Colleges like to think of themselves as the bastions of equality and diversity. They tout their countless diversity efforts, infuse social justice into the curriculum and speak out against social ills whenever they have the chance.
On the latter, take Southern New Hampshire University as an example. In the wake of the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, the university’s president issued a statement celebrating the school’s ‘inclusivity’ of campus restrooms and lamenting the alt-right’s views on climate change.
But while educators and administrators believe they are championing diversity with such actions, one scholar questions if universities might actuallly be “driving racism.” In a commentary piece published by the Washington Examiner, American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Michael Rubin points out how colleges have embraced identity politics:
Once upon a time, to study gay culture, women during the Great Depression or African-American cultural contributions to broader American life would require studying American history. No longer. Each of those programs is its own separate field, divorced from the other. No longer is the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The divisions into ever more narrow fields create homogeneity at their base.
Rubin argues “assumptions become fact and theories take root that otherwise might not be accepted as plausible” when education lacks intellectual diversity. He says students are now indoctrinated with “identity politics and race-based theories.”
“Freshmen (oops, “first-years”) entering universities today will be indoctrinated in theories that focus on race above all other variables that construct identity,” Rubin writes. “They will be taught that white privilege is a fact rather than theory and will be forbidden from dissent should they see the world different from the administrators mandating indoctrination seminars.”
This problem isn’t going away anytime soon, Rubin writes:
The situation is only going to get worse. Mainstream Americans for years laughed off much of the nonsense emanating from elite university campuses. And some students reject the indoctrination. They may keep their head down for social or more practical reasons while on campus, but their time forced down the ideological rabbit hole forces them to sharpen their arguments in ways that progressive students seldom have to do.
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