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University of Texas

College Students Taught To Defend Traditional Families

by Jennifer Kabbany - Associate Editor on June 3, 2013

SAN DIEGO – Anne Petty always believed in and supported the traditional definition of marriage – but the 23-year-old Idaho college student said she didn’t know how best to defend her position other than to cite the Bible.

After this weekend, Petty said she is armed with knowledge and data to explain her beliefs from secular, academic and scientific points of view.

“I have always felt strongly about the family, but now I’ve been given the resources to articulate why the family is important,” said Petty, who majors in psychology at BYU Idaho. “I know so many new angles on why the family is important.”

Petty was among nearly four dozen college students and young professionals to attend The Ruth Institute’s annual “It Takes a Family to Raise a Village” student conference, which concluded Sunday.

The nonprofit hosts and funds the four-day event every year in Southern California, bringing in students from across the nation to learn more about the traditional marriage movement and related topics.

Ruth Institute founder Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse – a former economics professor at Yale and George Mason universities – said the conference, now in its fifth year, helps religiously serious students understand the importance of conservative values’ and traditional marriage’s roles in maintaining a free and healthy society.

At the event, students learn how to defend those concepts and more – such as purity before marriage and shunning the college hook-up culture – through disciplines such as economics, law, social science, psychology and other academic studies. Theological perspectives are also raised.

“We see the gay marriage issue as one part of a larger problem of the sexual revolution,” Morse said.

Students learn why the sexual revolution happened, and how it happened, so they can learn from the past, understand its roots, she said. It’s an education that’s vital, as the information is not imparted at typical universities, she added.

“Many departments are hostile to the traditional family,” she said. “Even sociologists who have the data that shows the family is good are spinning and respinning.”

Lectures during the conference were given by educators whom Morse described as some of the “top scholars in the marriage movement,” including: Boise State University political philosophy professor Scott Yenor, author of “Family Politics: The Idea of Marriage in Modern Political Thought”; University of Texas associate professor of sociology Mark Regnerus, author of “Premarital Sex in America”; and Dr. Freda McKissic Bush, a practicing OB-GYN and clinical instructor at the University of Mississippi medical center and author of “Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children.”

One of Yenor’s lectures, for example, traced the sexual revolution back to John Locke’s philosophy that marriage is solely based on a contract, and cited Locke’s support of divorce. He delved next into John Stuart Mill’s arguments that women were subjugated by marriage, and followed up by citing French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir’s “anatomy is not destiny” arguments.

“Modern principles want to remake institutions to honor our freedoms,” Yenor told the students, then added developments such as contraception, abortion and in vitro fertilization helped humans in their quest to control and master nature and buck evolutionary biology.

Same-sex marriage is another development to that end, he said.

He advised students to “occupy the controversial high ground” when discussing same-sex marriage in that traditional marriage is about sacrifice, understanding one’s own limits, admitting the need for another human being who is biologically different than oneself, and contributing to the greater good of society by having and educating children.

“We are for an understanding of love that joins people together for a common good,” Yenor said.

In another lecture, Dr. Bush spoke to students about the massive proliferation of sexually transmitted diseases, the physical and psychological risks of abortion, and the hormonal, emotional and physical negative effects of casual sex, among other topics.

Bush’s lecture included charts, graphs, photos, data, brain scan images, and reams of statistics to make her case that “human beings’ brains seem to be structured to experience a lifetime, committed relationship” as the healthiest option.

“Sex is a powerful brain experience,” she said. “The more sex partners you have, the more the innate ability to bond becomes unglued.”

Professor Regnerus, during one of his talks with students, pointed out the economics of casual sex, and essentially argued women have undersold themselves by embracing the hook-up, no-strings-attached campus sex culture.

“How much does sex cost? Literally nothing,” he said.

Meanwhile, women don’t have to marry to become successful in life, so many succumb to the notion that casual sex is acceptable, even though they prefer committed relationships, he said.

Underscoring that, sex has become “the opium of the masses,” that “we are lacking transcendence and sex is a transcendent act,” he said. Ultimately, casual sex is a disappointment, he added.

“Sex doesn’t explain the world, religion does,” he said. “Sex will come up short.”

In addition to those three lectures, subjects such as “Jesus and marriage,” “the law and parenthood,” “Paul and homosexual practice,” “understanding same-sex parenting studies” and “activism for promoting marriage” were offered.

Thomas Peters, communications director for the National Organization for Marriage, which oversees the Ruth Institute, also rallied the students to get vocal about their beliefs on social media websites and blogs.

Several students said they learned a lot, and plan to take back the information to their campuses in a proactive way.

“I am better equipped to defend marriage and the family in the public square,” said Michael Bradley, 21, who attends Notre Dame University and edits the conservative campus student newspaper the Irish Rover. “Even at Notre Dame, it’s needed.”

Jennifer Kabbany is associate editor of The College Fix.

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IMAGE: ITAF student conference 2013

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Professor: Braves Nickname Racist

by Jennifer Kabbany - Associate Editor on April 2, 2013

For nearly 100 years, members of the men’s social group The Tejas Club at the University of Texas have called each other “braves” as a show of kinship and to pay homage to East Texas Indians, but one professor recently told club members they’re racist because of the practice.

Professor Robert Jensen, who caused controversy last November when he called Thanksgiving a “white supremacist” observance and likened the Founding Fathers to Nazi Germany, told members of the men’s student club at one of their weekly coffee klatches that calling each other “braves” in effect celebrates what Jensen called the genocide of Native Americans.

“(It’s) inappropriate, and in fact is racist,” Jensen said Monday in an interview with The College Fix. “The United States as a nation exists as a result of one of the most, if not thee most, extensive genocidal campaigns in recorded human history. The European conquest of what is now the continental United States resulted in the extermination of virtually all indigenous people in the United States.”

Jensen said he believes the tradition should change, that the club’s members are acting racist, whether they think they are or not.

“A lot of us who are white are unconsciously racist throughout our lives in all sorts of ways,” he said. “We are not always aware of what we are doing.”

Jensen, 54, is a journalism professor who has taught at the university for 21 years.

Jensen’s comments to Tejas Club members were made on March 21 as an invited guest speaker for one of the group’s weekly coffee meetings, which aim to facilitate conversations and intelligent debate among students on a variety of topics. Often, high-profile guests are invited to speak.

Each year, The Tejas Club co-hosts a “Week of Women” coffee with the Orange Jackets, a women’s service organization at the University of Texas, and it was at that annual event that Jensen made his controversial remarks.

He was asked to speak primarily on pornography’s connection to sexism and racism, which he did. But toward the end of the talk a female student in the audience asked Jensen what he thought about The Tejas Club’s practice of calling each other “braves.”

The way a Tejas Club member describes it, it was then that Jensen went “on a ten-minute tirade regarding the persecution of Native Americans,” states an email to The College Fix from the club’s president, Chris Fellows.

“He concluded with ‘your organization is racist’ and promptly ended his talk, rejecting all questions and opportunities for dialogue,” Fellows stated. “Members of Tejas approached Mr. Jensen to discuss his accusation, but he found all points to be ‘bullshit.’ After it became clear that rising tempers made civil discourse impossible, Mr. Jensen was politely asked to leave three times. The Tejas Club’s reaction wasn’t a response to Mr. Jensen’s views on sexism or racism, but on his combative and aggressive approach.”

“We’re disappointed that the outcome of this event wasn’t a conversation about women’s issues, as it should have been. And we certainly don’t think solutions to racism or sexism have been achieved, but we will continue to host coffees regarding these topics until they are.”

Jensen said he was just doing what he thought was right.

“Whether it was a tirade or not is subjective, they are welcome to their interpretation,” he said. “I told them I thought it was important for white people to hold each other accountable for racist practices.”

The Tejas Club, however, works to promote a variety of causes that support diversity and equality. Founded in 1925, members today participate in pro-diversity events on campus, and host the weekly coffee meetings, open to the entire university community.

“In December, it hosts a holiday party for underprivileged children,” the group’s website states. “Throughout the year, the Braves participate in community service projects. … Recently, the club has partnered with the University’s Counseling and Mental Health Center to further suicide prevention and awareness with our fellow students.”

As for the history of the “braves” moniker, the club’s website states: “Friendship is the most important attribute of a Tejas Brave. In fact, Tejas is derived from the Native American word for ‘friend’ or ‘ally.’ … (Original members) began to call themselves the Tejas and referred to each other as braves, with the intention of emulating the friendliness of the East Texas Indians.”

While Fellows declined to comment to The College Fix specifically about Jensen’s racism accusations, Jensen said he recalls some of the young men on March 21 arguing that the “braves” nickname honors Native Americans. But Jensen said that explanation does not cut it.

“I do remember some of the men saying they feel they are honoring Indian people with this practice, and that is a standard response for people who use Indian nicknames and mascots,” he said. “I don’t think there is a strong argument there. … I think it’s important for the United States to come to terms with its history. … This is a culture that is in deep denial about its own barbarianism.”

Jennifer Kabbany is associate editor of The College Fix.

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IMAGE: Shown is Professor Robert Jensen/Credit – Jason Cato

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What the Frack? University **Wants** To Drill!

by Ian Tuttle - St. Johns College on March 22, 2013

The chant of “drill, baby, drill,” is sounding from an interesting corner. The University of Tennessee has proposed a plan to allow hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas on state-owned land—here’s the twist—to give the university an opportunity to study the environmental impacts of “fracking.” The research would be funded using the revenues from the extracted natural gas.

It’s a “fundamental conflict of interest,” says Gwen Parker, a staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is trying to block the move. But the unprecedented plan has powerful supporters (including Tennessee governor Bill Haslam) and the aura of “so-crazy-it-just-might-work.”

The land in question is an 8,000-acre patch of mature woodlands in the Cumberland Plateau that the university’s agriculture department has overseen since 1947. It currently operates the forest as an outdoor laboratory. Environmental groups are loath to see one of the state’s few mature Cumberland Mountains forests disturbed, but the university believes there is little to worry about. Because the drilling would take place on state-owned land, the university would maintain strict oversight of the project.

And contentions aside, it’s a timely project. Hydraulic fracturing uses high-pressure blasts of sand and water to create fractures in shale through which natural gas can escape. But if that technology, which is making accessible enough natural gas to power the United States for years to come (not to mention generating revenues in the billions of dollars), has revolutionized an industry, it has also become a prime target of environmental groups, who claim that the process could release harmful methane into the air and contaminate groundwater.

Determining whether those fears are warranted is the University of Tennessee’s goal.

“There are questions surrounding natural gas extraction and we have the facilities, and we have the faculty, so we have the obligation to investigate in an unbiased, scientific way to provide those answers,” Dr. William F. Brown, dean of research and director of the university’s Agricultural Experiment Station, tells the Associated Press.

But the proposal is quickly becoming another battleground in the debate about academic “independence,” which, particularly when it comes to fracking research, has sparked conflict on other campuses.

The University of Texas (Austin) Energy Institute came under fire for a 2012 study on the environmental consequences of fracking that had as its principal investigator a paid board member of an energy firm that conducts hydraulic fracturing. The State University of New York at Buffalo shut down its Shale Resources and Society Institute last year after outside groups questioned a study on fracking co-authored by the institute’s co-director, who previously did public relations work for an upstate New York energy firm.

But Brown rejects the notion that there is an ethical problem in the University of Tennessee plan. “We need to get past this notion that if the university works with an industry, that somehow we are compromised or tainted.”

Moreover, such partnerships are becoming more attractive as government research grants shrink and universities struggle to find the money to conduct the type of large-scale research required by fracking. Still, the faculty selected to conduct research will be screened for energy industry connections.

Tennessee’s State Building Commission unanimously approved the university’s proposal on March 15, opening the process to bids from outside drilling companies. The commission will have to approve the final contract.

Fix contributor Ian Tuttle is a student at St. John’s College.

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IMAGE: Darth Pedruis/Al Granberg/Flickr

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History Professors Preoccupied With Racism, Class, and Gender, Survey Finds

by Charles Rollet - Northwestern University on January 16, 2013

Are the topics of race, class, and gender over-emphasized in college history courses? According to the National Association of Scholars (NAS), the answer is yes.

In its latest report Recasting History: Are Race, Class, and Gender Dominating American History?, NAS charged two large American universities with teaching a twisted version of American history.

Starting in 2010, the NAS investigated American history classes at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M, concluding “we found that all too often the course readings gave strong emphasis to race, class, or gender (RCG) social history, an emphasis so strong that it diminished the attention given to other subjects in American history (such as military, diplomatic, religious, intellectual history).”

“The result is that these institutions frequently offered students a less-than-comprehensive picture of U.S. history,” said the report, clarifying that “the situation was far more problematic at the University of Texas than at Texas A&M University.”

So what’s the evidence?

“Of the faculty members we studied, 78 percent at UT and 50 percent at Texas A&M were ‘high assigners’ of race, class, and gender readings, meaning that more than 50 percent of the readings they assigned focused on race, class, and gender,” said Ashley Thorne, the director at the Center for the Study of the Curriculum at the NAS.

The NAS also consulted a list of 100 “milestone documents” of US history published by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which included texts such as the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence.

“Of these 100, only 23 were assigned, and these were assigned by only five faculty members (out of the 46 total), two at A&M and three at UT,” said the report.

“In other words, 89 percent of faculty members teaching lower division U.S. history courses assigned none of the 100 key documents.”

Overall, this focus on race, class, and gender, according to the NAS’ report, has resulted in “a narrowing conception of our nation and the elevation of racial, class, and sexual identity into the central story of America.”

The NAS thus recommended American universities change their ways by taking measures such as reviewing the curriculum, identifying “essential reading,” and “depoliticizing history.”

But in academia, the response to the NAS’ report has been far from welcoming.

After the study was made public, UT released a statement saying that it “paints a narrowly defined and largely inaccurate picture of the quality, depth and breadth of history teaching and research at The University of Texas at Austin.”

Some history professors at the university also disagreed with the report.

Clarifying that he can’t speak for the profession as a whole, American history professor H.W. Brands said “I don’t believe I overemphasize race, class and gender. I’m not even sure what is meant by that allegation.”

He explained: “I certainly talk about race: how can a teacher discuss slavery or the civil rights movement without doing so. As to class, the Populist movement of the 1890s was all about class; I can’t ignore that. Gender: Women make up half the population (not to mention more than half my students). Their story must be told.”

At other universities, the response to the NAS allegation that classics were being ignored in favor of “race, class, and gender” themes was also often unapologetic.

Kathleen Belew, who teaches American Studies at Northwestern University, said “I think that having texts that reflect the experiences of our students is more important than reading the texts that would have been considered classics by a particular demographic 50 years ago.”

However, others agree with the report’s conclusions.

George Leef, the director of research at the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, said “the fact is that doctoral programs in history have come to be dominated by people who want to use their positions to inculcate trendy leftist ideas in their students.”

“That is why we find far more history profs these days who have written their dissertations on something like ‘The Oppression of Women in the Garment Industry’ than on, say, some aspect of the Constitution,” Leef added.

And the NAS, which has been described as a politically conservative organization, is adamant it began the study without any preconceptions about whether American history courses at UT and A&M were heavily focused on race, class, and gender.

“It’s what we found- we began the study with no clear idea of what was going to be the nature of the curriculum,” said Peter Wood, the president of the NAS.

“It jumped out at us as fact–this is what was going on at these two universities; that is to say, that a very large number of the syllabi focused on race, gender, and class, as [if it were] the aspect of American history that was the most important thing to teach.”

Fix Contributor Charles Rollet is a junior at Northwestern University.

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Image Source: IMPA Awards / Wikimedia Commons

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Professor Admits the Truth: Social Science/Humanities Classes Inherently Biased

by College Fix Staff on January 3, 2013

University of Texas journalism Professor Robert Jensen was brutally honest about the nature of social science and humanities courses his peers teach across the country in his latest opinion piece, and he wants fellow university-level educators to come clean, too.

Saying “good teaching is living your life honestly in front of students,” something he learned from his late mentor, Jensen said that means “a rejection of the illusory neutrality that some professors claim. From the framing of a course, to the choice of topics for inclusion on the syllabus, to the selection of readings, to the particular way we talk about ideas—teaching in the social sciences and humanities is political, through and through.”

Jensen went on to claim he’s not talking about partisan advocacy of a particular politician, party, or program, offering some academic doublespeak: “Political, in this sense, (means to) assess where real power lies, analyze how that power operates in any given society, and acknowledge the effect of that power on what counts as knowledge.”

Sure, whatever.

At any rate, Jensen goes on to call for academic honestly all around, saying students deserve it:

Every professor’s “politics” in this sense has considerable influence on his/her teaching, and I believe it is my obligation to make clear to students the political judgments behind my decisions. The objective is not to strong-arm students into agreement, but to explain those choices and defend them when challenged by students. At the end of a successful semester, students should be able to identify my assumptions, critique them, and be clearer about their own.

Jensen claims offering students some rabid rhetoric is what they want and expect, anyway:

The first course I taught in the university-wide program called First-Year Seminars, “The Ethics and Politics of Everyday Life,” was straight out of Koplin: I had students read five books that touched on the political, economic, and ecological implications of our choices in our daily lives. Every time I worried that I would be pushing students too far, Jim would tell me that the students were hungry for honest, jargon-free radical talk, and he was right.

Jim Koplin was a former professor, co-founder of the Center for Nonviolence, and a community organizer dedicated to social justice and ecological sustainability. Koplin died in mid-December at age 79, and Jensen wrote his piece on intellectual honesty in honor of Koplin and their friendship.

Jensen’s piece appeared on Koplin’s website as well as the New Left Project website, described as “dedicated to producing high quality comment and analysis on issues of concern to the political left.”

Whatever you think of Jensen (remember he’s the one who recently described Thanksgiving as a “white supremacist holiday”) it’s nice to see he’s willing to call a spade a spade.

Click here to read Jensen’s entire piece.

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Short Film of UT Student’s Bizarre Staring Goes Viral (VIDEO)

by College Fix Staff on January 1, 2013

It’s tough to predict what’s going to resonate with the masses, and the latest viral video coming out of left field features a University of Texas student staring at people in an odd way on and near the campus.

Apparently the young man has had this staring talent since high school, which is how he got his nickname “Gator,” The Daily Texan reports:

“The 3-minute and 24-second video is set to the 2007 song “Stop and Stare” by OneRepublic and shows government freshman Jacob “Gator” Weaver standing completely still and staring at people on and near the UT campus as they try to figure out what he is doing. Pearce Murphy, a Daily Texan photographer and radio-television-film junior, filmed it from hidden locations. Weaver made the video with Murphy for Beta Upsilon Chi — Brothers Under Christ, a Christian fraternity they are pledging.”

As of Dec. 31, the video had 166,000 views and counting. It was published Dec. 4 with the description: “How long could you handle the Gator’s stare? Watch as we follow him around campus to find out how others fare against his mighty gaze.”

The video is relatively harmless, although in a way it’s awkward and sad and silly all at the same time. It’s unclear whether the appropriate reaction is to laugh or cringe. Perhaps judge for yourself.

Click here to read The Daily Texan article.

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Watch the video:

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