OPINION
Leo Krubner | Minding the Campus
Writing is a fundamentally human act. There may be evolving technologies that can string words together into grammatically sound statements, but they do not encompass all of writing. Actual writing ultimately incorporates the many mysteries of our consciousness. These include, but are certainly not limited to, intelligence, intuition, inspiration, insight, and imagination. These are the entirely human attributes that enable us to rise above the act of collation to the level of creativity.
In developing our writing, we develop our thinking, and in developing our thinking, we begin to shape our lives and the lives of those around us. There are undoubtedly other avenues of self-development, but it would be supremely imprudent to in any way minimize the important role that writing can play. It is a powerful tool for refining our intellects, organizing our thoughts, and expressing our ideas. Writing thus enables us to promote not just the development of a given individual but even the very nature of a society.
With these ideas in mind, I entered a state university graduate program on composition pedagogy in the early 2020s. But the professor for two of the four required courses adopted an overtly ideological approach to the material. And I ultimately came to feel alarmed both at the radicalization prevalent in much of composition theory and at what that might portend for the current and future state of writing instruction.
The first class that I took with that professor was the introductory course for the program, and the ideological nature of her pedagogy became immediately apparent. In the syllabus, for example, she states: “I am committed to centering multiply marginalized and underrepresented voices in our course, and I hope you will support this effort as well.” But the obvious problem with that comment, especially in an academic environment, is that it promotes a preferred viewpoint. Instead of encouraging her students to think for themselves, she explicitly directed us to think a certain way.
The assigned readings also advanced what could easily be construed as an activist agenda. It felt to me as if we had skipped ahead to a blunt deconstruction of composition pedagogy without ever having adequately constructed anything in the first place. We were assigned little more than Wikipedia summaries on the actual details of long-standing theories, such as Current-Traditional Rhetoric. And the rest of the class, by comparison, consisted mostly of material advocating for a recognizably left-wing version of social justice and, more specifically, for a doctrine generally known as anti-racism.
Anti-racism centers on promoting race-consciousness. It emphasizes immutable traits over mutable ones and evaluates outcomes largely through race rather than merit. Under this framework, a lack of racial diversity in most—if not all—situations is taken as evidence of systemic racism, not differences in character, skills, or ability. The proposed solution, then, is to mandate proportional racial outcomes rather than promote equal opportunity within what anti-racists view as an inherently—perhaps irredeemably—prejudiced society.
In the context of composition, these ideas are promoted in many ways. In one assignment, we reviewed a Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) convention speech in which the speaker aligns the teaching of composition with the struggle against sexism, racism, and homophobia. Similarly, in an assigned essay in the CCCC’s quarterly journal, the authors argue that African American viewpoints are all too often rendered invisible—seemingly due to societal power structures—and that composition studies might play a role in discussing historically marginalized communities. And from a recent CCCC Chair’s Address, one which begins with a lengthy land acknowledgement, the chairman in question encourages “people of color” to break free of white supremacy, reminds his white colleagues that they are the ones standing in the way of progress, and asks everyone to consider a series of questions including whether or not white linguistic habits are in fact responsible for killing people.
Unsurprisingly, I grew increasingly frustrated with the class. I eventually raised my concerns. Because my university had not yet returned to in-person instruction—and my composition pedagogy courses remained on Zoom even as the pandemic receded—I emailed my professor and asked whether the course materials could reflect a broader range of views. To her credit, she agreed. But I should never have had to make that request in the first place.
Even then, her adjustment to the class was minor and short-lived. She assigned a series of early twenty-first-century New York Times columns by the noted professor and author Stanley Fish, who argues that writing instruction should focus on writing and that the accepted norms of American English provide a legitimate standard for evaluating student work. In contrast, she also assigned an article from the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies by Vershawn Ashanti Young, who contends that teachers should embrace the full range of English dialects spoken in the United States—both to challenge prejudice and to free students from the perceived need for remedial instruction. As best I can tell, Fish’s position reflects the mainstream. But Young’s perspective dominated the class.
The following semester, I took the second class in my composition pedagogy program—my final class with the anti-racist professor. The syllabus for that second class, even more than in the previous semester, was unambiguous in promoting activism. “In this class, we will continue to explore issues of composition theory,” it says, “all through the lens of anti-oppressive, antiracist ‘critical’ approaches to assessment.” Further, the class “will focus on social justice” and investigate “how merit and assessment are socially constructed at various levels.”
In pursuit of these and similar goals, we were assigned texts such as “This Ain’t Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice!” Published by the CCCC in 2020 and produced by a committee representing several universities, the document calls for ending the promotion of standard English, acknowledging linguistic racism, politicizing the classroom through black language activism, cultivating black linguistic consciousness to decolonize the mind from white supremacy, and centering black experiences in linguistic research. (Read, “‘Linguistic White Supremacy’: The Left’s New Crusade Against the English Language.“) To ensure the message landed, a group of students was tasked with summarizing its demands for the entire class.
The main problem is one of context. We were in university classrooms, not activist rallies. Controversial material may certainly be discussed in academic settings, but it must be analyzed rather than proselytized. Debates over anti-racism in pedagogy, equality versus equity, individuality versus collectivism, or merit versus preference remain unsettled. By presenting anti-racism as a final authority rather than one viewpoint among many, these classes did a disservice to the students—and future teachers—in attendance.
Higher education must presume its own fallibility. Academics can and certainly will hold opinions, but they must also recognize the inevitable limits of their own knowledge. That is the attitude that makes dialogue possible and allows a multitude of perspectives into any classroom setting. And yet that is the sort of epistemic humility I did not find, at least not to any significant extent, in these composition pedagogy classes with my anti-racist professor.
Preserving the classroom as a neutral space for all ideas, therefore, remains an essential task for higher education. Students developing their skills with the written word should not be ideologically encumbered by the rigid creeds of their own educational system. They should, instead, be at liberty to pursue and acquire the broad-minded curiosity, the intellectual rigor, and the patient humility that are, at their best, the hallmarks of writing in a free society.
This column was originally published on March 18, 2026 at Minding the Campus and is reprinted with permission.
