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Introduction
The general election of November 2008 was historic: The first black president of the United States was elected. However, his convictions far outweigh his race in making this election historically significant. Aside from issues of political ideology, he is the most anti-Bible, anti-Christian president ever to be elected. He is anti-home and family but favors same-sex unions. He is anti-life of the unborn and the aged but favors abortion and limiting medical care for the elderly and infants who survive abortions. He is anti-Biblical sexual morals but favors sodomy and lesbian behavior. He is anti-Bible preaching, but favors “hate crimes” legislation, political correctness, and selective reinstatement of the nefarious “fairness doctrine,” that will criminalize preaching against sodomy, abortion, and religious error of any kind. If he were a Republican, a Libertarian, or an Independent, white, brown, yellow, or green, or a woman, I would say the same things about him.
How was such a man able to gain the favor of a majority of United States citizens? Since at least I960, children have been taught at every turn by powerful influences that the static, objective, moral and ethical standards of Western civilization and culture, mostly based on the Bible, are relative and repressive and should be overthrown. These children have been voters now for two or three generations. Entertainers, the news media, parents, liberal churches, and liberal politicians all share in the blame. By whom have entertainers, journalists, parents, liberal clergy, and liberal politicians been influenced to abandon Biblical morals? They have been taught by their educators in the United States educational system!
We shall study this subject under the following headings:
- The Historical roots of United States higher secular education
- What parents have a right to expect their children to be taught
- What higher “education” is providing
- The bitter harvest of higher “education.”
Historical Roots of United States Universities
George Marsden’s 1994 book title, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Non-Belief, sums up the religious roots of Colonial-era schools and what they have become. The oldest of these schools, Harvard, was established in 1635/36—sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The Puritans founded it to train preachers. Its first motto was “Truth for Christ and the Church.” A writer in 1636 said that Harvard resulted from the Lord’s “provident hand giving his approbation to the work” with the aim of benefiting “the churches of Christ and civil government.” A brochure printed in 1643 stated the aim of the founders: “To advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches.” Half of all the graduates from 1648–1689 were preachers. Not until 1708 (72 years later) did Harvard have a president who was not a preacher, at which time it began turning toward independence and away from its Puritan roots. It has for decades been one of the greatest concentrations of humanism and liberalism. Harvard is one of eight Ivy League schools, considered America’s elite educational institutions, including Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and others. All but one were founded in the Colonial period and founded either by churches or preachers (Cornell was chartered as a New York state school in 1865).
Colleges proliferated in the eighteenth century, as the nation grew in population and spread westward. Before the Civil War, most of these were founded privately, either by religious bodies or religious men, but which gradually evolved to “non-sectarian,” then “secular,” and finally to centers of agnosticism or atheism (e.g., the Duke University, Durham, NC, 1838, motto on seal was: “knowledge and faith”). In 1988 it was changed to “spiritually free inquiry, diversity, mutual tolerance.” In 1865, federal land grant legislation encouraged the establishment of colleges by the states, resulting in most of the state university systems—recipients of federal and state grant and/or tax monies, some of them receiving vast federal grants for research (the majority of these studies are in state universities). Many, if not most, state universities in the nineteenth century had compulsory chapel services.
All of these, whether religious or secular in their beginning, were established with a general consensus of purpose to give young people a “liberal arts” education, embracing the arts and sciences in the framework of what David Horowitz called “patriotic accord,” which he defined as “a shared appreciation of the wisdom of the American founding and the value of the democratic, multi-ethnic republic the Framers created” (Indoctrination U, 2007, xii). (By the way, those interested in an additional expose’ of academia by Horowitz, check out his 2006 book: The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics.).
The American Association of University Professors 1915 “Declaration of Princeton” stated,
The academic teacher is under an obligation to observe certain special restraints—namely, the instruction of immature students. In many of our American colleges, and especially in the first two years of the course, the student’s character is not yet fully formed; his mind is still relatively immature. In these circumstances it may reasonably be expected that the instructor will present scientific truth with discretion, that he will introduce the student to new conceptions gradually, with some consideration for the student’s preconceptions and traditions, and with due regard to character building. The teacher ought also to be especially on his guard against taking unfair advantage of the students’ immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher’s own opinions before the student has had an opportunity fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters of question, and before he has sufficient knowledge and ripeness in judgment to be entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own.
The American Association of University Professors’ “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure” states:
Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.
A 1970 revision contained the same caution on introducing “controversial” material. Most secular universities, whether state or private, adopted this 1940 statement, and they publish it in faculty handbooks and on official university Websites.
Yet academic administrators have abandoned and no longer enforce this policy. Few have done so as overtly as the 1934 University of California, Berkeley: Academic Personnel Manual:
The function of the university is to seek and to transmit knowledge and to train students in the processes whereby truth is to be made known. To convert, or to make converts, is alien and hostile to this dispassionate duty. Where it becomes necessary in performing this function of a university, to consider political, social, or sectarian movements, they are dissected and examined, not taught, and the conclusion left, with no tipping of the scales, to the logic of the facts…. Essential to the freedom of a university is the freedom of competent persons in the classroom. In order to protect this freedom, the university assumed the right to prevent exploitation of its prestige by unqualified persons or by those who would use it as a platform for propaganda.
After ignoring the restraints of this section for decades, they removed it in 2003 by a 43–3 vote of the University of California Academic Senate.
Secular universities, hiding behind “academic freedom” and “tenure,” with but few exceptions, have become to a greater or lesser extent, strongholds and platforms of the most anti-Christian, Bible-bashing, America/democracy-hating, and often hedonistic radical voices in our nation, indoctrinating successive generations who had become legislators, judges, educators, and yes, voters.
What Parents Have a Right to Expect Children To Be Taught
Parents have a right to certain expectations because:
- They are paying these institutions high tuition, fees, dormitory rent, and so forth.
- Their (and our) tax dollars are further supporting these institutions (most colleges and universities receive some federal and state grants).
- They are therefore paying the salaries of administrators, faculty, and all campus employees.
- What would you think of a day care center that took your money and your babies, but told parents, “It’s none of your business what we feed them, how often we change them, how carefully we monitor them, or whether we abuse and take advantage of them”?
- This is basically what the universities say to parents who send them their children and their money.
- Administrators know they can get by with it because parents are either ignorant of what they are doing, unconcerned about the abuse of their youngsters, and/or are not organized to storm the academic citadels in force.
What are some legitimate parental expectations? A good general statement from the earlier cited David Horowitz, in Indoctrination U., describes the role of the secular university:
In a democracy, the purpose of an educator is to teach students how to think, not what to think…. In other words, a democratic educator should not force-feed students opinions on controversial issues that teachers deem ‘politically correct’.” (49).
Parents have a right to expect protection from attacks by professors against parental values, authority, and wisdom. They deserve protection from attacks by professors against the Bible, God, and Biblical morals. They should expect protection from attacks by professors against the American republican form of government and the shared moral/Biblical values of Western civilization. Concerned parents expect protection from political indoctrination by professors, even in fields of social studies and political science. They can legitimately expect courses that actually provide information on subjects as advertised/described. A not-unreasonable expectation is that courses be taught by qualified professors who actually teach in their fields of expertise. Are these expectations being met? Are parents and students (taxpayers) getting what they pay for?
What Colleges And Universities Are Providing
Some general observations: David Horowitz (Indoctrination U, p. 38) wrote, “The university is an institution the left regards as its political base; its rule of engagement is to take no prisoners.” On his Website, Gary North said, “Universities are the most consistently politically liberal and atheistic of all institutions in the United States.” Renowned conservative thinker, Thomas Sowell, author of Inside American Education (1993), wrote, “The claim is that colleges are treating students as adults, when in fact they are treating them as guinea pigs. Moreover, it is precisely because students are so young, so inexperienced, and so vulnerable that they attract the attentions of ‘brainwashers’” (187).
Following are some specific illustrations, many of which overlap. To begin with, relentless assaults upon the students’ faith in God and the Bible are all but universal. In 1941, the late Mortimer J. Adler delivered an address to the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion, titled, “God and the Professors.” He observed even then that God had been expelled from academia, even in the theology departments, because liberal theologians such as Reinhold Neihbur had earlier surrendered faith to science in an effort to be “modern,” “sophisticated,” and accepted by academia. At the University of California at Davis, in a class on counterterrorism, a professor stated: “The number one Middle Eastern terrorist was Jesus Christ” (Horowitz, 103). A professor at the State University of New York at Farmingdale, a professor assigned his own book as a text, which was a parody of Ronald Reagan and the Bible; when a student questioned some of the content of the book, the professor ordered him out of the classroom and called security guards to eject him (Sowell, 213–14).
In 1997 the Dean of Yale Law School prohibited the school’s Christian Legal Society from continuing its use of the name Christian, claiming that such an identity offended the school’s “principle of non-discrimination.” A Penn State undergraduate student government supreme court in 2000 demanded Young Americans for Freedom remove God-given rights from its constitution because it reflected “devotion to God,” which constituted “discrimination.” Dr. Candace de Russey, former professor on the State University of New York Board of Trustees since 1995, noted in a 2002 article:
It is not the heterodox who feel themselves under fire on campus, if they ever were. It is religious believers, both faculty and students, who face an inquisition with the de facto assumption of guilt. Because their values often conflict with the political priorities of the campus administration and other governing bodies on campus, they find themselves accused of intolerance and discrimination.
Other illustrations include the unapologetic encouragement of sexual promiscuity. Their agenda is to tear down values and inhibitions instilled by parents and religion in vulnerable youngsters away from home for the first time. The coed dormitory experimentation was begun in the 1960s, against great protest from parents; Stanford University featured a coed shower in a dormitory as early as 1990 (Sowell, 186). But why not? Since 1986 it has distributed Safe Sex Explorer’s Action-Packed Starter Kit Handbook which openly encouraged mutual masturbation and group intercourse in incredibly filthy back-alley gutter terms to do so (Sowell, 180). Stanford is not alone in featuring annual condom-testing contests—students were supplied with free condoms and urged to test various brands and then vote on their favorites (Sowell, 180). Closer to home—in 1987, a University of Texas biology professor livened up the “sex education” stages of his course by—without warning—throwing slides of female genitalia on the cinema-sized screen of his auditor classroom, laughingly commenting, “This is not my wife.” “I did not take these pictures” (Sowell, 208). In 1985 an Arizona State University girl missed an examination in “Human Sexuality” class. The professor assigned a ten-page manuscript on her sexual experiences as make-up (Sowell, 209). It is no wonder that, despite the “safe sex” kits, pregnancy and abortion rates on co-ed campuses have soared well above national averages. Nearly one third of the nation’s abortions are performed on students (Sowell, 187).
Colleges and universities are providing encouragement of sexual perversions and acceptance of sexual perverts. Dartmouth’s “sex education kit” claims to be “nonjudgmental,” but states that “negative” attention toward the homosexual lifestyle springs from “prejudice and hostility”; it cautions against the use of “derogatory” terms and states that “gay” is the “accepted name” to be employed (Sowell, 181). A University of Vermont fraternity rescinded its invitation to a pledge when it learned he was a sodomite. As part of the administration’s punishment, frat boys had to attend workshops and lectures against “homophobia” (Sowell, 183). In 2000 Tuft’s University ceased recognition of Evangelical Christian Fellowship for refusing to consider a lesbian for a leadership role in the organization (FIRE).
Williams College in 2000 instructed all student groups to adopt “non- discriminatory” language in their constitutions regarding sexual orientation or lose their license to exist on campus (FIRE). A divinity school student in 2000 prayed for homosexuals in an off-campus meeting. The Dean of Students called him in, accused him of “sexual harassment,” said he was putting a letter in the student’s file stating that he was a sexual harasser, and if he ever prayed such a prayer again, he would be brought up on formal charges with appropriate notations on his transcript (FIRE). As long ago as 1987, San Francisco State University was showing, with no condemnation from the professor, filmed instances of bestiality in a class on “sexuality” (Sowell, 180). In November 2008, a few weeks after the Proposition 8 vote in California on same sex “marriage,” a Los Angeles Community College student in a speech class gave a speech in which he made positive references to the Biblical concept of marriage and read the dictionary definition. The professor interrupted his speech, called the young man a “fascist bastard,” and allowed any students who were offended to leave class. When none did, he dismissed the entire class. Later he threatened the student with expulsion. Instead of grading the speech, the professor wrote on it, “Ask God what your grade is.” The illustrations are endless of the privileged and protected status of sex perverts and perversions on campus.
Colleges and universities are also providing a platform for leftist ideologs. Robert Bork, in his 1996 book, Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, forcefully documents the fact that the rise of the New Left in the 1960s in the United States has undermined the moral standards necessary for civilized society, and has spawned a generation of intellectuals who oppose Western civilization. David Horowitz, in The Professors: 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, states that the 101 he identifies are the tip of the iceberg that represent as many as 60,000 faculty activists “whose agendas are political and radical.” On more than 250 American campuses, “Peace Studies” is a distinctive field of study. Courses consist of recruiting and training progressives in left-wing politics and anti-militarism, depicting America as the enemy of global peace and inciting sympathy for terrorists (Horowitz, 52).
In a “Peace studies” textbook, Peace and Conflict Studies, the authors state in the Preface:
The field [of peace studies] differs from most other human sciences in that it is value-oriented, and unabashedly so. Accordingly, we wish to be up front about our own values, which are frankly anti-war, anti-violence, anti-nuclear, anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, pro-environment, pro-human rights, pro-social justice, pro-peace, and politically progressive” (Horowitz 53).
A Temple University professor told his class on “Contemporary China”:
Communism has been given a bad name in this country; the only reason why Mao Zedong is given the bad reputation he has is because of the bourgeois press and their racism toward the Chinese…. I am a Maoist and my intention in teaching this class is to demonstrate to you why Mao was a great figure (Horowitz 103).
Horowitz charges that derelict administrators “…are willing to defend—or turn a blind eye toward—the fraudulent academic practices that allow political activists to indoctrinate students in the political prejudices” (58). He concludes, “No society can survive if its schools become one-sided indoctrination centers in propaganda against it” (71). Our sick national culture is largely the result of over a half-century of such indoctrination in academia.
All of these things are going on while the colleges are offering an inferior education. They offer such courses as tealeaf reading, television soap operas, basket weaving, “Images of Minority in Cinema,” and other junk courses as crutches for unqualified students (athletes?). In his previously cited book, Sowell, describing K-12 and universities, levels this charge:
All across this country, the school curriculum has been invaded by psychological-conditioning programs which not only take up time sorely needed for intellectual development, but also promote an emotionalized and anti-intellectual way of responding to challenges facing every individual and every society. Worst of all, the psychotherapeutic curriculum systematically undermines the parent-child relationship and the shared values which make a society possible” (ix).
A University of Minnesota student said, “I am graduating from one of the best economics departments in the country and I’ve never had a professor.” All of her classes had been taught by graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) and part-time teachers (Sowell, 204). A frequent student complaint is that Teaching Assistants are foreigners whose proficiency in English is so poor as to be incomprehensible. Brooke Shields, a fashion model and actress, graduated from Princeton without even one course in the core subjects of economics, mathematics, biology, history, government, chemistry, or social studies (Sowell, 221).
A “Peace Studies” course, if taught at all, should not be taught by a Department of Music performing artist who specializes in the saxophone, as at Ball State University. English 40 and English 50, freshman English composition courses, should not concentrate on race and gender studies, as occurs at Temple University. The Literature Department at Duke offers a program called “Perspectives on Marxism and Society,” designed to exalt Marxism, taught by a film critic (Horowitz 92). William F. Buckley in 1991 explained that Harvard’s dumbed-down curriculum is damaging “not because you cannot get a good education at Harvard, but because you can graduate from Harvard without getting a good education” (Sowell, 221). An inferior education is bad enough, but it gets worse.
Another thing the colleges are providing is Politically Correct censorship and double standards (umbrella over others’ elements). Some definitions of Political Correctness are as follows:
“Political correctness”: restrictions liberals have imposed on what others can say and how they say it, reminiscent of enforced speech limitations of the Nazi dominion and the Communist regimes of the past century. Such linguistic regulations all are ideologically motivated (Conservapedia).
The ideology usually known as “Political Correctness,” which is really the cultural Marxism of the infamous Frankfurt School, is using every type of cultural institution in our country to achieve its purpose, which is the destruction of traditional Western culture and the Christian religion” (the late Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation).
Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism, a regime to punish dissent and to stigmatize social heresy as the inquisition punished religious heresy. Its trademark is intolerance—albeit in the name of tolerance (Pat Buchanan, in Death of the West, 2002, p. 89).
Some historical notes: Political Correctness in practice in the United States found its first voice in the 1960s anti-establishment, radical student rebellions revolving around the Anti-War and the Civil Rights movements, but its dogma and strategy were formulated by a handful of Marxist German Jews who, in 1925, formed the “Frankfurt School.” Deciding that Western Civilization and Capitalism could ultimately be defeated only by “Cultural Marxism,” consisting of the undermining its culture (e.g., religion, morals, nationalism, individualism, property ownership), resulting in its self-destruction. Hitler shut the Frankfurt School down in 1933. It fled to New York, set up shop with help from Columbia University graduates, and shifted its efforts from subversion of the German culture to the American culture. With the beginning of World War II, some Frankfurt School members entered United States government work. Some moved to Hollywood, while others settled in academia.
In 1955, Herbert Marcuse, a Frankfurt School free-sex apostle, wrote Eros and Civilization, which became the “bible” of the 1960s and early 1970s’ anti-war, civil rights, counter-culture radicals (including the impetus for a blatant assault on sexual mores and clean speech). These radicals’ drumbeats were such sayings as “If it feels good, do it,” “Make love, not war,” “Do your own thing,” and “Go home and kill your parents.” Demonstrations, riots, bombings, assaults, and in-your-face free sex were the principal tactics during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Consider some practical applications of the Frankfort School dogma. With the end of the Vietnam War, violent tactics became passe. New strategies and causes had to be found, generating the “New Left.” Leadership of the Old Left, who had not been killed in bombings, riots, campus demonstrations, and police shootings or else by drugs or sexually transmitted diseases, decided on a new strategy—to infiltrate society and culture. A few were eventually elected to public office. Many others entered the news media (the “fourth estate”) or continued their education and became tenured faculty by the late 1970s and early 1980s on prestigious campuses (e.g., Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn, impenitent 60s radical Weatherman bombers; Bill—Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar, University of Illinois at Chicago; Bernadine—Associate Professor of Law, Northwestern University). The New Left Marxists chose the poor, blacks, feminist women, and homosexuals as the righteous oppressed who could do no wrong and the perceived oppressors (white heterosexual men) as deserving of denigration and figurative emasculation.
Accordingly, liberal administrators give carte blanche to the worst kinds of behavior by perceived oppressed groups or individuals as their “right” while severely punishing any who even accidentally say or do anything deemed offensive to the most sensitive among such groups. Political Correctness has created ominous, horrific double standards as supposed “pay-back.” The liberals have created lists of politically incorrect, verboten words that change from time to time (e.g., crippled, disabled, handicapped, differently abled, physically challenged; Negro, black, colored people, African American, people of color; retarded, mentally handicapped, mentally challenged; city dump, sanitary landfill). Many university student handbooks set forth speech codes (see above) that are clear violations of First Amendment free-speech rights, often enforced by storm-trooper tactics of speech police and thought police, either encouraged or ignored by administrators. The emphasis on multiculturism, sensitivity training, values clarification, feminist studies, African American Studies, peace studies, and gender studies are the direct result of the politically correct agenda. Much of this is found in elementary schools, some even in kindergarten. “Hate Speech” legislation, the camel’s nose under the tent, and “hate crimes” legislation are other results. Bill Lind, speaking on “Origins of Political Correctness” to the Accuracy in Academia Conference in 2000, summarized the consequences of the infiltration of the Political Correctness movement in higher education:
For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic…. But we now have this situation in this country. We have it primarily on college campuses, but it is spreading throughout the whole society…. In fact, it’s deadly serious. It is the great disease of the 20th century, the disease that has left tens of millions of people dead in Europe, in Russia, in China, indeed around the world. It is the disease of ideology. Political Correctness is not funny. Political Correctness is deadly serious…. My message today is that it’s not funny, it’s here, it’s growing, and it will eventually destroy, as it seeks to destroy, everything that we have ever defined as our freedom and our culture.
Conclusion
Mortimer J. Adler, in the earlier-referenced 1941 speech to the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion, after detailing at length the humanism, elitism, and egotism of the professors of his day, tongue-lashed his audience of PhDs:
The defects of modern culture are the defects of its intellectual leaders, its teachers and savants. The disorder of modern culture is a disorder in their minds, a disorder which manifests itself in the universities they have built, in the educational system they have devised, in the teaching they do, and which, through that teaching, perpetuates itself and spreads out in ever-widening circles from generation to generation…. The professors, by and large, are positivists [i.e., Darwinists, humanists, materialists]. And, furthermore, I say that the most serious threat to Democracy is the positivism of the professors, which dominates every aspect of modern education and is the central corruption of modern culture. Democracy has much more to fear from the mentality of its teachers than from the nihilism of Hitler. It’s the same nihilism in both cases, but Hitler’s is more honest and consistent, less blurred by subtleties and queasy qualifications, and hence less dangerous…. I say we have more to fear from our professors than from Hitler. It is they who have made American education what it is, both in content and method: in content, indoctrination of positivism and naturalism; in method, an exhibition of anarchic individualism masquerading as the democratic manner. Whether Hitler wins or not, the culture which is formed by such educators cannot support what democracy we have against interior decay…. It is probably not from Hitler, but from the professors, that we shall ultimately need to be saved.
We close with one additional quote, from David Horowitz in Indoctrination U: “No society can survive if its schools become one-sided indoctrination centers in propaganda against it” (p. 71).
[Note: I wrote this MS for and presented a digest of it orally at the Contending for the Faith Lectures, hosted by the Spring, TX, Church of Christ, February 22–25, 2009. The writer/speaker to whom it was assigned, after preparing and submitting his MS on this subject, was unable to fulfill his speaking commitment, which resulted in my being asked to prepare and deliver material on the same subject. Consequently, the original writer/speaker’s MS appears in the book of the lectures and mine does not appear: Religion and Morality—From God or Man? ed. David P. Brown (Spring, TX: Contending for the Faith.). The foregoing MS is a transcription of my lecture.]
Attribution: From TheScripturecache.com, Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
