire to expose students to a certain viewpoint and to censor others isn’t limited to the hallowed (Shakespeare-free) halls of UCLA’s English department. It is a problem plaguing students of all majors at universities and college campuses nationwide. Addressing this issue is especially important as we celebrate Free Speech Week.

Universities are supposed to be a marketplace of ideas, where students are exposed to different viewpoints and given the opportunity to debate them. That marketplace of ideas doesn’t just simply appear overnight like a farmer’s market on the quad selling overpriced maple syrup (even if it is totally worth $14). Students are exposed to these ideas through the different classes they take, the student groups they engage with on campus, and the subsequent conversations they have.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: academicbias; criticaltheory; deconstruction; education; english; shakespeare
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1 posted on 10/25/2019 6:51:49 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

To be a commie or not to be a commie.


2 posted on 10/25/2019 6:55:37 PM PDT by HighSierra5
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Good Lord, let us initiate a Constitution Amendment on identifying sexes using chromosomes xx and xy.
Done. No one cares Bout the drama with the rest


3 posted on 10/25/2019 6:55:50 PM PDT by griswold3 (Democratic Socialism is Slavery by Mob Rule)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Political correctness has usurped education.


4 posted on 10/25/2019 6:55:55 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The greatest lie that Satan tells is that God doesn’t exist. The greatest lie these leftists tell is that the crap they preach is superior.


5 posted on 10/25/2019 6:56:59 PM PDT by King Moonracer (Tag, you're it.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Well, they still offer Shakespeare at Mississippi State. My daughter took it. And if you are in the Honors Program, you can select a general ed program of Great Books. My son’s doing that and he just read the Odyssey and moved on to Abelard, I think. So, there are countercurrents out there.


6 posted on 10/25/2019 6:57:01 PM PDT by married21
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

This crap is at work too. The next time someone brings up slavery, and white people need to ‘own it,’ ask them how they feel about slavery and the human sacrifice, which the Aztecs were practicing in 1519, when slaves were first brought to America. Ask them, “Do Mexican’s need to own that?”


7 posted on 10/25/2019 7:23:10 PM PDT by 11th_VA
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
To expose students to alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class,

The irony being, Shakespeare covered most of those topics in his plays, albeit a little more complicated in his prose and requiring more thoughtful consideration than the average hip-hop lyrics.

8 posted on 10/25/2019 7:48:51 PM PDT by blueplum ("...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you... " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017)
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To: married21

You are lucky, this story is about the University of California system which is highly liberal. All of the campuses use the same criteria, and the same goes for the alternate state run system there the California State University campuses.

Indoctrination not Education is the mantra and they want good little Bundists who worship at the Liberal Altar. If you want to get passing grades you do what you are told and you get through, if you try otherwise it is a real steep climb if not impossible.


9 posted on 10/25/2019 7:49:26 PM PDT by 100American (Knowledge is knowing how, Wisdom is knowing when)
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To: blueplum
The irony being, Shakespeare covered most of those topics in his plays, albeit a little more complicated in his prose and requiring more thoughtful consideration than the average hip-hop lyrics.

Complicated? Like math? That's RACIST!

10 posted on 10/25/2019 7:51:54 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats only believe in democracy when they win the election.)
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To: blueplum
The irony being, Shakespeare covered most of those topics in his plays

Not to mention the sonnets!
11 posted on 10/25/2019 8:40:00 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana (Sutor, ne ultra crepidam--Appelles of Kos)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The rich expression in English of it’s day found in Shakespeare is beyond the mental capabilities of a majority of “smart phone” (stupid a@@) “students” The Verbal score of the SAT or other testing— proves this.

Mental rot from Big Brother of the mobile central brain screen. Smart phones— stupid people.

Marvelous to learn ways to insult people who are too stupid to know you have insulted them— for indeed one could not insult their intelligence and they are left with just one’s “tone” or ‘big words’ for which they have no definition.


12 posted on 10/25/2019 8:40:30 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Either study engineering or skip undergrad

Grad school is more serious in general


13 posted on 10/25/2019 8:45:49 PM PDT by Truthoverpower (The guvmint you get is the Trump winning express !)
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To: blueplum
To expose students to alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality [...]

I remember playing "house" with a neighbor girl when I was six, and exposing my rubrics.

Regards,

14 posted on 10/25/2019 9:43:09 PM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: 100American

We are not actually lucky. We are resourceful. We are Californians who found a relatively conservative public university that offers big scholarships to out of state students. We keep trying to tell other Californians about the other options that are out there, but nobody yet has taken our advice and tried Mississippi State.

People have pre-conceived notions about the South, in California. Too bad for them!


15 posted on 10/25/2019 10:15:15 PM PDT by married21
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Poorly written article.
Author Pooja Bachani says UCLA English majors no longer *required* to study Shakespeare, indicating Shakespeare has been reduced to a mere elective.
Then she (or he) says the school is “Shakespeare free” suggesting Shakespeare classes have been removed entirely.
Forsooth, which is it?


16 posted on 10/25/2019 10:30:32 PM PDT by mumblypeg
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

They have been indoctrination centers for years,

STOP SENDING YOUR CHILDREN TO COLLEGE WHERE THEY TEACH THEM TO HATE US AND AMERICA


17 posted on 10/26/2019 2:48:39 AM PDT by ronnie raygun (nic dip.com)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I was talking to some young women educators recently, and neither knew what a cauldron is. I recited some Shakespeare to them, and they stared blankly at me. I’m not sure if my older children had to read any Shakespeare in high school. They may have read Romeo and Juliet. I’d rather they read Macbeth.


18 posted on 10/26/2019 3:02:08 AM PDT by petitfour (APPEAL TO HEAVEN)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Must have gone Chaucer free some time ago.


19 posted on 10/26/2019 3:46:19 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: 11th_VA
in 1519, when slaves were first brought to America>

Don't let them off that easily. The Indians practiced slavery themselves; the Europeans didn't introduce the concept. So did the African kingdoms, who were the front end of the slave trade. Yes, it's unfortunate that Europeans imported African slaves to the Americas, because it has created problems that we're still trying to sort out. Yes, it is unfortunate that the southerners didn't pick their own cotton. But slavery was a universal human institution. The only unique thing about the Europeans is that some of them, in the mid 18th century, set about trying to abolish it.

20 posted on 10/26/2019 4:11:13 AM PDT by sphinx
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