The Moral Freefall of Today’s American Universities
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CBN.com – (CBN News) - Many of America's leading universities were started by Christians as places to teach the Bible, train students for the ministry, and nurture the values needed to strengthen America. But today, things are very different. On many college campuses, professors are teaching a radical left-wing anti-American point of view.
There is no question that leftist views have infiltrated our colleges and universities. But what most people may not know, is just how far left the pendulum has swung.
Ben Shapiro is a recent graduate from UCLA. He is also the youngest syndicated columnist in the United States. What he says has crept into American universities is astonishing.
Sharpiro said, "You go on campus, you pick up the campus newspaper and see editorials comparing Ariel Sharon to Adolf Eichmann. And then you walk outside class and you see the Muslim Student Association handing out pamphlets actively fundraising for Hamas and Hezbollah, and you figure, boy, I better do something about this."
When he tried to do something, he was fired from the UCLA Daily Bruin, the campus' newspaper.
Shapiro commented, "It had something to do with insensitivity, they actually later would claim that I was a racist for attempting to expose the fact that student dollars were going to the promotion of terrorism."
So how did our colleges and universities become havens for anti-American thought and rhetoric?
Some say the Leftist agenda that is running rampant today got its roots in the 1960s. The radicals of the Sixties Revolution are the same men and women at the head of our educational institutions and are in charge of shaping the minds of our young people today.
And it is not just anti-Americanism that has escalated. Just look at this list of courses taught at some of America's top universities:
At Columbia, Sorcery and Magic
At Dartmouth, Queer Theory, Queer Texts
At Cornell, Gay Fiction
At Swarthmore, Lesbian Novels Since World War II
At the University of Wisconsin, Goddesses and Feminine Powers
And, at the University of Pennsylvania, Feminist Critique of Christianity,
to name just a few.
In his new book, "Freefall of the American University: How Our Colleges are Corrupting the Minds and Morals of the Next Generation", Jim Nelson Black says it will take a massive uprising of concerned citizens, students, parents and allies to turn the situation around. Black spoke with Pat Robertson recently about his book, and the affects that this distorted curriculum is having on America’s youth.
PAT ROBERTSON: With us now to talk about what seems to be the nonsense that is permeating many of our institutions of higher learning is Dr. Jim Black. He is a distinguished scholar and author of many books. His recent book is called “Free Fall of the American University.” Jim, good to have you here.
JIM BLACK: Thank you. My pleasure to be here.
ROBERTSON: Free fall? That means free fall, nothing catching it.
BLACK: Right. I think we are in that state, Pat. It may be a shocking word to use, but, in fact, universities have been going downhill for the past 30 years. It started in the 1960s, but in the 1970s it went underground. We thought that when the riots ended, that perhaps the dangers went away. But the dangers are now worse, because they are now ideological dangers and philosophical dangers, and ideas that crept in, especially from France. Things like postmodernism and moral relativism. Now it has seeped into every course, and in every curriculum in the university campuses.
ROBERTSON: What are they teaching at these secular universities? I was watching a couple of interviews with Tom Wolfe, who’s written a book essentially on the sexual morality and other things about the current crop of college students. What are they teaching?
BLACK: Well, basically, what they are not teaching are the things you and I learned at college. They are not teaching freshman English nor American history, nor basic mathematics and science. They are teaching radical courses about sexuality, and benign courses on vampires and the undead. That is actually the name of one course.
ROBERTSON: Teaching them about vampires! That’s ridiculous. A college course?
BLACK: Precisely. But mom and dad don't realize what the students are learning.
ROBERTSON: Well, not only mom and dad, but big-buck donors who are funding Yale and Harvard and Princeton don't know it.
BLACK: That’s right. And that is where the answer has to come from. Mom and dad and the donors, and the students who are going to be enrolling nest semester.
ROBERTSON: Vampires…
BLACK: It is in the book. I could give you the name of it. It is a major university like Cornell that is teaching a course like that.
ROBERTSON: Why would anybody in higher education want to teach children about vampires? I mean, vampires.
BLACK: Juggling. The Physics of Juggling is a course that is being offered, and the University of Michigan offers a course on how to be gay. So there are things that are definitely shocking.
ROBERTSON: Well, that is an eye opener, isn't it? Boy. Well, what are the professors doing to indoctrinate the students? Are they just allowing the students to express themselves as they will, or is there thought control?
BLACK: Well, certainly in the humanities and sociology departments, Pat, the agenda is political, from day one. We have stories in the book about students who began the first day of class with the professor saying, “How many of you voted for George Bush?” Two or three brave students raised their hands. Then he said, “How can you be such an idiot?” And then he proceeds to indoctrinate the class to this liberal bias.
ROBERTSON: The Marxists back in the 1930s used to go after capitalism, the American way, and Russians were better and Communism was better. Then Communism fell, and they said that the only people who believed in Marxism were college professors caught in the 1960's time warp. And they’re still there. But their warp has changed. It is not Marxism anymore, is it?
BLACK: It is. In fact, Marxism is the controlling doctrine on the university campus today. Capitalism is negative to most university professors; I would say 60 percent of them, as Marxism was 30 years ago.
ROBERTSON: And what about this whole sexual revolution that seems to be so prevalent in college?
BLACK: I think this is what is so troubling to me, Pat, because it is actually taking the lives of our students. As many as 70 percent of college students are sexually active today; as many as half of those, or more, have STD's and many of them don't know it.
ROBERTSON: Back up. 70 percent are sexually active, and of that 70 percent, half of them have sexually transmitted diseases?
BLACK: That's correct.
ROBERTSON: And they are unaware of what they’ve got?
BLACK: Many of them don’t know it. And sometimes that can be AIDS and HIV.
ROBERTSON: They are carriers?
BLACK: Even at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, and other universities that I talk about in this book, and interviews I have done on those campuses, ‘hooking up’ is the new fad. That means having sex with anybody, any time, and you try not to know the name of the person with whom you’re having a relationship.
ROBERTSON: Jim, say that again?
BLACK: Are we shocked?
ROBERTSON: I am totally shocked. You know, again, Tom Wolfe. He is a pretty good author. He said these girls have these diaries with codes, and they rate the guy they are having sex with, and put code letters down as to what kind of stuff they did while they were hooking up.
BLACK: Right. Tom Wolfe's novel could be a documentary, it is so close to the facts. He spent four years getting information to write that novel and it is shockingly true. If you think it is just fiction, think again.
ROBERTSON: These are the future leaders of this nation.
BLACK: Yes, that is what scares me. Of the four candidates that ran in the 2004 presidential elections, three are former Yale students. Yale, Harvard, Princeton – these universities are right in the midst of this cultural mix.
ROBERTSON: What can we do to change it?
BLACK: Well, mom and dad and the students have to get active. Those people who are funding it, including the federal government, giving billions of dollars to these universities, need to say enough is enough.
ROBERTSON: “Freefall of the American University.” James Nelson Black. A wonderful author and a dear friend. Thank you for your work.
BLACK: Thank you, Pat. Thank you so much. |
