ADMINISTRATION CITES RECENT SURVEYS SHOWING LACK OF BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF U.S. HISTOR

On September 17, President Bush delivered a speech on Teaching American History and Civic Education in which he cited recent reports showing "large and disturbing gaps" in American students' knowledge of history. Links to these surveys are provided by NEH on a web page entitled Evidence of American Amnesia, part of the official web site for the White House's "We the People" initiative to be administered by NEH.

Following are some of the surveys cited on the NEH site:

(September, 2002), a report released by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni which "found that none of the nation's top 50 colleges and universities require students to study American history and only 10% require students to study history at all". The report was authored by Ann Neal and Jerry Martin. Restoring America's Legacy .

In 2000, Neal and Martin authored the ACTA report, "Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century" which provided part of the impetus for Congress' creation of the $150 million Teaching American History program within the Department of Education.

American's Knowledge of the U.S. Constitution (May, 2002), a nationwide survey commissioned by Columbia Law School which "revealed that an alarming number of voting age Americans have serious misconceptions about the Constitution and Bill of Rights".

2001 U.S. History National Assessment of Education Progress a report compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, which found that 57% of 12th Graders scored "below basic" levels, and that more students performed "below basic" on the history test than any other NAEP subject, including math and science.

Our Founders believed the study of history and citizenship should be at the core of every American's education. Yet today, our children have large and disturbing gaps in their knowledge of history. Recent studies tell us that nearly one in five high school seniors think that Germany was an ally of the United States in World War II. Twenty-eight percent of eighth graders do not know the reason why the Civil War was fought. One-third of fourth graders do not know what it means to "pledge allegiance to the flag." Graduating seniors at some of our leading colleges and universities cannot correctly identify words from the Gettysburg Address, or do not know that James Madison is the father of the Constitution.

This is more than academic failure. Ignorance of American history and civics weakens our sense of citizenship. To be an American is not just a matter of blood or birth; we are bound by ideals, and our children must know those ideals.

The primary responsibility for teaching history and civics rests with our elementary and secondary schools, and they've got to do their job. The federal government can help, and today I'm announcing three new initiatives spearheaded by the USA Freedom Corps and designed to support the teaching of American history and civic education.

The first initiative is called We the People -- it will be administered by the National Endowment for the Humanities -- which will encourage the teaching of American history and civic education. The program will provide grants to develop good curricula; hold training seminars for schoolteachers and university faculty; sponsor a lecture series in which acclaimed scholars -- like David McCullough -- will tell the story of great figures from American history; and enlist high school students in a nation essay contest about the principles and ideals of America. We will use technology to share these important lessons with schools and communities throughout America.

The federal government conserves and protects some of our greatest national treasures, and we need to make them more readily available to Americans in their schools and local communities. Our second initiative is called Our Documents, an innovative project that will be run by the National Archives and the National History Day. This project will use the Internet to bring one hundred of America's most important documents from the National Archives to classrooms and communities across the country, provide lesson plans, and to foster competitions and discussions about these defining moments in our history.

Students and their teachers will see documents online in their original form -- well-known documents such as our Constitution or the Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They will also see other important but less widely available documents, such as the Lee Resolution, which first proposed independence for American colonies, and Jefferson's Secret Message to Congress regarding the exploration of the West.

Third, early next year we will convene a White House forum on American history, civics, and service. We will discuss new policies to improve the teaching of history and civics in elementary and secondary schools, and in our colleges and universities. We will hear from educators and scholars about ways to better monitor students' understanding of American history and civics, and how to make more of our great national treasures, how to make them more accessible and more relevant to the lives of our students.

American children are not born knowing what they should cherish -- are not born knowing why they should cherish American values. A love of democratic principles must be taught.

A poet once said, "What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how." We love our country, and we must teach our children to do the same. And when we do, they will carry on our heritage of freedom into the future.

ACTA: American Council of Trustees and Alumni

Founded in 1995, and formerly known as the National Alumni Forum, ACTA is the only national organization that is dedicated to working with alumni, donors, trustees and education leaders across the country to support liberal arts education, uphold high academic standards, safeguard the free exchange of ideas on campus, and ensure that the next generation receives a philosophically-balanced, open-minded, high-quality education at an affordable price.

ACTA has members from over 400 colleges and universities. Its quarterly publication, Inside Academe, goes to over 12,000 readers, including 3,500+ college and university trustees.

Academic Excellence

Who are we? Where did we come from? What are the foundations of our civilization and how can we sustain them?-These are questions that have inspired and motivated since the beginning. They underscore a belief that a shared understanding, a shared knowledge, help unify and advance civilization. Indeed, the American system is uniquely premised on the need for an educated citizenry. Embarking on the experiment of a democratic republic, the Founders viewed public education as central to the ability to sustain a participatory form of government.

In recent years, however, there has been a growing breakdown in the belief that shared learning is important. Higher education has tended to focus more on a long list of electives than a common core of learning.

In 1996, the National Association of Scholars issued a troubling report, The Dissolution of General Education: 1914-1993, that concluded general education, that part of the curriculum designed to broadly familiarize students with major areas of learning, has become "devalued as an institutional objective." The result has been the virtual elimination of required surveys of standard subjects such as history, literature, philosophy, and the natural sciences.

...in 2000, ACTA released its eye-opening report, Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century, Authors: Jerry L. Martin, Ph.D., President, ACTA Anne D. Neal, V.P. & General Counsel, ACTA
A stunning report revealing 81% of seniors from the top 55 U.S. colleges and universities failed a high school level history exam; even worse, that none of the institutions surveyed requires a course in American history, and three-quarters require no history at all. The report inspired Congress to pass a joint resolution calling for a national response and the Education Leadership Council to adopt a resolution to address America's historical amnesia. Over 800 news stories reported on the study.

Whereas the Roper survey found that 81 percent of seniors at elite colleges and universities could not answer basic high school level questions concerning United States history, that scarcely more than half knew general information about American democracy and the Constitution, and that only 22 percent could identify the source of the most famous line of the Gettysburg Address;

Whereas many of the Nation's colleges and universities no longer require United States history as a prerequisite to graduation, including 100 percent of the top institutions of higher education;

Whereas 78 percent of the Nation's top colleges and universities no longer require the study of any form of history;

Whereas America's colleges and universities are leading bellwethers of national priorities and values, setting standards for the whole of the United States' education system and sending signals to students, teachers, parents, and public schools about what every educated citizen in a democracy must know;

Whereas many of America's most distinguished historians and intellectuals have expressed alarm about the growing historical illiteracy of college and university graduates and the consequences for the Nation; and

Whereas the distinguished historians and intellectuals fear that without a common civic memory and a common understanding of the remarkable individuals, events, and ideals that have shaped the Nation, people in the United States risk losing much of what it means to be an American, as well as the ability to fulfill the fundamental responsibilities of citizens in a democracy: Now, therefore, be it

America's Most Ridiculous College Courses full text @ link

From pornography to rap music, course content in many classes during the 2001-2002 academic year seems devoid of any educational value. Some classes mandate activism. Others indoctrinate students into trendy ideologies. Still others waste time studying frivolous matters. Accuracy in Academia lists some of the worst college courses, and their descriptions:

Bizarre Classes Proliferate on America's 'Elite' Campuses full text @ link

Marxism, environmentalism, homosexuality, multiculturalism, and feminism now dominate the curricula of many elite colleges and universities. Critics contend that these areas of study are often intellectually vacuous, politically-charged, or both.

Pedophilia 101 at Cornell full text @ link

Students at Cornell University are used to courses like "Spike Lee Films," "Concepts of Race and Racism," "Whose Families? Whose Values?," "Domestic Television," "Music and Queer Identity," and "Introduction to Sexual Minorities."

Indeed, as Campus Report has chronicled, even the most cursory perusal of the Ithaca, New York school's course catalog reveals a burgeoning curriculum of frivolous, politically-charged, and downright bizarre classes. The university's administration, engaged in an indefatigable crusade for "diversity," has given free reign to the faculty to incorporate its every radical whim and every extreme agenda into the classroom. The results have been striking. There are courses at Cornell that artfully breach every imaginable-and many unimaginable-standard of most students.

One recent offering, however, has crossed the threshold from the merely absurd to the potentially dangerous.

The syllabus for "The Sexual Child" reads like a veritable who's-who of pro-pedophilia academics and activists. Among the authors presented in the course are Theo Sandfort, formerly on the board of directors of Paidika, a pro-pedophilia magazine based in Amsterdam; Daniel Tsang, the author of AIDS Taboo, purports to deliver an "academic" analysis of pedophilia; Pat Califia, a self-proclaimed "sexual outlaw" and author of the essay "The Age of Consent: The Great Kiddy-Porn Panic of '77" and the book Macho Sluts; and Havelock Ellis, author of "The School Friendships of Girls" and a reputed eugenicist.

Frivolous Courses Pervasive at Top American Colleges full text @ link

Despite the failure of Karl Marx's economic theories, courses devoted to him curiously abound in literature, sociology, anthropology and a host of other areas that Marx paid very little attention to while he was alive. A sampling of courses that students can choose from include Amherst's "Taking Marx Seriously," Duke's "Marxism and Society," UC-Santa Barbara's "Black Marxism," Rutgers's "Marxist Literary Theory," and Wisconsin's "Marxism and the Black Experience." Marx's theories may be dead in Eastern Europe, but they are alive and well on American college campuses.

Restoring America's Legacy full text @ link

September 2002

On September 17, 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention convened in Independence Hall. After nearly five months of hard work and frequently heated debate, the delegates came together to sign the Constitution of the United States, a groundbreaking document which set forth a unique new government - dedicated to the ideals of liberty, justice and equality - and based on informed self-governance. You have "a Republic," Benjamin Franklin said, "if you can keep it."

Now, over two hundred years later, Franklin's admonition has disturbing relevance. The future of the Republic depends on the educated public's understanding and commitment to our shared past and the principles on which the Republic was founded. And knowledge of our democracy's origins, and of the documents on which free government stands, is central to informed and active participation in the body politic. Indeed, after September 11, it is particularly urgent that we know what we are fighting for, not just whom we are fighting against.

Yet study after study suggests that we lack that understanding and suffer from a severe historical illiteracy that bodes ill for the future of our Republic. In February 2000, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni issued a Roper survey and report entitled Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century. The survey (Appendix A) revealed that seniors from America's elite colleges and universities were graduating with an alarming ignorance of their heritage and a profound historical illiteracy:

• College seniors could not identify Valley Forge, words from the Gettysburg Address, or even the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution.

• Given high-school level questions, 81% of the seniors would have received a D or F.

• Despite this lack of knowledge, ACTA found that students could graduate from 100% of the top colleges without taking a single course in American history.

• At 78% of the institutions, students were not required to take any history at all.

Alarmed by these results, the U.S. Congress unanimously adopted a concurrent resolution in July 2000, calling on trustees, state administrators, and citizens across the country to address America's historical illiteracy. The bipartisan resolution (Appendix B) was introduced by Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA), Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) and Rep. George Miller (D-CA). Prominent historians - including David McCullough, Gordon Wood, and Oscar Handlin - endorsed the effort. Shortly thereafter, the National Park Service Advisory Board, chaired by John Hope Franklin, asked for ACTA's help as it examined the troubling implications of historical illiteracy for historic sites maintained by the service.

Despite this outcry and growing public concern, ACTA's 2002 study reveals that colleges and universities have utterly ignored the call for action:

• Not a single one of the top 50 national and liberal arts colleges as defined by U.S. News & World Report in 2002, requires a course in American history.

• And, only 10% require any history at all, a drop from 22% just two years ago. See Appendix C.

This failure would be disturbing - but not necessarily tragic - if students could receive a firm grounding in American history at some point in their education. But recent assessments of knowledge in U.S. history and civics reveal a similar ignorance at both the primary and secondary school levels. Although the results offered a mixed picture, the 2001 National Assessment of Educational Progress U.S. History Report Card showed that a majority of high school seniors - 57% - fell below even "basic" understanding of U.S. history, an achievement level that denotes only partial mastery of significant historical knowledge and analytical skills. "Since the seniors are very close to voting age or already have reached it, one can only feel alarm that they know so little about their nation's history and express so little capacity to reflect on its meaning," said Diane Ravitch, a member of the NAEP Governing Board at the time of the report's release.

In 1998, the NAEP Civics Report Card showed similarly poor results. Over a quarter of the fourth grade, eighth grade and 12th grade students were unable to show even a "basic" level of civics understanding.

Yet another report issued this summer by former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett and Empower America found that students were remarkably ignorant about world figures and deeply ambivalent about America and its values. College students were more likely to identify Yasser Arafat correctly than any other major player (including our own Cabinet) in the war on terrorism and - like many of their professors - rejected any notion that the U.S. represents values and ideals superior to other forms of government. Indeed, a clear majority of college students (60%) believed that "developing a better understanding of the values and history of other cultures and nations that dislike us" was better for preventing terrorism than investing in strong military and defense capabilities at home and abroad.

Given the circumstances, many colleges and universities claim they require history. But, in fact, such requirements may often be satisfied by courses in fields other than history, including English, psychology, education, and music. For example, at the University of California-Berkeley, "Alternative Sexual Identities and Communities" fulfills the American Cultures requirement. At Dartmouth, "Music of Southeast Asia" and "From Hand to Mouth: Writing, Eating and the Construction of Gender" both meet the World Culture requirements. At Washington University in St. Louis, "Race and Ethnicity on American Television" and "American Feminism and the Theatre" are classified as "Textual and Historical Studies" courses.

Instead of broad courses on the full sweep of American history, many universities require a narrow focus on racism and inequality. At the University of Michigan, for example, students are required to fulfill a "Race & Ethnicity Requirement" from a list of approved courses that cover "issues relating to race & ethnicity, racial and ethnic intolerance, and inequality." Wellesley's "Multicultural Requirement" requires one unit of coursework that focuses on "African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American, Native American, or Pacific Island peoples, cultures or societies; and/or a minority American culture, such as those defined by race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or physical disability; and/or the processes of racism, social or ethnic discrimination, or cross-cultural interaction." Again, qualifying courses need not be history and can in fact be found in any number of fields. And while knowledge of these topics is surely commendable, it is woefully incomplete when most students bring to the classroom a virtual ignorance of America's history and its contributions to freedom and democracy.

Benjamin Franklin was typically frank when he underscored a fundamental truth: a democratic republic is not self-sustaining. It requires the understanding, commitment, and support of its citizens for its long-term health and survival. It requires its citizens, generation-after-generation, to receive an adequate grounding in the history of America's free institutions, particularly its founding documents and other great documents. It requires a fundamental realization that we, as citizens, are the beneficiaries of a long struggle to secure and defend a free society and that we, as citizens, are responsible for maintaining that society since it is neither guaranteed nor inevitable.

Citizens, parents, families and policymakers must demand a renewed exploration of our history and commitment to historical literacy. If we are to preserve our Republic and keep faith with those who established it, each of us must understand our rights and responsibilities - literally, we must restore America's legacy.

As we prepare to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution, it is time for us to take Franklin at his word. We have a Republic; it is up to us to "keep it."

Evidence of American Amnesia full text @ link

Numerous polls and surveys over the past decade bolster the fact that many Americans lack even a basic knowledge about their nation's history. Following are examples from recent polls giving evidence to America's historical amnesia:

Only 29% could connect the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to the Vietnam War.

Question:	The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964) was significant because it:
Answer:	A) ended the war in Korea	43%
	B) gave President Johnson the authority to expand the scope of the Vietnam War	29%
	C) was an attempt to take foreign policy power away from the President	15%
	D) allowed China to become a member of the United Nations	13%

Death in the Ia Drang Valley full text @ link

I was drafted exactly six weeks later. Hard to believe that 35 years ago stuff like this saw the light of day in as mainstream a publication as The Saturday Evening Post, usually the print bastion of middle class gentility. NO ONE would publish such stuff today. I guess no one was reading anyway. The war might have ended sooner. I'd imagine Pentagon/Dept. of Defense might've sent the message to the publishers not to solicit too much stuff like this.

60 Posted on 07/30/2001 20:40:28 PDT by willyboyishere

How Cultural Revolution in the 1960s Changed America

HOW WE WON IN VIETNAM

Terrorists Find Allies on Campus full text @ link

"Anyone who would blow up the Pentagon would get my vote," declared University of New Mexico Professor Richard Berthold. San Francisco State student Roberto Ochoa opined, "we should be asking what we did to deserve this." A University of Colorado student maintained, "we had it coming."

Marine Shouted Down at UNLV full text @ link

A Marine recruiter seeking to sign-up law students for the judge advocate general program was shouted down by a group of faculty and administrators at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. The Marine was forced to cease his presentation to students interested in the program after anti-military faculty and administrators turned up the volume on a video promoting gays in the military and began speaking over his presentation.

"We have a group of people over there that really hate the military," UNLV Regent Tom Kirkland remarked about his school. If UNLV faculty and administrators continue to block military recruiters from talking with students, Kirkland suggests firing those who inhibit the ability of recruiters from the armed forces to speak freely and meet with students.

American Flag Banned on Campuses Across the Nation

The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.

We hope to provide an ongoing source of information about issues and problems that are specific to Veterans and resources that are available to Veterans and their families.

In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.

SAMWolf

The Veterans History Project is a unique opportunity for Americans of all ages and backgrounds to play an important role in the preservation of our national collective memory and to learn important lessons from the rich historical resource we have in our military veterans and civilians who served in support of the war effort.

AntiJen

PC's Marxist Root's Unearthed full text @ link

Political Correctness is intellectual AIDS. Everything it touches it sickens and eventually kills. On America's college campuses it has diminished freedom of speech, warped curricula, politicized grading and replaced intellectual integrity with vapid sloganeering. In classroom after classroom, professors offer an ideological rant, which students are compelled to regurgitate to get a grade: the vomit returns to the dog. These places-and they are many-are no longer universities, but small, ivy-covered North Koreas.

Just what is Political Correctness? The "Politically Correct" people on your campus really, really don't want you to know the answer to that question. Why? Because Political Correctness is nothing less than Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms.

The parallels are obvious. First, both classical, economic Marxism and the Cultural Marxism that is Political Correctness are totalitarian ideologies. Both insist on "truths" that are contrary to human nature and experience. Contrary to economic Marxism, there is no such thing as a "classless society," and economic incentives matter. Contrary to Political Correctness, men and women are different, as are their natural roles in society; races and ethnic groups have specific characteristics; and homosexuality is abnormal. Since the only way people will accept the ideologues' "truths" is if they are forced to, they will be forced-by the full power of the state, if the Marxists of either stripe can control it.

The second parallel is that both classical Marxism and Cultural Marxism have single-factor explanations of history.

The third parallel is that both varieties of Marxism declare certain groups virtuous and others evil a priori, without regard for the actual behavior of individuals.

The fourth parallel is in means: expropriation. Economic Marxists expropriated the property of the middle and upper classes and gave it to the state. Cultural Marxists, on campuses and in government, lay penalties on white men and give privileges to the groups they favor. Affirmative action is an example of this kind of expropriation.

Finally, both types of Marxism employ a method of analysis guaranteed to show the correctness of their ideology in every situation. For classical Marxists, the method is Marxist economics. For Cultural Marxists, the method is linguistic: deconstruction. Deconstruction first removes all meaning from "texts," then inserts new meaning: one way or another, the text illustrates the oppression of women, blacks, homosexuals, etc., by white men and Western culture. The intended meaning of the author is irrelevant.

These parallels are not coincidental. They exist because the Cultural Marxism of Political Correctness is in fact derived from classical, economic Marxism, largely through the work of the Frankfurt School.

Following World War I, European Marxists faced a difficult question: why did the proletariat throughout Europe not rise in revolution and establish a new, Marxist order, as their ideology said it would? Two prominent Marxist thinkers, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary, came up with an answer: Western culture. Western culture so blinded the workers to their true "class" interests that they could not act on them. So before socialism could come to power, Western culture had to be destroyed. Lukacs in 1919 posed the question, "Who will save us from Western civilization?" As Deputy Commissar for Culture in the Bolshevik Bela Kun government in Hungary that same year, the first thing he did was introduce sex education into Hungarian schools.

In 1923, Lukacs and a group of German Marxist intellectuals founded a "think tank" intended to translate Marxism from economic into cultural terms, the Institute for Social Research at Frankfurt University. The Institute quickly became known as the Frankfurt School. In 1933, when the National Socialists came to power in Germany, the Frankfurt School moved to New York City.

There, its key figures-Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm and Wilhelm Reich-developed critical theory," a crossing of Marx with Freud that labeled the key components of Western culture "prejudice," i.e., a psychological disease. The "critical theorists" argues that to eliminate "prejudice," Christianity, capitalism and the traditional "patriarchal" family all had to be destroyed.

The connection between the Frankfurt School and the student rebellion of the 1960s was made primarily by a key Frankfurt School member, Herbert Marcuse-the man who in the '60s coined the phrase, "Make love, not war." Marcuse's books Eros and Civilization argued that the tools with which to destroy Western culture were, in effect, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. He popularized the Frankfurt School's ideas in ways the '60s student radicals could understand and absorb, and we now know his work as Political Correctness.

So that is Political Correctness' dirty little secret: it is Marxism, Marxism translated from economics into culture. We know what economic Marxism did to the old Soviet Union. Are we going to permit Cultural Marxism to do the same thing to the United States?

Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It Authors:Jerry L. Martin, Ph.D., President, ACTA
Anne D. Neal, V.P. & General Counsel, ACTA

At a time of national crisis, I think it is particularly apparent that we need to encourage the study of our past. Our children and grandchildren-indeed, all of us-need to know the ideas and ideals on which our nation has been built. We need to understand how fortunate we are to live in freedom. We need to understand that living in liberty is such a precious thing that generations of men and women have been willing to sacrifice everything for it. We need to know, in a war, exactly what is at stake. - Lynne V. Cheney, October 5, 2001

It was not only America that was attacked on September 11, but civilization. We were attacked not for our vices, but for our virtues-for what we stand for. In response, ACTA has established the Defense of Civilization Fund to support the study of American history and civics and of Western civilization. The first project of the Fund is Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It. The report calls on college and university trustees to make sure their institutions offer strong core curricula that pass on to the next generation the legacy of freedom and democracy.

This is a revised and expanded version of the report initially posted on our website on November 11, 2001. The report attracted considerable attention. Now included is a sampler of the many responses the report received.

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Americans across the country responded with anger, patriotism, and support military intervention. The polls have been nearly unanimous -92% in favor of military force even if casualties occur- citizens have rallied behind the President wholeheartedly.

Not so in academe. Even as many institutions enhanced security and many students exhibited American flags, professors across the country sponsored teach-ins that typically ranged from moral equivocation to explicit condemnations of America. The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing

While America's elected officials from both parties and media commentators from across the spectrum condemned the attacks followed the President in calling evil by its rightful name, many faculty demurred. Some refused to make judgments. Many invoked tolerance and diversity as antidotes to evil. Some even pointed accusatory fingers, not at the terrorists, but at America itself.

Comments like these are in pointed contrast to America's reaction in 1941. "Everyone wanted to cooperate and feel like they were helping the country," said Elmer Cornwell, professor of political science at Brown University. "When Pearl Harbor was bombed there was a tremendous swell of patriotism," recalled Brown physics professor Leon Cooper, the Thomas J. Watson Sr. professor of science. "One thing outsiders don't always understand about the United States is we're a fractious nation but we come together during times like these."

But, after September 11, it was some in higher education who did not understand. The events of September 11 underscored a deep divide between mainstream public reaction and that of our intellectual elites. Although the public responded with clear condemnation of the terrorist attacks, many professors failed to do so, and even used the occasion to find fault with America. And while professors should be passionately defended in their right to academic freedom, that does not exempt them from criticism. The fact remains: over 3,000 innocent civilians were killed without warning or cause. The American public had no difficulty calling evil by its rightful name. Why is it so hard for many faculty to do the same?

The answer may lie in recent academic trends. Moral relativism has become a staple of academic life in this country. At the same time, it has become commonplace to suggest that Western civilization is the primary source of the world's ills- even though it gave us the ideals of democracy, human rights, individual liberty, and mutual tolerance.

"Lawmakers at Hearing on College-Accreditation System Call for More Accountability" full text @ link

A House of Representatives education subcommittee met Tuesday to assess the role of accreditation in higher education. Lawmakers largely criticized the country's 50-year-old accreditation process, claiming that it fails to ensure academic quality, lacks accountability, and drives up college costs for administrators and students.

Some legislators appeared unswayed. Rep. Thomas E. Petri, a Wisconsin Republican, said that the dependence on accreditation for a college's federal student-aid eligibility puts "too much on a one-switch decision," and that political agendas have "strayed" the accreditation process from its original purpose.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Inc. FIRE is a ... full text @ link

In practice, however, many American colleges and universities-public and private-have permitted or even encouraged the erosion of religious liberty. This erosion involves considerable efforts to curtail religious liberty and, at times, to regulate or to ban outright the activities of religious students and student groups. For all of their talk about diversity and tolerance, university administrators too often work to silence the views that religious students bring-on matters of public debate-to the marketplace of ideas, above all on appropriately controversial issues of sex and sexuality. Where the nation needs intellectual pluralism and debate, too many campuses seek a coerced uniformity of expressed views.

For too many administrators, students of faith are particularly convenient targets. They often think and behave in ways that many other students do not understand, and they tend to be small minorities on most secular campuses. Further, they often resist-from religious conviction-the imposition upon them of campus cultural orthodoxies. All too often, universities seek to impose their own creed-including partisan and tendentious definitions of tolerance and diversity that too often, ironically, are profoundly intolerant and opposed to authentic diversity. This imposition is often done through the misapplication of nondiscrimination policies when used to prevent religious students from bearing witness to deeply held beliefs and to prevent or hinder religious student groups from defining themselves by religious principles.

Such a case happened recently at Tufts University, for example, The Tufts University Christian Fellowship (TCF) was accused of discrimination for refusing to promise an openly lesbian student-who was a full member of the group, and with whom all other members often debated core issues of scripture and sexuality-that it would not take her beliefs into account in choosing leaders for the group. Before FIRE intervened successfully, the Tufts Student Judiciary voted to "derecognize" TCF, essentially banning them from campus for adhering to their religious principles and voluntary religious association, in alleged violation of the school's non-discrimination policy. After FIRE's intervention, TCF was granted full and equal status at Tufts. FIRE argued both for religious liberty, which obviously must include the right of voluntary association around common beliefs, and for legal equality (all other groups being free at Tufts to choose leaders who accepted the mission of their respective organization).

Indeed, in the current climate, only certain disfavored groups (evangelical Christians, orthodox Catholics, Pentecostals and orthodox Jews, for example, with their often dissenting views on sex and sexuality) would likely be denied the right to define themselves. Nonetheless, the principle that organizations may not exclude from leadership those who disagree with the beliefs and mission of the group puts everyone at risk. As any student of history understands, the winds of power shift from time to time, and no one can predict confidently who will be the next victim of unequal and repressive laws or regulations.

Battling Bias in Academia: Political correctness promotes intolerance and division full text @ link

On November 14, the Ithaca College Republicans welcomed Dr. Alan Kors, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, to give a lecture on their campus. Dr. Kors co-authored The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses with Harvey Silverglate and is President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Dr. Kors graciously agreed to an interview with me prior to his talk at Ithaca College. A transcript of that interview appears below.

Alan Kors: I don't have what I wish I did have, and that is a deep psychosocial theory of why academic culture has become an adversarial culture. The sides of it that are obvious are that the heirs of the '60s stayed on university campuses. They made no adaptation to the real America like other people from the '60s did. They froze themselves in time and expected to always be the moral leaders of the universities.

Kors: I think that the more racial, social engineering that universities have tried and the more they have tried to tell people "You are your race," "You are your sex," "You are your sexuality," the worse, not the better human relations have become. It should be obvious to anyone with open eyes that every year, our universities become more balkanized and more segregated.

The second aspect of it that really ought to trouble people is that students who could have applied to historically black colleges and universities, students who could have chosen to go to school with people just like them, but chose to go to universities that are supposed to be in a real sense "diverse," those students are told "Here's what it means to be black," "Here's what it means to be female," "Here's what it means to be Latino," "Here's what it means to be Asian American," "Here's what it means to be gay." And [they are taught] it's one politics, one voice, one worldview, one set of answers that depend upon externalities. You have to go back to the Third Reich and notions of German physics and Jewish physics to find that kind of racialism that exists now.

Sabia: When you look into these peoples' eyes, you see such anger, such resentment, as if they've been totally brainwashed-

Kors: It sets into motion this terrible process of reinforcement, which is, that if you're taught that all of the normal abrasions of life are a result of racism, sexism, then you filter the ordinary abrasions through that process.

Sabia: Dr. Laura Schlessinger recently wrote a piece for World Net Daily in which she stated "Most people are living in fear. Political correctness, when it first came up, was sort of a joke. Now it's anything but. I look around and see how it immobilizes so many otherwise decent people." Has fear paralyzed our campuses?

Kors: One has to blame cowards for their own cowardice. ... Liberty is going to die in the hearts of a generation of college students and that bodes very ill for the future of this society.

Kors: The most important advice I could give conservatives is that Justice Brandeis had it right: Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Do not let anything unfair be done to you. Don't let any legal equality be denied to you. Don't accept any second class status. Don't accept any repression without screaming in public and shaming the university. Read your contracts with the university. What they promised coming out of the '60s about academic freedom, free speech, and legal equality, read those carefully. Know your rights, but not just your legal and contractual rights. Know your moral rights. The great weakness of the university is that they can't defend in public what they believe and practice in private.

BMOC: Big mandate on campus. College "diversity" activists grab freshmen at orientation full text @ link

The basic messages: People of color are victims; whites are their tormentors. Homosexuality is normal; abhorring the behavior is bigotry.

"I really want [freshmen] to understand that they are no longer at home, they're not in high school anymore, and a lot of the values and morals they may have had from those experiences may change here over the next four years," said diversity issues coordinator Marcus Newsom of Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.

..."Sometimes if students are hanging out with two or three friends, they might feel their attitudes are not so readily challenged," MSOE Director of Student Activities Rick Gagliano told WORLD. "This way they're in a different environment, forced to expose themselves to somebody else.... This is done without parents around-sort of in a 'safer' environment." The strategy is not new: Mao Tse Tung used it "re-educate" Chinese university students and pry them loose from their parents' political moorings.

...In its policy on harassment, made available to incoming freshmen, Arizona State University labels a student's religious objections to homosexuality as "offensive" and "shocking" on par with supporting Hitler, slavery, and apartheid.

Ms. McMillian told WORLD her questions upset freshmen because their religious beliefs are being questioned. "An educated person is taught to be tolerant and open-minded. If you don't put parameters on it, and just talk about openness, acceptance, and tolerance then you can move into gayness and woman's issues."

The University of Pennsylvania's Alan Charles Kors believes such force-fed "tolerance" smacks of creeping totalitarianism. While Americans need frank and open debate on matters such as race and ethnicity, he said, "these are not issues for indoctrination. Indeed, they do not even reflect everyone's chosen intellectual or moral agenda, and free individuals choose such agendas for themselves."

The hippies have grown up, are now in charge, and are emulating their heroes Mao, Che, Ho, etc. An optimist would say that the students will see through the BS and the thing will degenerate either into farce or open rebellion. You can be sure that somewhere, on some college campus, some freshman is saying to another, "Hey did you go to the diversity seminar. Was that gay or what?"

Still, the picture being painted here is not pretty.

8 posted on 09/06/2002 4:38 PM PDT by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten

Poll confirms Ivy League liberal tilt full text @ link

More than 80 percent of Ivy League professors who voted in 2000 picked Democrat Al Gore and just 9 percent voted for Republican George W. Bush, according to a new survey.

The poll by Luntz Research Companies also found that only 3 percent of the professors describe themselves as Republicans and that Bill Clinton was the Ivy League faculty's pick for best president of the past 40 years.

Forty percent of the professors support slavery reparations for blacks, compared with 11 percent of the general public.

Book Review: Why the Left Hates America: Exposing the Lies That Have Obscured Our Nation's Greatness full text @ link

During especially dark and troubling times, people tend to show their true colors-good or bad, loyal or disloyal. While many Americans responded to the events of September 11 with acts of patriotism and prayer for the victims, a small group blamed the terrorist acts on years of "oppression" allegedly perpetrated by the United States against the rest of the world.

"While self-hating Americans make up but a fraction of the population," notes Dan Flynn in Why the Left Hates America, "their influence is great." "They are museum curators, journalists, college professors, librarians, and movie stars."

It is important to understand that such hatred for America is not only unpatriotic, but it is misguided and irrational. "There is a rational basis for Americans to be patriotic," notes Flynn, the editor of this publication, essentially stating the thesis of Why the Left Hates America.

The teachings and ramblings of much of the Left (which is comprised not of ordinary liberals or Democrats such as Tom Daschle and Dick Gephart, but of left-wingers such as Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal) contend that America is an inherently racist, sexist, homophobic, and wholly oppressive nation. When considering such harsh accusations against any country, one must compare and contrast that country to the rest of the real world, rather than to some utopian vision. Harvard Student Leader Urges Gays to Violate Red Cross Policy *** Berkeley Class Explores 'Gothic Porn,' Sex Toys, and 'Self- ... , *** Homosexuality, Not Literature, Dominates Discussion at MLA, ***Homosexuality: Truth Be Told , ***Pedophilia Chic Reconsidered ***The Poisoned Stream. "Gay" Influence in Human History. Volume One. Germany 1890-1945.*** Issues & Views: Increasing "Hate Crime" Punishment Violates ... ***The New American - Unmentionable Vice Goes Mainstream - November ...

When one compares America to countries that actually exist, Flynn contends, the idea that America is the world's greatest oppressor is suddenly disproved and turned upside down.

Among the key reasons why the Left does indeed hate America, Flynn argues, is that they have essentially been raised and taught a number of lies throughout their lives about America and the remainder of the world.

The notion that slavery and racism are uniquely Western is one of the Left's favorite and most repeated mantras. Yet when one's judgment is guided by facts, rather than by obscure political ideologies, what is quickly realized is that it was not slavery that was unique to Western Civilization; nor was it the mere abolition of slavery that was unique, but rather the abolition of slavery by eligible slaveholders. As Flynn points out, Western Civilization is indeed the only culture in the history of the world to do such a thing. Slavery Five Founders on Slavery:Washington, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison. Thomas Jefferson's Draft of the Declaration of Independence, Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, Federalist No. 54, John Jay to the President of the English Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, Memorandum on an African Colony for Freed Slaves. Gettysburg Address*** Harvard University Fellow Advocates "Abolishing the White Race"*** Yale Slavery Report Contains Numerous Errors*** Black Conservative Silenced at Penn State***The Devil Is In the Details***Issues & Views: Using Racism as a Device***Issues & Views: Can We Overcome Jesse Jackson?*** Issues & Views: Reparations: Must the living pay for the deeds of ... ***The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in the USA Speech at Socialist Workers Party conference in 1948, stimulated by his 1939 discussions with Trotsky. ..." this independent Negro movement is able to intervene with terrific force upon the general social and political life of the nation, despite the fact that it is waged under the banner of democratic rights ... [and] is able to exercise a powerful influence upon the revolutionary proletariat, that it has got a great contribution to make to the development of the proletariat in the United States, and that it is in itself a constituent part of the struggle for socialism.".
American women are oppressed under the American patriarchy, says the Left. Yet, as Flynn points out, "If women in the United States live under a 'patriarchy,' what term could accurately describe the situation faced by women in other parts of the world?" Noting some of the truly patriarchal traditions practiced in many countries throughout the world today, such as genital mutilation, arranged marriages, forced abortions, and "honor killings," Women and the Right to Vote The Farmer Refuted, Letters on Women's Rights, John Adams to James Sullivan, Richard Henry Lee to Mrs. Hannah Corbin, The Essex Result. Women and the Family Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 6, Lectures on Law, The Natural and Civil History of Vermont, Inchiquin's Letters. 'Hanoi Jane' Gives Harvard $12.5 Million for Gender Center***How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men,

The Left perceives that America as an imperialistic, power-hungry, and greedy nation. Just the opposite is true. "The major wars involving the United States since it became the world's preeminent military power," Flynn writes, "have been fought to prevent empires-Nazi imperialism, Japanese imperialism, [and] Communist imperialism...After all these wars, America's territory remained essentially the same." The Real Murderers: Atheism or Christianity?

Flynn also notes that for such an "imperialistic" nation America donates large sums of its citizens' money to foreign countries in need. In addition to giving far and away the highest amount of money to foreign countries, the U.S. also gives one of the highest percentages of GDP for foreign aid

Another "big lie" embraced by the Left is the notion that "America is the world's leading threat to the environment." Although especially convenient for those critical of the free-market capitalist system, this idea is far from the truth. For example, America has more trees today than at anytime during the past 100 years. Additionally, Flynn writes, "Americans breathe cleaner air and drink cleaner water than almost anyone [in the world]." Environmental Conservation Organization ***Environmental Perspectives, Inc.

"So why does the Left hate America?" Flynn posits, "the answer is because America stands as a massive refutation of every pet theory the Left has ever held."

And of course, the Left's favorite symbol of intolerance-Christianity-is the dominant religion in the United States and the basis for many traditional American principles and values. "Every predominantly Christian nation in the West protects the freedom of conscience of practitioners of the other major faiths," Flynn explains, "There is little reciprocation." This unavoidable fact is especially inconvenient for the Leftist agenda. Temple U. Sued for Hauling Christian Student to Psychiatric Ward, ***Harvard Throws Christians to the Lions

In essence, "what the Left touts in theory," writes Flynn, "the American experience refutes in practice."

With many on the Left holding positions of great influence, such as college professors, as Flynn points out, it is more important than ever to stress accuracy in studying historic and current events. Lies must never be tolerated. Good or bad, the truth must be taught. Daniel J. Flynn's Why the Left Hates America makes it especially clear that students and Americans alike must learn about the true events of history so that they can understand how great their nation really is, while at the same time learning from-and not harping on-the mistakes of the past.

Who Will Defend American Values? full text @ link July 3, 2002

Eighty-four percent of college students today do not believe that Western culture is superior to Arab culture according to a newly released poll funded by Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (a project by Empower.org) and former Secretary of Education William Bennett.

Considered by Empower America to be "the single most extensive survey of college students' attitudes about terrorism, the Middle East and the Bush administration this year," the poll reveals that high percentages of college students quite simply lack any pride in their country.

According to the poll, 70 percent of American college students would not serve in the armed forces if sent abroad, while 48 percent openly declared that they would evade a draft.

Rather than holding terrorists solely responsible for their actions on September 11, college students partially blamed the U.S. government for the attacks, as 57 percent of college students stated that United States policies are "at least somewhat responsible for the September 11th terrorist attacks."

I too am having problems with these numbers. I would like to see a copy of the questionnaire that was given out.

I talk to college kids from time to time and this is not the impression I get. Then again, I live in the Midwest, which tends to be a lot more conservative than either of the coasts.

3 posted on 07/20/2002 12:35 PM PDT by Kerberos

New Study Reveals Extreme Partisan Bias Among Faculty full text @ link

Liberals outnumber conservatives 18 to one at Brown University. At Cornell University, the number is even higher, with liberals outnumbering conservatives more than 26 times. Penn State displayed a bit more balance, with the ratio of liberals to conservatives being six to one. Even the smallest disparity, at the University of Houston, had a ratio of three liberals to one conservative.

Of the 166 professors examined at Cornell University, only six were conservatives, with no conservatives at all in the fields of history and sociology. There were likewise no conservatives in these fields at Brown University.

Some of the largest disparities were found in the University of California system. UCLA, for instance, has only nine conservatives for 141 liberals. UC-Santa Barbara had only one conservative professor in the 73 examined. At the four UC schools surveyed, there were only five conservative political science professors compared to 90 liberals.

At UC-Berkeley, only seven of the 66 professors noted were conservatives, with none in the department of sociology. "It's not surprising to a lot of the more conservative students on campus because you often find classes where it seems very apparent," the editor-in-chief of Berkeley's student newspaper The California Patriot, James Gallagher, told Campus Report. "The problem is, a professor has the right to be in any party, ideology they want to be. But when they let ideology come over into their teaching that's when we have a problem.... Because there is such a bias, because there are so many professors who do identify with more of the Left that you have a lot of professors out there who let their ideology interfere with how they teach a class. That's not really learning, that's not really seeking any truth."

Extreme liberal bias was found even in states generally thought to be conservative, such as Colorado.

Western Civilization Against Itself full text @ link

Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt takes off where the book's predecessor, After Liberalism, left off. In his last book, Gottfried detailed the evolution from the welfare state to the managerial state of modern government in the West.... Today, the state is able to direct the lives of its citizens through behavioral conditioning, legislation sanctioning non-criminal behavior, and regulations endorsing preferred ethnic, gender, and sexual groups, as well as through wealth redistribution. Socialism is still a problem, the author affirms, but the assault on Western culture may be a more pressing one, particularly since the assailants exhibit a religious fanaticism that exalts alleged victims and villifies supposed oppressors. Even though its adherents refuse to believe in a divinity, multiculturalism is seen as a divine calling.

Elites living in Western democracies needn't have the consent of the governed to achieve these ends. "Nonelected government officials can achieve an indeterminate power over American family life in return for a relatively small allocation of revenue," Gottfried maintains. "Social control by the state does not presuppose a socialized economy, and government interventions into child rearing, spousal relations, and intergroup dynamics can now go forward in conjunction with market forces." The vox populi, Gottfried seems to be saying, no longer carries the weight it once did. He points out that in a recent Roper poll, for instance, 83 percent of non-elite respondents agreed that controlling illegal immigration was an "important thing," while only 28 percent of elite respondents thought so. Not surprisingly, it is elite opinion and not public opinion that influences government policy on the issue of illegal immigration. The same enthusiasm amongst elites holds true for affirmative action, special rights for homosexuals, and other programs unpopular with Middle America.

The rationale for these new policies is multiculturalism, an amorphous concept at war with Western culture. Components of the new program include placing non-Western cultures on a higher plane than the West; unrestricted immigration; a purging of Christianity from the public sphere for fear of offending members of minority religions; encouraging immigrants to continue speaking their native tongue in favor of the lingua franca; and special rights and protections for minority group members-such as hate speech laws and affirmative action-that come at the expense of the majority. "But once having accepted the imposed prerequisites for decency, European regions and nations cease to be distinctive. They become atomized imitations of each other, even if they are permitted to have different theme-park decors and to retain linguistic particularities," the author writes. To oppose any of the multiculturalist's aims, one runs the risk of being labeled a racist, xenophobe, or some other term denoting bigotry. The threat of such labels, and the ramifications that they bring with them, are enough to modify behavior.

What are some concrete examples of the managerial state promoting multiculturalism?

In America, racial hate-crime laws target white males almost exclusively. Yet, black males are six times as likely to perpetrate interracial violence. Germany's highest appellate court ordered the removal of crucifixes from Bavaria's classrooms, despite widespread opposition to the removal of the crucifixes and the lack of a legal basis to do so. Even a local Protestant Bishop supported the move against the majority culture. "I consider a crucifix, that is the constant sight of a tortured man, to be of questionable value in a classroom," North Elban bishop Marie Jensen admitted. "I would object to hanging a cross there if I had my own child." Canada monitors politically incorrect statements, with Human Rights Commission member John Hucker remarking, "you can't rely on the free exchange of ideas to cleanse the environment of hate and intolerance."

It isn't just the goal of multiculturalism that is anti-Western. The methods used to achieve the goal are also contrary to Western values. Hate-crimes laws violate the rule of law by making conviction and punishment an arbitrary matter influenced by the race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation of the victim and the perpetrator. Vaguely worded speech codes run contrary to the Western value of free speech. Racial preferences and quotas place the rights of groups ahead of individual rights. The means to achieve the multiculturalist ends ride roughshod over the key ideals underlying Western civilization-individualism, self-government, the rule of law, etc.

"Unlike medieval Christianity, the enforced commonality in the current managerial setting is not shared ritual and sacramental mysteries of ecclesiastical authorities, but a tightening system of managerial control," contends the author. "It is one that requires its subjects to behave unnaturally, despising their ancestry and inherited morals and at least pretending to reach out for 'enrichment' to alien groups and to the practitioners of unconventional lifestyles. Submission to these behavioral and verbal guidelines, without the physical bullying carried out by the Nazi and Soviet states, can only be explained by looking at today's Western culture." That culture, in many ways, is one too weak to seek its own preservation.

Gottfried's focus on the managerial state may not be on the radar screens of American conservatives and their brethren abroad. It should be. Preoccupation with taxes and spending blinds the public to other more invidious abuses of government power, which Gottfried exposes so adeptly. Writing in a palatable style foreign to too many academics, the Elizabethtown College professor has put together a brief and readable case against the drive by Western elites to water-down Western culture. Conservatives who seek to conserve Western civilization would be wise to heed its message.

US Government Sanctions Harvard Prof. for Falsifying Research full text @ link

From 1995 to 2000, Karen Ruggiero built a career at Harvard to become one of the nation's foremost experts on the psychological effects of race and sex discrimination. She has now admitted that much of her federally funded research was fraudulent.

Ruggiero's 1995 paper "Coping With Discrimination: How Disadvantaged Group Members Perceive the Discrimination That Confronts Them," has been cited in more than fifty psychology studies. Her studies have also been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

The research was first exposed as fraudulent when one of her assistants, David M. Marx, became suspicious after Ruggiero refused to show him her raw research data. When Marx asked Harvard to investigate further, she admitted to using "invalid data" in her research studies at Harvard. Much of her field research with women and people of color never took place. Her data was simply made up.

In a letter to Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin editor Jerry M. Suls, Ruggiero accepted full responsibility for her actions. She stated that it was she alone who cheated the federal grant system. She says her assistants' only "role was to edit multiple drafts." They knew nothing about the fraudulent research figures.

Ruggiero's main thesis is that discrimination on the basis of race and sex is more dominant than most people realize. In fact, it is more dominant than even those being discriminated against realize, concludes Ruggiero. "Native peoples, visible minorities, women's groups and the gay community constitute only a partial list of disadvantaged groups who are struggling to overcome [discrimination]."

Psychology classes and papers concentrated on "the personal group discrimination discrepancy." This is the theory that when women and ethic minorities are discriminated against they will not raise the issue and will prefer to blame themselves. "When making explicit self-report rating, members of status and racial minority groups report less personal experience with discrimination than that encountered by their group."

Ruggiero is not alone in the doghouse of academic fraud. Recently other well known university professors have had the basis of their careers exposed. Harvard's Michael Bellesiles' research for his best selling Arming America: The Origins of the National Gun Culture claiming a low number of gun owners in colonial America has been exposed as simply fabricated. Historian Joseph Ellis built his career preaching to Amherst students with how the horrors he witnessed in Vietnam led him to become an anti-war activist. This summer it was discovered that Ellis never served a day in Vietnam.

"If you look at Harvard, it has a lot of reported cases, but that's not necessarily bad. Harvard takes this stuff very seriously, and has put a lot of resources into investigating misconduct," commented Chris Pascal of the Office of Research Integrity. "Her career is probably gone, or it certainly is for a number of years."

Also gone is the University's and taxpayers' money.

How Textbooks Distort American History

Let's turn to the issue of tax cuts, because that's the thing today. It is big here in our history, that's the other part of the economics I want to get to. If capitalism has failed and we need government intervention, then obviously we need lots of taxes, that is right to raise money for the government, so therefore favoring tax cuts is not particularly good policy. Well, the first President to significantly favor a tax cut-the income tax being developed in 1913 (becoming a constitutional amendment)-was Calvin Coolidge. By the time Harding and Coolidge got into office in the early '20s-Coolidge was the Vice President, Harding the President-the tax rate on top incomes had risen.

.... Harding appointed Andrew Mellon.... Secretary of the Treasury. Harding then died. Coolidge retained him as Secretary of the Treasury.... Mellon's view was this: the bottom rate was 4 %, the top rate 73%. Four percent was the starting rate, 73% top rate. Mellon said: Look, we need across the board tax cuts, we need to cut taxes on the rich, because, he said, look, 73% is the top rate, that's nice I suppose for the government, if you get that money, but 73%, people are doing everything to avoid investment. They are doing foreign investment. They are doing municipal bonds. They are buying art collections and selling them somewhere else. They are keeping the money in something else that cannot be taxed easily. They are not investing in the economy.

And the economy was down in the early '20s, so then Mellon said that we have to cut that top rate, he concluded about 25% or about as much as anyone could agree, he said 73% of nothing is nothing, 25% of something is something, the best chance of reorienting investment into economic development in this country is to cut the top rate from 73% to 25%. His final cut slashed the top rate to 24% in 1929. So what we have is about a three-fold cut on the top rate. On the bottom rate he cut it from 4, to by the end of the '20s, down to 1/2 of 1 percent. So that the starting point was 1/2 of 1%, because he said the poor people need relief too, and so what you do is give everybody some relief and then you have a high personal exemption so that only 2 percent of Americans were even paying income tax under Mellon.

Now what's fascinating about this is that Mellon predicted because of his idea that 73% of nothing is nothing and 25% of something is something, I would not be surprised if we get more revenue into the government. If we look at the government statistics collected we see that the revenue from income taxes was $719 million in 1921, when Harding came into office. The revenue by the end of the decade was over a billion dollars, a thirty percent increase. We had a cut from 73% to 24%. A cut at the bottom level from 4 to 1/2 percent. What happened at the end of that was that we raised more money than we did at the beginning of the early '20s. We had a budget surplus every single year now under the Secretary of the Treasury, in the '20s.

.... Well, my gosh, we actually got more money, what are the textbooks going to say about that? I read again from Professor Schlesinger's textbook (Woodward may have written this section in any case): " ...Expenses had to be cut if he was to achieve his corollary purpose: the reduction of taxes, especially taxes on the wealthy. It was there, he argued, to place the burden of taxes on lower income groups. For taxing the rich inhibited their investments, and thus retarded economic growth."

You might think, my gosh, that is a shocking statement. Let me read from another history textbook by another Pulitzer Prize-winner, Erwin Unger.... Here's what Unger says in his book, and I quote: "Harding allowed Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon, a Pittsburgh industrialist and one of the world's richest men, to pursue soak-the-poor-policies. He persuaded Congress to reduce income-tax rates at the upper levels while leaving those at the bottom untouched. Between 1920 and 1929, Mellon won further victories for his drive to shift the tax burden onto the backs of the middle and wage-earning classes."

With this kind of info we are then prepared to oppose tax cuts and not learn in any way the effect of tax cuts on American history, with this kind of misinformation. Of course during the Great Depression what happens is that tax rates go back up. Under Hoover it goes back up to 63% (top rate); under Roosevelt to 79% (top rate). The income we received from income taxes correspondingly dropped. It was the highest, if we look at the profile, from 1920-1935. We can see the income rising as the taxes were cut, and then we can see the income dropping off as the taxes were raised again.

Franklin Roosevelt promoted a further hike. He recommended at one point a 99.5% income tax on all income over $100,000. So in your second $100,000, how much would get to keep? Right, $500. And give $99,500 to the government. When he was asked about this, his response was: why not? Roosevelt-he was defeated, by the way, the Congress would not go along with that-on April 27, 1942, issued an executive order for a 100% income tax on all income over $25,000, arguing that it was needed to win the war.

I have never seen that fact in a U.S. history textbook. In fact, I hardly ever see the rate given that Roosevelt was charging before he did the 100%. According to Arthur Schlesinger and the Presidential poll he's conducted of leading historians, the President who ranks #1 is Franklin D. Roosevelt.

.... What we need is a more neutral treatment of the issues. What is this about Cleveland being a bad man? Roosevelt a good man? By the way the caption on Roosevelt reads: "Roosevelt: A real choice."

....What much of this overlooks is just the dynamics of history, of interplay, of human success of what people are capable of accomplishing. All of that shunted aside-not just entrepreneurs, who are a good example, but others as well.

Socialist Scholars Call for Dismantling of US Constitution in NYC

NEW YORK CITY- A few blocks from Wall Street at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), around 1,000 people, including academics and students, gathered for the 2000 Socialist Scholars Conference to discuss "Rockin' the Boat: Building Coalitions for the New Century."

"My God, there is no better way [to reach our goals] than to go through that Constitution and show its roots in racism, sexism, classism, genocide, and slavery," pronounced George Caffentzis of the University of Southern Maine. "One way in which to grasp another alternative is to begin to call a new Constitutional Convention. To begin to pose it forcefully, we have to change things from the bottom. What the bottom means in this country here is the Constitution."

Karenga, a self-avowed "African socialist" and "African Nationalist," remarked, "One of the most urgent challenge[s]...of our time is the reconstruction of U.S. social policy. That's the question at hand, and its possibility for social infusion is a critical one for it has to do with shaping the vision and participating in the unfinished project of making the U.S. a just and good society in a multicultural and global context. What we have to do in this talking, this ethical vision, has first of all to be separated from the right-wing insistence on morality."

While each of these groups have certain issues they support, all have common goals, which include the complete implementation of a multicultural socialist government, the redistribution of income, free health care and education, and the complete destruction of any form of capitalism, especially corporations. Panel leader Dakara Latimore gave an example of the socialists view of corporations: "The reason that corporations are bad is because they exist within a capitalist system." Latimore went on to say that socialists had "to find a way to work with, to challenge, and ultimately win over people that are to our Right."

Portfolio of Excellence
Editor:
Anne D. Neal, VP& General Counsel, ACTA
A list of exemplary programs at colleges and universities across the country which merit support

Founding Centers A Project of the National Association of Scholars

Princeton, New Jersey

Among the academic casualties of the last thirty years has been the serious study of the events, personalities, and principles of the American founding. Considered by many professors to be unfashionable, or even politically incorrect, the heritage of American liberty is now largely ignored even at the minority of colleges and universities that still retain history or political science requirements.

Elementary and secondary schools are only somewhat better. Whereas the great achievements of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton were once at the center of the curriculum, they are now slighted by a curriculum whose message is to often that there is nothing really special about American values or institutions. Worse yet, standards in education schools have sunk to the point where one can no longer be confident that teachers know more about the founding than their students.

The National Association of Scholars has launched a major campaign to remedy this grave problem. Its goal is to create, on public university campuses around the country, major academic centers reviving the serious study of the American founding. These centers will provide undergraduate and graduate courses on the founding and its legacy, and be places where scholars can pursue new research. In addition, each would have a vigorous program of outreach to the schools in their locality, offering programs to enhance the knowledge of existing teachers and improve the preparation of future ones.

The National Association of Scholars is a membership organization of over four thousand professors and other academics. It expects its dedicated membership to form the core of the faculty stepping forth to design these programs. It seeks the enthusiastic support of trustees, legislators, and governors, who recognize the peril of keeping coming generations of Americans in ignorance of the most vital events of their country's past. The support of private philanthropy will be indispensable to this project.

James Madison Program - Princeton University full text @ link

The James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions promotes teaching and scholarship in the area of constitutional studies in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. Under the leadership of a Director, and with the guidance and support of an Advisory Council of distinguished individuals from the worlds of law, business, philanthropy, and the academy, the James Madison Program sponsors and guides research and pedagogy at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels.

The program is named for James Madison, the Princeton graduate (and graduate student) who was the principal architect of the Constitution and the fourth President of the United States. Currently, there is no other program, institute or initiative at Princeton named for President Madison. Activities and appointments in the program may be named in honor of other distinguished personages.

Among the central concerns of the James Madison program are: 1) the nature of free political institutions and the cultural conditions for their establishment and maintenance; 2) the relationship between political institutions and the institutions of civic society and that between political libertyand civic virtue; 3) the implications of such doctrines as the rule of law, subsidiarity, and social solidarity for the scope and limits of governmental authority; 4) federalism; 5) the moral bases of private property and free enterprise; 6) the constitutional separation of powers and system of checks and balances; 7) executive leadership; 8) democratic deliberation and accountability; 9) judicial independence and the scope and limits of judicial powers; and 11) the place of religion and religiously informed moral judgment in American public life.

In addressing these concerns, students and faculty connected to the program explore the thought of America's founders and leading statesmen, including Madison, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Lincoln, and King. In addition, they consider the contributions of thinkers who shaped the understandings that fed the American founding and continue to shape American civic ideals. Among these are Plato, Aristotle, the Biblical writers, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, More, Erasmus, Adam Smith, Montesquieu, Sidney, and Locke. And not to be neglected are the insights of perceptive foreign commentators on American ideals and institutions, including de Tocqueville, Churchill, and Solzhenitsyn.

"Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend." --Francis Bacon
"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." --George Santayana
But what experience and history teach is this -- that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." --Georg Hegel
"History repeats itself. First as tragedy then as farce." --Karl Marx
Nizkor is a Hebrew word which means "We will remember."

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