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In days gone by, America’s colleges and universities were
bastions of creative thinking, innovative ideas and freedom of expressions. They were
the training grounds of America’s future, taught by America’s best and brightest – taught
by open-minded professors who welcomed open discussions from all points of view -
NO LONGER!
These days, America’s colleges and universities are being
controlled by closed minded liberal elite and by leftist Democratic progressives.
During the past decades, Americas has sat back and watched while radical leftists
have taken control over our college campuses.
Today, America placidly watches the trashing and burning
of campus buildings by college anarchists. Our supposedly best and brightest are
taught by left-leaning progressive and radical college professors.
During and after the Vietnam War, radical college graduates
were recruited by colleges as teachers, professors and administrators. Today, these
disciples of anarchy are in control of many of our institutions of higher learning.
What these new college teachers brought with them is rage and hatred toward their
country and this is being passed on to a new generation.
“Now leftist propaganda, twisted U.S. history and radicalism
is the norm in colleges across the country. Healthy political debate has all but
vanished on campuses where conservative professors and speakers have become
extinct.
- - -
“{Today’s} college students {are all too often} ignorant
about U.S. history. The teachers don’t know much either. What they do teach is
distorted to fit a progressive narrative that sees the founding of the country as
an act by evil racists.
“The truth is that the United States is the best, freest
and most successful country in the history of the world. But that is not taught.
“That is why demonstrators in their ignorance can tear down
a statue of the great black abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass in
Rochester, N.Y., or of President Ulysses S. Grant in San Francisco, both of whom
did more for Black civil rights than the Marxist militants destroying our cities
will ever accomplish.” (Ref. 1)
“Higher education is teaching students to think critically
all right -- about their own country. Turns out, this growing anti-American sentiment
boiling over in our cities is no accident. Academia is . . . turning young
people against their own country. [Emphasis mine]
"The media {has increasingly engaged in the} universal
pooh-poohing of education's role in the dimming pride our kids have in their country.
‘Against every law of society and nature . . . our children are taught in school to
hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not
heroes, but were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies --
all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every
fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the
record is disfigured beyond all recognition.’
“Turns out . . . what we all know to be true:
higher education is nothing but a recruiting ground for the Left. And conservatives,
if their beliefs survive, will be punished. ‘Young Americans . . . become less
patriotic after attending college. [Emphasis mine]
“Now, after decades of sending children to liberal echo
chambers, the far-Left's goal has paid off. College students, by and large, don't
respect or appreciate their country. They may view America somewhat favorably . . .
but they aren't proud to be Americans. . . ‘When asked whether they consider themselves
to be patriotic, . . . only 35 percent of college students felt {they were}’
“And in a study published earlier this year by the National
Association of Scholars, it's clear that the campus environment isn't going to change
any time soon. In a country where college professors donate to Democrats over
Republicans by a 95-to-one ratio, [Emphasis mine] parents have to be even
more vigilant about grounding their children in truth.” (Ref. 2)
Today, all too many American universities demonstrate
excessive campus intolerance of any views deviating from their dominant left-wing
campus progressive perspective. Many of us find such an atmosphere uncomfortable,
almost un-American. [3]
Instead of many
Americans finding the liberal college atmosphere uncomfortable, all Americans
should find the Marxist and intolerant liberal elitist takeover of our colleges and univrsities
un-American and unacceptable.
Besides the outright hostility of all too many of America’s
liberal left-leaning colleges and universities to good-old American conservatism and
capitalism, our institutes of higher learning have now become bastions of still another
form of Un-Americanism - anti-Semitism
“Seventy-five years after the murder of 6 million Jews
in the Holocaust, Jewish college students across the U.S. don’t just learn about
anti-Semitism in their classes or history books. Unfortunately, far too many are
directly confronted and victimized by this ancient hatred on their campuses today.
“Anti-Semitism is spreading across college campuses around
the U.S. at a growing and alarming rate. According to the Anti-Defamation League,
acts of campus anti-Semitism last year {2019} rose to 201 reported incidents – an
86 percent increase in just two years. No doubt far more incidents go unreported.
“The reported incidents included not just harassment and
vandalism, but assaults against Jewish students. . .
- - -
“The Washington Post recently reported that neo-Nazis and
other anti-Semitic groups are moving from spreading hatred of Jews online to taking
action against Jews on campuses . . .
“{The} executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group,
which tracks online hate group activity, said the groups ‘place special emphasis on . . .
campaigns at college campuses throughout the country’ . . .
“Today’s {campus} anti-Semitism is especially difficult to
deal with because it is often cloaked as opposition to the policies of the state of
Israel. [Emphasis mine] There is nothing wrong with criticizing governmental
policies, of course.
Israelis, Americans and the people of many nations frequently criticize the policies
of their own governments and other governments.
“But anti-Semites go far beyond criticizing Israeli policies. . .
“Questioning Israel’s right to exist or promoting the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – the anti-Semitic campaign designed to isolate
and crush Israel economically to end its existence as the world’s only Jewish state -
is a call for economic warfare. It is an expression of deep-seated hatred not just
for Israel, but for the Jewish people and people of other faiths who feel any
connection to Israel.
- - -
“On college campuses across the U.S. today those
who claim that growing anti-Zionism has no relationship to growing anti-Semitism are
making an equally illogical argument. Hatred of Israel leads to hatred of Jews, and
Jewish college students are experiencing the results. [Emphasis mine]
“To cite just one of many examples of anti-Semitic incidents
on U.S. campuses, during the week of mourning for the 11 Jewish worshippers murdered
at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, memorials that were set up in
four different schools– the University of Tennessee, Pomona College, Eastern Michigan
University and Duke University – were all defaced with swastikas and anti-Semitic
graffiti.
“{There are} dozens more incidents where Jewish students
are made to feel uncomfortable at U.S. colleges and universities – singled out for
criticism, denied college credits for study abroad programs in Israel, accused of
being more loyal to Israel than the United States, and attacked for ‘oppressing’
the Palestinian people. . .
- - -
“The problem of anti-Semitism on college campuses should
be of concern to all Americans, not just Jews. And thankfully, many non-Jews . . .
are at the forefront of fighting this ancient evil that has no place {on American
college campuses and} in modern society.” (Ref. 4)
Anti-Semitism at America’s colleges and universities has
increasingly become part of the curriculum being foisted on the students by the
elite liberals teaching there. Along with the attack by these elitists
on America’s very basic foundation and ideals, the campus assault on Jews and Israel
is vile, ugly and un-American.
So, what to do about the rise of
un-American behavior on our college campuses? One proposed solution:
Defund the universities!
“We hear much these days about defunding the police force,
about cutting budgets or taking chunks of the public money allotted to our men and
women in blue and giving it to social workers and inner-city projects.
“Here’s a better idea.
“Let’s defund our colleges and universities. Let’s cut
their funding to the bone.
“I don’t mean in all academic departments, of course.
American universities still lead the world in scientific research. We still produce
fine mathematicians and excellent engineers, though not enough of the latter.
Our colleges and universities still graduate skilled nurses and doctors, business
professionals, and computer scientists.
“But many other departments, particularly in the humanities,
yearly churn out political radicals, graduates wishing to transform the laws, politics,
and economy of the United States. They leave their ivory towers with degrees in
gender studies, political science, history, and literature, thoroughly indoctrinated
in such concepts as Marxism, socialism, and deconstructionist thought. Some of them
join our government and our corporations. Taught to despise traditional American values –
the family is evil, the culture abhorrent, the country racist and sexist, its history
one of oppression and bloodshed – these young people act as a virus in the body politic.
“The professors and administrators who inculcate such
ideas in their students claim the right to do so because of academic freedom, yet again
and again they have cold-shouldered colleagues who refused to march in lockstep with
their views, suppressed them, and in some cases, forced them to leave their profession
and the campus. On some campuses, teachers, administrators, and like-minded students
pounce on any who deviate from the party line, leaving others silenced, fearful of
similar reprisals.
“What’s worse, our state and federal governments keep pouring
money into these intellectual gulags. Alumni of both public and private universities
follow suit, giving their dollars to people who regard most of these donors with
utter contempt.
“Meanwhile, these same institutions pump out students who,
having paid tens of thousands of dollars for tuition, boarding, and various fees,
have never read the Constitution of the United States or the plays of Shakespeare,
who studied history without reading a single book about their own country, and who
often seem dumb as posts about the workings of capitalism.
“The language they use, the Marxist slogans and demands
for ‘social justice,’ can reasonably assure us that many of this summer’s rioters
are graduates of such programs.
“Let’s step back and look at a different way we might
educate our young.
- - -
“. . . Why must someone pay $50,000 a year to read English
literature or study Russian history? Why do we support institutions where full
professors teach so few students, where administrators, some of them highly paid,
outnumber professors, where diversity is preached unless you’re a white male or a
conservative, where so many students seem more bent on partying and entertainment
than on enlightenment and education?
“Above all, why are Americans paying taxes to support
institutions which advocate radical changes to the country they love? Why are we
paying teachers to undermine the system that has brought freedom and prosperity to
so many?
“. . . our illiberal colleges and universities have become
‘cults manned by leftist and identity fanatics’ . . .
“. . . Let’s defund the universities.
” [Emphasis mine] (Ref. 5)
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References:
- Radicals turning U.S. cities into college campuses of the ’60s,
Peter Lucas, Boston Herald,
Page 13, 15 July 2020.
- U.S. Colleges: Proud to Be UnAmerican, Tony Perkins, Family
Research Council,
8 July 2020.
- The Decline Of The American University, Richard Vedder,
Forbes, 22 June 2020.
- Anti-Semitism spreading across college campuses at alarming rate,
Elizabeth Pipko,
Fox News, 14 February 2020.
- Let’s Defund Our Universities, Jeff Minick, Intellectual
Takeout, 19 June 2020.
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