Feminism At College is On It's Way Out

For quite a few years universities across the globe have promoted a type of political correctness that included the creation of various departments and majors in things such as Women's Studies (sometimes called Womyn's Studies-to have no association whatsoever with the male of the species) as well as a rainbow of minority inspired programs in culture, anthropology and literature. Being a far more socialist society, the UK was a bastion of all things politically correct. So imagine my surprise and delight in reading the following article! Too many dollars have been wasted subsidizing programs that very few students want just to be able to wave the banner of diversity. Now that money is tighter, and now that this generation's students are far more savvy with their educational demands that their parents were, the time has come for universities to get rid of programs that don't sustain enrollment.
Excerpt:
"Feminist scholarship has become predictable, tiresome and dreary, and most young women avoid it like the plague," said Christina Hoff Sommers, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for public policy research in Washington and author of Who Stole Feminism? "British and American societies are no longer patriarchal and oppressive 'male hegemonies'. But most women's studies departments are predicated on the assumption that women in the West are under siege. What nonsense...."
Story here.

Another Global Warming "OOPSIE" Moment

So we have all these celebrity types who want to latch on and bask in the reflected glow of Al Gore under the dubious guise of "stopping Global Warming." Never mind that that particular moniker has recently been changed to "Global Change" which syncs nicely with someone's presidential campaign rhetoric, just pretend to go along. Well now it seems that some fairly heavy hitters who have spent more than a summer studying the weather, global currents and such are questioning the rush to judgment on the part of the Nobel committee and the Usual Suspects. Read the letter linked to the title above and the blog at Orange Punch and then ask yourself as the prices on gas rise and the demands of the liberal left further restrict domestic exploration and production if it's worth it to your family to keep throwing good money on bad science?
Bad Science

College and Intellectual Rape

These days, many college educators have obvious political bias in the material they offer in the classroom. Often, this bias makes or breaks a student's grade. The student can choose to fight the bias and risk their grade or the student can write and perform to the bias, saving their grade but losing thier personal integrity. Is this right? Should students be forced to adhere to views they do not support? Should students be penalized for failure to agree with a professors point of view?

I am not talking about right and wrong here. Obviously there are disciplines such as math and science where answers are definitive. There are cut and dried responses that don't provide wiggle room for opinion. An example would be "Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address." Where the bias can sneak in is often with what used to be called liberal arts. Social sciences, history, literature, philosophy and even psychology can be manipulated through reading lists, lectures and expectations to create a student outcome that is defined by whether or not the student sticks to the expressed code. Is this a true liberal-in this conjecture it means free-education? Should professors not be held accountable for teaching a wide range of views rather than simply loading the course with reading that supports a narrow view?

I have had former students come back and tell me that they have experienced this in upscale private universities as well as state institutions. Regardless of the source, these schools are supported by federal dollars in the form of grants and scholarships. As faithful stewards,these institutions have a legal obligation to provide the best education possible. I am not sure that trying to indoctrinate students under the guise of education fulfills that obligation. In many respects this is a type of invasion. Many professors are using their personal bully pulpits to force students into taking views they cannot and do not hold for the duration of the class. If they were using similar methods to promote illegal activity it would be called brainwashing. But the force of the method, the resistance of some students and the outcome of resentment and fear resemble rape more than any other crime. How can we as parents, as taxpayers allow this to continue?

I am not supporting any sort of pogrom of professors based on political litmus tests. But I am recommending that universities and colleges be pro-active in the way they monitor their teaching staff. They need to demand reading lists, syllabi and lectures that expose students to the entire spectrum of intellectual thought, not just the limited range of liberal or conservative politics. By definition a university is expected to provide a "universal" source of knowledge, if we continue to limit our students by only telling them half the story, they in turn will produce increasingly flawed and limited solutions to the problems our nation and world will face in the future. Half the truth is half an education. We deserve more for our money.