Tuesday, April 10, 2012

NEW STUDY SHOWS RADICALS RULE AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

by DAN GAGLIASSO at Big Government

Excerpt- A Crisis in Competence: The Corrupting Influence of Political Activism in the University of California isn’t trying to purge the system of differing left of center opinions. The well-documented study just hopes to even the playing field so students get a quality education - an education that has standards and teaches students to look at all sides of the issues. The CAS report emphasizes common sense observations that seem to be beyond the grasp of the assumed intelligent members of the UC Board of Regents.
One observation points out that “a political science department with one half of the spectrum of political thought missing cannot be considered a competent department.”
(snip)
Here a just a few of the conclusions about the University of California system that CAS came to:
There has been a sharp increase in faculty members who self-identify as radicals. This has led to “one party” academic departments, such as at Berkeley, where left-of-center faculty members outnumber their right-of-center colleagues in Political Science by a ratio of 28:2, in English 29:1 and in History 31:1. A number of these professors are openly avowed Marxists! (Has Van Jones applied for one of these positions?)
Many curricula promote political activism, in violation of UC regulations. Critical Race Studies at UCLA’s School of Law, for example, aims to be a “training ground” for advocates committed to racial justice theory and practice (sounds like Harvard during the Professor Derrick Bell/Obama years).
Several departments attempt to erase the study of Western tradition. History majors are now not required to take a survey course in Western civilization on any of the nine University of California campuses. Four more UC campuses have dropped their American History requirements (many UC students cannot even answer basic questions about American or World History).
Suppression of free speech is commonplace. Speakers at UC Berkeley who have been shouted down by protesters include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner (but Columbia welcomes Iran’s Ahmadinejad to speak with open arms).
Radical and left-of-center UC professors favor hiring like-minded new academics and block the hiring of new professors who don’t “think the right way.” (Why would a conservative incur the enormous debt and hassles pursuing a Ph. D. if the possibility of a professor’s job is little or nil?)
The advancement of “social justice” is now the open aim of a number of UC faculty members and even whole departments in the system (if a student asks questions or writes answers or papers that challenge these professors and their radical assumptions they can expect a poor grade).
The UC curriculum has been gutted because too many professors now show an open preference for promoting a partisan political agenda. These are just a few of the important issues confronting the UC system that the CAS study raises and documents in very credible fashion.

Complete article here. The National Association of Scholars study, here.

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