Sun, Mar 21, 2021 10:34 p.m.
Wokeness is Near Hegemony, Even in Idaho
AOF: Manhattan Contrarian Francis Menton starts out talking about Cornell, but most of what's below is about Boise State.
Is the Left on the Cusp of Permanent Triumph, or is It Committing Suicide?
If you think that cancel culture and social media deplatforming have gotten out of hand, you should know that those are only two examples of many strategies that the fascist left deploys to enforce its political orthodoxy. Another such strategy, currently sweeping the country, takes coercive suppression of dissent to a whole new level. The model here comes straight out of the old Soviet Union's playbook: use control over institutions to demand a continuous series of expressions of loyalty to the orthodoxy, and then to destroy the livelihood and career of anyone who refuses to comply.
This latest strategy, which has emerged at academic institutions, is to make so-called "antiracism" or Critical Race Theory or Social Justice training into a required course of study. Or better still, to make such training not only a single required course on its own, but also something integrated as a significant component into multiple courses, or even into every course. Then, have the course grades and evaluations be determined not just by the mastery of, say, calculus, but instead or also by the demonstrated willingness of the student to regurgitate and swear loyalty to the "antiracism" or Critical Race Theory or Social Justice orthodoxy. Fail to show sufficient enthusiasm as (for example) an "antiracist," and you get humiliated in class, you receive grades of D or F in your courses, and finally you get labeled as a "racist" to all potential graduate schools and future employers.
The more I read about this, the more I am astounded at how far the strategy has progressed before many normal people realized what was happening or began to push back. The question is, is this really a strategy by which the left can achieve its final triumph, or are the left and the institutions in question in the process of committing suicide?
Consider Cornell. That is certainly a prestigious institution. William Jacobson, a law professor there and also proprietor of the Legal Insurrection blog, has a piece at Real Clear Politics yesterday outlining recent developments at the school; the title is "Higher Ed Approaches the Antiracism Training Abyss." As Jacobson tells it, the "antiracist" coercion program at Cornell only really got started in June 2020, immediately after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, when Cornell President Martha Pollack designated Ibram Kendi's book "How to Be an Antiracist" as a "community read" for the entire school. Jacobson then read large portions of the book, and immediately realized that what Kendi attempts to call "antiracism" is really exactly the opposite, in fact the very thing that we used to accurately call "racism," highlighted by demands for such overtly racist things as naked racial discrimination in hiring and promotion.
Just a month later, in July, President Pollack issued a directive stating that "we must embed anti-racism across" all aspects of campus life. Jacobson:
This directive, with specifics to be developed by the Faculty Senate, also called for new requirements for students and faculty, including the "creation and implementation of a for-credit, educational requirement on racism, bias and equity for all Cornell students" and a "systematic review of the curriculum in each of our colleges and schools to ensure that courses reflect, represent and include the contributions of all people." It also demanded "a new set of programs focusing on the history of race, racism and colonialism in the United States," and "[a]ll faculty would be expected to participate in this programming and follow-on discussions."
The key to the initiative, as set forth initially by President Pollack and then further developed in draft proposals by the Faculty Senate, is that there are to be required courses in this new racism (going by the false name "antiracism"), as well as infusion of this "antiracism" throughout all schools and curricula at the university. In other words, to get good grades in your courses, you must become a political activist for the left's causes.
The latest draft proposal for students calls for mandatory curriculum created by various ethnic and gender studies department faculty, focusing on how America's colonialization and globalization impacts race, ethnicity and indigeneity. Meanwhile, faculty will be responsible for "[e]mbedding antiracist content" across academic disciplines to address how such issues affect various professions and fields of study.
At Cornell, this proposal has not yet been finally adopted, and could still theoretically be blocked by the school's administration. However, given the attitude of President Pollack, that does not appear likely.
Have similar initiatives progressed further at other institutions, and even been put into practice? It's remarkably difficult to get solid information. Public descriptions given out by universities of their programs are uniformly anodyne and inoffensive. But let's consider some developing news coming out of a somewhat less prominent place, Boise State University in Idaho. Something called the Idaho Freedom Foundation put out reports on the situation on March 17 (title: "Did 'White Privilege' Lecture Cause the Cancellation of BSU's Social Justice Courses?") and March 18 (title: "UF200 Is Tip of Huge Social Justice Iceberg At BSU").
As background, let's look at what Boise State University's own website has to say about the school's social justice initiatives: Boise State is dedicated to being an inclusive, welcoming community that accepts and celebrates the diversity of its student body. We have several resources available to traditionally underrepresented students that provide support throughout the admissions process and their college experience.
Well, that certainly sounds warm and fuzzy. Who could be against that? But perhaps the reality on the ground is somewhat different.
The current story began on Tuesday (March 16), when an assistant professor in BSU's English Department named Kyle Boggs issued a tweet saying "A student in a university foundations class taped a zoom discussion on white privilege, in which apparently a white student was made to feel uncomfortable, and sent the video to ID state legislature, who are 'enraged.'" Professor Boggs subsequently deleted his tweet. However, that same day, BSU suddenly announced that it had suspended the teaching of its course called "University Foundations 200" or UF200. The suspension came mid-semester and affected all sections of the course. The announcement stated that "a student or students have been humiliated and degraded in class on our campus for their beliefs and values." "Humiliated" and "degraded" are, let's say, a notch or two up from the "made to feel uncomfortable" of Professor Boggs' tweet.
Apparently, then, a video of this event exists, and is in the hands at least of some members of the Idaho legislature. I have not been able to find the video on the internet today, but perhaps it will turn up some time soon.
In any event, UF200 is not just any old course at BSU. Its course title is "Foundations in Ethics and Diversity." It is mandatory for all students. Prior to the suspension, there were no fewer than 35 sections, attended by well over 1000 students every semester. According to the IFF it "is among four mandatory general education courses that are infused with social justice, a toxic ideology that has captured many facets of life at Boise State."
In its March 18 piece, the IFF asks the key question: How extensive is the social justice rot?
Boise State students are speaking out about how they are silenced and demoralized by activists on campus. The university's response raises a question: How extensive is the social justice rot? . . . This [social justice] ideology asserts that all whites and especially males are oppressors, and that racial minorities are permanent victims. Social Justice institutions like Boise State then construct an environment that seeks to shame and vent hatred on the oppressors and elevate and insulate the oppressed from any kind of criticism. . . . The problem is the propagandizing and indoctrinating of students in a false and pernicious ideology, not their humiliation. What beliefs were promoted and in which classrooms? How many incidents have occured [sic] prompting administrative concern before action took place? By cancelling all UF 200 sections, rather than a single rogue class where an isolated incident occurred, BSU concedes that its University Foundation classes have a systemic problem.
Like the IFF, I would very much like to get more detail on the exact beliefs and dogmas being promoted and the pervasiveness of the propaganda. But the university hides behind bland and meaningless statements (we are "dedicated to being an inclusive, welcoming community") that only conceal the facts on the ground. Meanwhile, the fact that BSU suspended this entire massive course and all 35 sections is a very bad sign; as is the fact that that public description of the program as "dedicated to being inclusive [and] welcoming" looks like a massive intentional deception.
And how pervasive are these mandatory, graded "antiracism" and "social justice" propaganda courses in American higher education more generally? A December 2020 Report from the IFF on "Social justice ideology in Idaho higher education" suggests that Idaho's university system is by no means an innovator on this subject, and has modeled its social justice program to a substantial degree on the program developed by the much larger university system in another mostly-red state, Ohio. The current Cornell draft proposal for embedding "antiracism" throughout the university cites existing models at other schools that include Emory, Pittsburgh and California State. Given the far-left monoculture that characterizes today's American academia, my working assumption, until I'm proven wrong, would be that some form of the same thing is going on at essentially every college and university in the country (with perhaps a handful of exceptions like Hillsdale).
Clearly, the people pushing these initiatives at universities and colleges think that their ideology is on the cusp of permanent triumph in America. The large majority of university students are already acolytes of the left. Now, we just need to give a little push to silence the little remaining dissent and make the victory unanimous. The push will consist of some bland sounding course requirements ("diversity training") and some hard-to-restrict control over grading. Oh, and the regular public humiliation, on the basis of skin color, of a large number of students, many of whom would have been among the better students if graded on the traditional methods.
Are you really sure this is going to work? It sounds to me more like a prescription for suicide, although perhaps a suicide that will take some long period of time to play out.
1 comment:
Even in Idaho. YES! Even there!
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