One-Party Classroom

Are American college students being indoctrinated in their classrooms?

Closed Minds? is a survey of 1270 professors conducted by authors associated with the Brookings Institution. The survey asked these academics what their political persuasion was and whether they let politics influence their classroom presentations. The overwhelming majority of respondents said they were on the political left, but ninety-five percent denied that they used their classrooms to influence their students politically. This encouraged the Brookings experts to conclude

“The idea that the elite universities are rife with leftist politics, or any politics for that matter, is at odds with the evidence.”

We beg to differ. In researching our new book One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America’s Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy, we didn’t ask professors what they thought of themselves.

Instead, we looked at the courses they actually teach -- courses like Community Studies 100P at the University of California Santa Cruz, which is described in the university catalogue in these words:

“The goal of this seminar is to learn how to organize a revolution. We will learn what communities past and present have done and are doing to resist, challenge and overcome systems of power including (but not limited to) global capitalism, state oppression and racism.”

This is clearly a training course in radical politics – an exercise in indoctrination, not a scholarly inquiry designed to examine its subject matter in a critical, academic manner. [snip]

... we examine doctrinaire syllabuses and one-sided reading lists, which leave no doubt that their purpose is to instill radical prejudices and recruit students to radical causes. Literally. At the University of Arizona , for example, students can take a course in “Social Movements” whose official catalogue description announces:

“Here it is, activism for credit. Give four hours to a social movement and I’ll give you 200 points.”

The instructor then provides students with a list of social movements, which are all far left groups.

The evidence presented in our book that indoctrination is a real problem and one that is widespread is irrefutable. It is time to stop denying the obvious and start taking steps to remedy.

[Highly Recommeded > ]

READ MORE