The Dirty Dozen Twelve College Courses YOU are Paying For

Young America's Foundation ^ | August 30, 2002 | Rick Parsons

[Coeur de Lion]

 

	FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUGUST 30, 2002	FOR MORE INFORMATION: CONTACT: RICK PARSONS  (800) 292-9231

 The Dirty Dozen

Twelve College Courses YOU are Paying For

Universities across the nation have raised tuition rates and complain they are not receiving enough funding from taxpayers. But how are these schools spending the money in their "tight" budgets? They still manage to promote leftist ideology, while ignoring the conservative viewpoint. Left-wing authors and philosophers, including Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes, among many others, have a virtual monopoly in the nation’s classrooms. Comparable conservative scholars like Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, F.A. Hayek, and Paul Johnson are demonized or ignored by liberal faculties. Many academic institutions no longer require courses in fundamental subjects such as American history, yet use taxpayers’ funds for eccentric, bizarre, and "politically correct" courses.

The Dirty Dozen highlights the annual Young America’s Foundation study Comedy & Tragedy: College Course Descriptions and what They Tell Us about Higher Education Today. The study uses universities’ own course descriptions to expose some of the most outlandish and politically biased courses on today’s campuses. The Dirty Dozen (listed below) is a sample of courses offered by some of our nation’s most prestigious universities. The study will be released in its entirety in early September.

• Students at Brown University can take Seeing Queerly: Queer Theory, Film, and Video. This course asks, "While Cinema has typically circumscribed vision along (hetro) [sic] sexually normative lines, can film also empower viewers to see ‘queerly’?"

• Leftist environmental doctrine is often taught as uncontested truth. Rutgers University offers The Greenhouse Effect, where students discuss "Reducing the emission of ‘greenhouse’ gasses; nuclear energy and other alternative energy sources."

• Students can take Who is Black? at Harvard University. This course addresses "the social processes through which identities are constructed and changed." The course also discusses "how struggles about who is black take place not only between blacks and whites, but blacks and other racialized groups, and among blacks themselves."

• Communication students at the University of Minnesota study Language and Sexual Diversity. This class teaches how language is used in "lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender communities" and the "ways in which sexual diversity affects language use."

• University of Missouri students will study Black Feminism. This course examines "the multiple systems of oppression on Black women’s lives and Black women’s collective actions against social structures."

• Geography students at the University of Washington will take Geography of Inequality. These students will explore "topics such as the spatial distribution of wealth and poverty, the geographies of exclusion, and discrimination in paid employment and housing."

• University of California – Santa Barbara students can enroll in Mock Environmental Summit where they "work in teams of four or five to prepare a presentation and discussion of environmental issues of concern to the world."

• Afro-American Studies students at the University of California – Los Angeles are offered Cultural History of Rap. This course offers students a discussion "on musical and verbal qualities, philosophical and political ideologies, gender representation, and influences on cinema and popular culture" in rap.

• Georgetown University Students can "beam" into Philosophy and Star Trek. Claiming that there is no better way to learn philosophy than to watch Star Trek, this course asks: "Is time travel possible?" "Could we go back and kill our grandmothers?" and "Is Data a person?"

• Women’s Studies students at the University of Florida will take Ecofeminism. These students study "western tradition’s naturalization of women and feminization of nature, drawing the conclusion that the domination of women and the domination of nature are intimately connected and mutually reinforcing."

• University of Wisconsin students can study Daytime Serials: Family and Social Roles. In this course, students analyze "the themes and characters that populate television’s daytime serials and investigation of what impact these portrayals have on women’s and men’s roles in the family and in the work place."

• Vassar College offers students Black Marxism. Students learn how "the growth of global racism suggests the symmetry of the expansion of capitalism and globalization of racial hierarchy."

For further information or to schedule an interview, please call Rick Parsons at (800) 292-9231.

Young America’s Foundation is an educational organization promoting conservative ideas on our nation’s campuses through lectures, publications, and conferences. This past academic year, the Foundation sponsored over 300 lectures, including addresses by Dr. Walter Williams, Ann Coulter, Ben Stein, and John Stossel. In addition, Young America’s Foundation saved President Reagan’s Western White House – Rancho del Cielo in Santa Barbara, California – to serve as the centerpiece of its Reagan Ranch Program.

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[AdA$tra]

This Young America’s Foundation sounds intruiging. Is 40 to old to be young? I want to see the speeches by Dr. Walter Williams, Ann Coulter, Ben Stein, and John Stossel.

I might have to at least audit Philosophy and Star Trek. That sounds right down my alley. Black Feminism is a perfect class for MU. Imagine a black chick with a big fro. Her right hand raised in a fist of protest. Only this time it has the large foam tiger paw with #1 emblazened upon it.

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[Jalapeno]

Who needs a class...let me ask you three questions:

1. Is time travel possible?"
2. "Could we go back and kill our grandmothers?"
3. "Is Data a person?"

[Squawk 8888]

I'm actually surprised that a university is offering a course on Trek philosophy- the films, and especially the books, express a mix of classical liberalism and Objectivism. Who can forget Kirk's declaration at the end of ST3 that "The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many"?

[AdA$tra]

I'm tellin ya. There is something here to consider. The other classes are bogus, but I could fill a class session daily with serious discussion based on all of the Star Trek series. Number two above should actually read: 2. If we went back in time and our Grandmother was killed, what would be the effect?

[john in missouri]

1) Maybe;
2) Maybe;
3) and maybe.

[F16Fighter]

Thanks for a very enlightening post...

During the next decade I truly expect college courses to be given in '@ss-wiping I, II, and III', and 'The Truth About George Washington: America's First Fascist-Pirate'....