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Academic Cesspools
Townhall.com ^ | April 24, 2013 | Walter E. Williams

Posted on 04/24/2013 4:48:15 AM PDT by Kaslin

Over the past 10 years, I have written columns variously titled "Academic Cesspools," "Academic Dishonesty," "The Shame of Higher Education," "Academic Rot" and "Indoctrination of Our Youth." Therefore, I was not surprised by David Feith's April 5th Wall Street Journal article, "The Golf Shot Heard Round the Academic World." In it, Feith tells of a golf course conversation between Barry Mills, the president of Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, and philanthropist Thomas Klingenstein. Klingenstein voiced disapproval of campus celebration of diversity and ethnic differences while there's "not enough celebration of our common American identity."

Because Klingenstein wouldn't help finance the college's diversity craze, Mills insinuated, in remarks to the student body, that Klingenstein is a racist. Mills also told students: "We must be willing to entertain diverse perspectives throughout our community. ... Diversity of ideas at all levels of the college is crucial for our credibility and for our educational mission."

Klingenstein decided to check out Mills' commitment to diverse perspectives by commissioning the National Association of Scholars to examine Bowdoin's intellectual diversity, rigorous academics and civic identity. Its report -- "What Does Bowdoin Teach?" -- isn't pretty. There are "no curricular requirements that center on the American founding or the history of the nation." Even history majors aren't required to take a single course in American history. In the history department, no course is devoted to American political, military, diplomatic or intellectual history; the only ones available are organized around some aspect of race, class, gender or sexuality.

Some of the 37 seminars designated for freshmen are "Affirmative Action and U.S. Society," "Fictions of Freedom," "Racism," "Queer Gardens," "Sexual Life of Colonialism" and "Modern Western Prostitutes." As for political diversity, the report estimates that "four or five out of approximately 182 full-time faculty members might be described as politically conservative." During the 2012 presidential campaign, 100 percent of faculty donations went to President Barack Obama. Despite political bias and mediocrity, in 2012, Bowdoin was ranked sixth among the nation's liberal arts colleges in U.S. News & World Report and was ranked 14th on Forbes magazine's list of America's top colleges. That ought to tell us how much faith should be put in college rankings.

I applaud Klingenstein for not making a contribution to a college agenda that is so common today. Wealthy donors are generous but tend to be lazy and uninformed in their giving. They give large sums of money that winds up supporting college agendas that are contemptuous of donors' values, such as enlightened racism, anti-capitalism and Marxism. A rough rule of thumb to discover modern-day racism is to search a college's website to see whether it has vice presidents or deans of diversity and diversity programs. If so, keep your money.

Recent evidence has emerged that some colleges have become bold enough to hire former terrorists to teach and possibly indoctrinate our young people. That's the case with Columbia University in the hiring of convicted Weather Underground terrorist Kathy Boudin, who spent 22 years in prison for the murder of two policemen and a Brink's guard. She now holds a professorship at Columbia's School of Social Work. Her Weather Underground comrade William Ayers is a professor of education on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Unrepentant, in the wake of 9/11, Ayers told us: ''I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough.'' Bernardine Dohrn, his wife, is a professor at Northwestern University School of Law. Her stated mission is to overthrow capitalism. Ayers and Dohrn, as well as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are people who hate our nation and are longtime associates of President Obama's. That might help in explaining our president's vision.

What we see on college campuses represents a dereliction of duty by boards of trustees, which bear the ultimate responsibility. Wealthy donors who care about the fraud of higher education should recognize that there's nothing like the sound of pocketbooks snapping shut to open the closed minds of college administrators.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: academicbias; collegecampus; collegeeducation

1 posted on 04/24/2013 4:48:16 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Once upon a time, long, long ago, Bowdoin was a pretty fine men’s college and any man possessing a Bowdoin diploma could be proud of the fact.

Now, it’s a cesspool - and THAT’S a story that can be told and retold all across America.

What happened...?


2 posted on 04/24/2013 4:54:39 AM PDT by Jack Hammer (American)
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To: Jack Hammer

“What happened?”

Well, the brilliant, intellectual, highly-advanced,
genetically superior, Progressive geniuses took over from the gun-loving, bible-thumping, Constitution-loving,
knuckle-dragging, Christian morons.

See? Ya know?

/S/

IMHO


3 posted on 04/24/2013 5:04:00 AM PDT by ripley
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To: Jack Hammer

What happened is that the Left has systematically seized control of our educational institutions over the past 50 years and is running a huge indoctrination operation on OUR dime. They started with the universities and have how taken over elementary and secondary education, all now under the sway of moral equivalency and the Left’s smug culture of self-loathing and death. Our institutions of higher learning are enormous parasitical enterprises. Our politicians haven’t had the courage to cut them off. Generations sat back and let it happen, and I fear there is little to be done about it now. And we wonder why so many of our fellow countrymen can’t think logically.


4 posted on 04/24/2013 5:08:45 AM PDT by La Lydia
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To: La Lydia

In the early 1990s I was on an email group for Vietnam Vets called VWAR-L run by Dr. Lydia Fish at University of Buffalo. A number of the participants were Vietnam Vets teaching at college level. The way they were ostracized was shameful. Cowards that had run away from serving the Nation were calling the shots and it wasn’t pretty.


5 posted on 04/24/2013 5:24:46 AM PDT by Portcall24
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To: La Lydia

the Left’s smug culture of self-loathing and death

Well put.
Self-loathing...just the opposite of the mask they construct for public consumption:
caring, enlightened, concerned.

It is important to know that self-loathing is at the core of leftists.


6 posted on 04/24/2013 5:28:31 AM PDT by spankalib (The downside of liberty is the need to tolerate those who despise it.)
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To: Kaslin

Many years ago, I paid a visit to the college from which I graduated and spoke to a random selection of students. What they told me about their professors and the overall “political correctness” of that college convinced me to never make a contribution.


7 posted on 04/24/2013 5:30:05 AM PDT by OldPossum
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To: La Lydia

What a great summary of the situation.


8 posted on 04/24/2013 5:32:20 AM PDT by Shane (When Injustice Becomes Law, RESISTANCE Becomes DUTY.----T.Jefferson)
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To: spankalib
It is important to know that self-loathing is at the core of leftists.

I very much disagree.

Leftists loathe their culture and Western civilization. They absolve and exclude themselves and those who agree with them from blame by the fact of that loathing.

There has never in history been a group with a higher opinion of itself than American leftists.

9 posted on 04/24/2013 5:43:33 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Kaslin

My kids went to community colleges, and got an education not an indoctrination.

This is where we lost. Make no mistake, conservatives are beaten, for the time being. It’s not permanent, but it won’t change until we infiltrate the schools.


10 posted on 04/24/2013 5:56:47 AM PDT by brownsfan (Behold, the power of government cheese.)
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To: Kaslin

When a group form a bubble and begin to congratulate themselves for their superiority, they cannot avoid their eventual humiliation.


11 posted on 04/24/2013 5:57:15 AM PDT by lurk
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To: Kaslin
Wealthy donors who care about the fraud of higher education should recognize that there's nothing like the sound of pocketbooks snapping shut to open the closed minds of college administrators.

Two months later, MSUM still facing fallout from Ayers visit

12 posted on 04/24/2013 7:32:40 AM PDT by MissMagnolia (You see, truth always resides wherever brave men still have ammunition. I pick truth. (John Ransom))
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To: Sherman Logan

I understand what you are saying, but please examine how unhappy they really are & why.
Their “higher opinion of themselves” is a construct, a mask, a put-on that they wear for others.
Their leftist implementations produce a suffering reality that only they can ignore.

Scratch the thin veneer of hubris, you will find self loathing.


13 posted on 04/24/2013 10:18:31 AM PDT by spankalib (The downside of liberty is the need to tolerate those who despise it.)
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To: spankalib
Sorry, I disagree.

While I'm sure this is true of some leftists, the majority I believe view themselves as "the annointed," in Sowell's terminology, smart enough and good enough to make the world a better place. IOW, they see themselves as gods.

As I said before, I know of no group in history with a higher opinion of itself than American leftists hold. The high self-esteem is based on their hatred for the society that supports them.

IOW, they loathe America but love themselves, largely because they loathe America. This is the key recognition signal. The more you hate America, the better person you are.

14 posted on 04/24/2013 11:03:27 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Jack Hammer
It has been a long process of decay and decline, driven by leftist contamination. In 1964 The Bowdoin faculty took a presidential poll. The results were LBJ--62. Goldwater--1. Then they stopped using normal grades, which allowed standards to disintegrate. Then they admitted women. Then they decided their mission was to entice people to "serve the Common Good" instead of educating them. Now Bowdoin is a run-of-the-mill east coast liberal arts college resting on the laurels of yesteryear.
15 posted on 04/24/2013 2:11:55 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: hinckley buzzard

Seems to be the story of a great many formerly excellent schools.


16 posted on 04/24/2013 2:27:49 PM PDT by Jack Hammer (American)
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To: Sherman Logan
Our military was the last remaining noble institution to fall to the Left.

It is only a matter of time before it is as soiled as K-12, post-secondary education, and our consolidated government.

17 posted on 04/24/2013 3:09:39 PM PDT by Jacquerie (How few were left who had seen the republic! - Tacitus, The Annals)
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To: Kaslin

Awesome article!


18 posted on 04/25/2013 5:34:19 AM PDT by 4Liberty (Some on our "Roads & Bridges" head to the beach. Others head to their offices, farms, libraries....)
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