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What Made American Academia Great (and How It Was Destroyed) bit.ly/2J34oLa
That “community of scholars”—open, searching, teachers and students—changed one’s life and prepared one for whatever came one’s way.
Socrates’ “Know Thyself” and “The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living” underlay the traditional liberal arts education:
to learn something of every subject and all perspectives on every subject and thereby to learn how to think, reason, and analyze: and then be able to handle anything in life and adapt to change.
Such an open, lively, productive academic system goes back to Ancient Greece and Rome, the Medieval European monasteries and universities, and Oxford and Cambridge tutorials, but it was perfected in America.
The first really modern university was the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson (and celebrating its 200th anniversary this year).
Jefferson said of UVA, “Here we are not afraid to follow the Truth wherever it may lead; nor to tolerate any error, so long as reason is left free to combat it.”
That is the classic statement of academic freedom: a “free marketplace of ideas” that develops individuals and society. And it is especially important in a democracy, where the people are self-governing.
It holds that the solution to bad ideas is not to censor or ignore them, but to refute them with good and reasonable ideas. Just as the best products come out of economic competition, sound religion comes out of liberty of conscience.
Political correctness effectively replaces free, diverse debate and a positive collegial community with Nazi-like speech control. In place of a “free-marketplace of ideas” examining all subjects and perspectives is one official ideology that eclipses all the other views.
That P.C. doctrine, essentially, is that Western Civilization in general, and America in particular, is racist, sexist, imperialist and unjust.
This means that nothing good can be said about certain figures or subjects (Jefferson, the founding, Christianity, etc.) and nothing bad or “offensive” can be said about “protected groups” (women, minorities, gays, Muslims, illegal immigrants, etc).
This ideology has pretty much captured the humanities and social sciences in American universities (as well as the most prominent academic associations and journals, and the most prestigious awards).
This system of thought was codified and weaponized by the largely illegal and unconstitutional expansion of the Title IX Regulations in 2014. This was a provision of the Civil Rights Acts requiring equal expenditures on college sports along gender lines.
It was deftly transformed into a P.C. blitz by equating “discrimination” with “harassment.” When “harassment” was expanded to include “verbal” harassment, it allowed censorship and punishment of any speech that was deemed offensive or “unwanted” by anyone.
Title IX offices at every U.S. university (‘The Office of Conduct, Compliance, Control, Diversity, Inclusion and Demasculinization’) run Gestapo-like ops of surveillance, mandatory reporting, investigations, interrogations (w/out due process), reprimands, dismissals, expulsions.
Needless to say, this has had a “chilling effect” on free speech and association. Colleges have turned into social graveyards and intellectual wastelands.
Title IX Political Correctness cleverly hid many of its assaults on intellectual liberty and freedom of speech under benign code of “civility” and “respectfulness”—meaning any talk, laughter, or behavior that offended anyone was forbidden.
But what could be more truly “respectful” than presenting all sides of an issue and letting the student decide what they believe?
The negative effects of these Stalinist decrees (on morale, enrollment, publicity) has caused many universities to hire marketing consultants to clean up their image with slogans and gimmicks.
Such fun activities as “Cookie Day” and “The Career Closet” (I’m not making this up) were to present a “safe” and happy image to higher education institutions.
But young Americans don’t relish the thought of participating either in a re-education camp or a kindergarten; they want a university. Unless run by academics, not political activists or marketing consultants, universities will not return—to the detriment of our entire country.
