Below is my column in the New York Post on a growing crisis in higher education as enrollments and trust falls. Despite these trends, administrators and faculty appear entirely oblivious and unrepentant. They continue to alienate many in the country who view schools as pursuing indoctrination rather than education.
Here is the slightly expanded column:
In the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht asked āWhat if they gave a war and nobody came?āĀ As someone who has been a teacher for over 30 years, I find myself increasingly asking the same question as trust and enrollments fall in higher education.
Trust in higher education is plummeting to record lows. According to recent polling, there has been a record drop in trust in higher education since just 2015. Not surprisingly, given the growing viewpoint intolerance on our campuses, the largest drops are among Republicans and Independents.
There has been a precipitous decline in enrollments across the country as universities worry about covering their costs without raising already high tuition rates. From 2010 to 2021, enrollments fell from roughly 18.1 million students to about 15.4 million.
There are various contributors to the drop from falling birthrates to poor economic times. However, there is also an increasing view of higher education as an academic echo chamber for far left agendas. For many, there is little appeal in going to campuses where you are expected to self-censor and professors reject your values as part of their lesson plans.
That fear is magnified by surveys showing that many departments have purged their ranks of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians.
In my new bookĀ āThe Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,ā I discuss the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculties replicate their own views and values.
One survey (based on self-reporting) foundĀ that only nine percent of law professors identified as conservative.
Some anti-free speech advocates are actually citing higher education as a model for social media in showing how “unlikeable voices” have been eliminated.
Many of those “unlikeable” people are now going elsewhere as schools focus on degrees in activism and denouncing math, statistics, the classics, and even meritocracy as examples of white privilege.
Schools offering classic education are experiencing rising enrollments, but the growing crisis has not changed the bias in hiring and teaching. Despite repeated losses in courts, universities and colleges continue to deny free speech and diversity of thought.
The fact is that this academic echo chamber may be killing educational institutions, but the intolerance still works to the advantage of faculty who can control publications, speaking opportunities, and advancement with like-minded ideologues.
We have seen the same perverse incentive in the media where media outlets are seeing plummeting readers and revenue. Journalism schools and editors now maintain that reporters should reject objectivity and neutrality as touchstones of journalism.
It does not matter that this advocacy journalism is killing the profession. Reporters and editors continue to saw at the limb upon which they sit due to the same advantage for academics. For reporters, converting newsrooms into echo chambers gives them more security, advancement, and opportunities.
Recently, the new Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis was brought into the paper to right the ship. He told the staff “letās not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I canāt sugarcoat it anymore.ā
The response from reporters was to call for owner Jeff Bezos to fire Lewis and others seeking to change the culture. The Post has been eliminating positions and just implemented another round of layoffs to address the budget shortfalls.
In the meantime, trust in the media is at record lows — paralleling the polling on higher eduction. The result is the rise of new media as people turn to blogs and other sources for their news.
The same phenomenon is occurring in academia. People are now evading campuses with online programs. For those of us who believe in brick and mortar educational institutions, we may be watching a death spiral for some universities and colleges as administrators and faculty treat their students as a captive audience for their ideological agendas.
In the meantime, alternative educational opportunities are seeing a rapid rise. Take the Catherine Project, a project started four years ago, to offer free discussions of classic works that is also free from ideological indoctrination. The project has reportedly doubled in size since 2022.
With online educational technology, universities and colleges no longer have a monopoly on education. People have choices and they are increasingly choosing alternatives. To paraphrase Lewis, “letās not sugarcoat it…People are not [buying our] stuff.”
We are killing our institutions through an abundance of ideology and a paucity of courage. Recently, interim Columbia President Katrina Armstrong actually apologized to students who took over and trashed a building in pro-Palestinian protests.
During the protests, a Jewish Columbia professor was blocked by the school from going on campus because he might trigger anti-Semitic students. Yet, Armstrong apologized for the alleged abuse of police and the role of the university in allowing them to be harmed, adding “I know it wasnāt me, but Iām really sorry.ā¦ I saw it, and Iām really sorry.”
Like many conservatives and libertarians, Jewish students and families are now reportedly looking for alternatives to schools like Columbia.
What is clear is that many administrators and departments will continue to bar opposing views and maintain the academic echo chamber. Many have tenure and expect to ride out the decline of their institutions while enjoying the acclaim of being academic crusaders. Of course, it will become increasingly hard to be social warriors if you hold a war and nobody comes.
JonathanĀ TurleyĀ is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of āTheĀ IndispensableĀ Right: Free Speech in an Age of RageāĀ
I do not have kids, but if I did, I would NOT send them to university. I would encourage trade schools and tech schools instead. They would come out not only debt free, but actually earning money in a trade. And they would not be indoctrinated. Higher education today is a joke. A woke joke at that.
the woke jokes need to take a deep sleep.
You say, this morning you woke, deep in a sheep?
Two distinct types of people attend college, those with a specific goal in mind, and those that attend for other reasons. The first type will always want to attend, because they want the knowledge only to be found there. They are focused and goal driven. Majoring in engineering, science, accounting, law, and the like may be among their goals. The second type have vague ideas just what college can do for them. They are highly susceptible to professorial influences, particularly of the political variety. They seek out the “easy” professors, and easy courses. They want the degree, perhaps as a badge, or vaguely for a good job. This may be more likely to be swayed in other, noncollegiate directions – with the right pay scale.
“Of course, it will become increasingly hard to be social warriors if you hold a war and nobody comes.”
–JT
Ah yes, I remember it well. The old anti-war slogan from the Vietnam War protests…
“The anti-war slogan āSuppose they gave a War and Nobody Cameā was the title of a 1966 essay by Charlotte Keys, the mother of an activist son was imprisoned for refusing to serve after being drafted, that was published in McCallās magazine. The 1970 comedy āSuppose They Gave a War and Nobody Cameā was a cinematic depiction of the tension between the World War II generation and the anti-war movement of the 1960s in the US.”
https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2014/12/02/what-if-there-was-a-war-but-nobody-came/
“Schools offering classic education are experiencing rising enrollments, but the growing crisis has not changed the bias in hiring and teaching. Despite repeated losses in courts, universities and colleges continue to deny free speech and diversity of thought.”
–JT
To that point, I submit that this is but one linkage that supports the Professor’s statement above about the continued bias in hiring and teaching.
āHow Higher Ed Is Rebranding DEI Departmentsā ā Our Study On How Schools Are Evading DEI Cutbacks”
–Posted by William A. Jacobson Wednesday, September 18, 2024 at 09:00pm
“Over the last year and a half several states have taken action against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) on college campuses. But banning something never results in its eradication. A year ago, we wrote about this problem ā that DEI isnāt going away, itās just going underground. Whether campuses are renaming their DEI offices, or moving administrators into other departments to do the same work, DEI still exists.”
“CriticalRace.org, a project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, was launched in February 2021 to document the spread of Critical Race Theory in higher education.”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/09/how-higher-ed-is-rebranding-dei-departments-our-study-on-how-schools-are-evading-dei-cutbacks/
Professor Turley,
The link you provided suggests that the drop in enrollment can be entirely explained by declining birth rates.
Enrollment dropped 15% between 2010 and 2021. Birth rates dropped 23% between 2007 and 2023.
This is all a result of WWII’s generational effects. The Boomers birthed a lot more Millenials than Gen X birthed Gen Z kids.
Tying this to politics is just fueling your age of rage. Political bias in higher education has been a constant and is certainly not the proximate cause of declining enrollment.
“Birth rates dropped 23% between 2007 and 2023”
Why dont you tell us why the birth rates between 2007 and 2023 have a goddam thing to do with college enrollment, spastic?
Last I looked, there weren’t too many kids aged 1 to 16 in college.
Give the phone back to your mom and leave the conversation to the adults.
How about if universities had to use their endowments to guarantee the loans of their students? Then perhaps they wouldn’t be so eager to hand out worthless degrees with worthless majors and focus on the purpose of higher education: to prepare students for a prosperous and meaningful career.
I would go a step further. University endowments should be used to payoff college student loan debt, not the US taxpayer. College student loan debt should be added up and apportioned to individual colleges based upon the value of their endowments, irrespective of whether a student attended that particular school. That way the āricherā colleges could then āpay their fair shareā.
My 16 year old has his mind set on UC Santa Barbara. We’ve taken the Ephesians 6 approach to prepare him for the world.
Therfore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
His entire K-12 education will be private, Christian schools. He is solidly conservative and we often discuss politics, policy, rights and our nation’s founding. Sadly, we are still concerned that is not enough to prepare him for what is to come.
You have given and shown us many reasons why we should believe that you and your spouse have done a tremendous job in raising godly children. Suggestion: have your son read St Augustine’s Confessions.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen on parenting:
The Duty of Parents
There are no juvenile delinquents; there are only delinquent parents. The Fourth Commandment, āHonor thy father and thy mother,ā is hardly ever quoted today as the means of restoring domestic peace. If discipline in the home is neglected, it is rarely made up for later….
This tremendous responsibility never means that parents, when their children do wrong, should provoke them to wrath, for wrath leads to discouragement. Parents hold the place of God in the house. If they act as tyrants they will develop unconsciously anti-religious sentiments in their children. Children love approbation and can be easily cast down into despair when blamed excessively for trivial faults. With great difficulty can children ever be taught the Love and Mercy of God, if His vice-regents in the home act without and are so difficult to please.
āTrain up the child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.ā
As the twig is bent, so is the tree. It is interesting when one sees children, to speculate from the way they act as to the kind of homes from which they come. As one can judge the vitality of a tree from the fruit it produces, so one can tell the character of the parents from their children.
The present tendency is to shift responsibility to the school. But it must be remembered that education will make as much difference to a child as soil and air and sunshine do. A seed will grow better in one soil and climate than in another, but the kind of tree that grows depends on the kind of seed that is sowed. Then too, one must inquire if education is of the mind alone, or also of the will. Knowledge is in the mind; character is in the will. To pour knowledge into the mind of a child, without disciplining his will to goodness, is like putting a rifle into the hands of a child. Without education of the mind a child could be a stupid devil. With education of the mind, but not love of goodness, a child could grow up to be a clever devil.
Even in their early failures, the parents are not to be discouraged, remembering that fifteen centuries ago when the heart of a mother was broken for her wanton boy, St. Ambrose said to her: āFear not, Monica; the child of so many tears cannot perish.ā That vain and wanton boy grew up to be the great and learned St. Augustine, whose āConfessionsā everyone ought to read before he dies.
https://catholicgentleman.com/2015/10/fultonfridays-the-duty-of-parents/
From Way to Happiness by Fulton J. Sheen (Garden City Books, 1949).
a href=”https://fulton-sheen.catholic.edu/bio/index.html”>Regarding Abp Fulton Sheen
Thank you Estovir. I will certainly take the opportunity to read it.
Just keep him away from private encounters with Catholic priests.
Just keep him away from private encounters with Catholic priests.
Sounds like a deflection posted by an Anonymous unionized public school teacher pedophile and atheist:
Students In Unionized Public Schools Have A 10% Rate Of Being Sexually Abused By Teachers
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/07/10/forbidden_fruit_and_the_classroom_the_huge_american_sex-abuse_scandal_that_educators_scandalously_hush_up_1042969.html?mc_cid=0d79030f05&mc_eid=febb5a4d8f
Unionized Public School Pedophile Sex Abuse: It’s Pass the Trash, Not Catch the Trash
https://www.nheri.org/child-abuse-of-public-school-private-school-and-homeschool-students-evidence-philosophy-and-reason/
Oh my. Are you prepared for a possible ‘I hate everything you stand for!’ moment at Christmas dinner his freshman year? Or will you, like, disown him?
Point to the doll and tell us where they touched you: P Diddy (defended by Kamala), Jeffrey Epstein (protected by Democrat DOJ), Sen. Al Franken, Rep. John Conyers (defended by Nancy Pelosi), Harvey Weinstein (defended by all Democrats and Hollywood liberals), Leon Wieseltier, Louis C.K., Anthony Weiner, Bill Clinton (defended by Feminazis and Democrats), ….the list is too long to mention the threat Democrats to women and children
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/28/16704580/democrats-sexual-harassment-conyers-franken-moore
Thanks for the incoherence. Staff will be by shortly with the appropriate meds.
Or will you, like, disown him?
He’s not my property, he’s my son…prodigal or not. Anyway, all we can do is armor him up and we’ve still got 2 years before he heads out for college.
Olly, I donāt know the nature of his education or the education that will follow. Still, from experience, I saw problems with some kids brought up in a positive, closed environment because when the valve was opened, some good kids exploded.
Kids are unpredictable since the best description of a schizophrenic might be a typical teenager.
Point taken SM. He has a lot of wisdom for a 16 year old. Of course he still makes typical teenager (bad) choices, but not on big things. There’s a great book that I highly recommend called Raising a Modern Day Knight. He’s had several men involved as mentors to him and I for their sons. From Spec Ops, commercial and military pilots, Investment Advisors, Security Consultants and Pastors. All of these young men will continue to achieve milestones well into adulthood and beyond. Part of the process of raising these “modern day knights” is to continue to track their progress and celebrate those achievements. He’s in good hands.
OLLY,
Sounds like you have done a very good job at providing him with the tools he will need as an adult.
Thank you for the kind words Upstate. I have two older children in their mid-30’s and my approach for them was completely different. Fortunately, their mother was the primary parent as I spent a lot of time deployed.
“Point taken SM. He has a lot of wisdom for a 16 year old. Of course he still makes typical teenager (bad) choices, but not on big things.ā
Olly, I expect the outcomes for your children to have the best probability of success. You are well grounded and of excellent temperament. My kids all did well, but I saw failures in their peers, including some with excellent parents. So far, I am lucky with my grandchildren as well, but I know that with everything else, one has to have a bit of luck. Thanks for the book review.
I’ve followed your contributions on here for years. I’m not surprised your children and grandchildren are successful.
It’s noteworthy that the Leftists on this blog never have anything to say about how their worldview has benefitted their lives or that of their children.
It’s clearly a miserable existence that leaves them desperate to drag others into.
Thanks.
The folks on the left, with a miserable existence and vacuous life, suffer from envy, excessive pride, and arrogance. They hate success if it isnāt theirs and are generous only when the money comes in their direction.
“. . . UC Santa Barbara . . .”
Went there, then transferred away.
Tell him to be very wary of their humanities and social sciences. They are particularly propagandistic and noxious.
Jon…how many of your fellow professors are republican?
OT but related, 99 College Campuses Closed in the Past YearāIs Yours Next?
“Because of financial struggles and decreasing enrollments, smaller colleges and regional campuses are shutting down”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/99-colleges-campuses-closed-over-the-past-year-is-yours-next-5727452?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge&src_src=partner&src_cmp=ZeroHedge
Turley wonāt like this comment very much but so what. He makes a good point in the growing irrelevancy of higher education but he has his own profession to blame for this and the ārageā and other antisocial responses the field of law has spawned.
To begin with, a law degree today costs about two hundred thousand dollars, give or take a hundred thousand. Some schools have dropped the LSAT and other āracistā poll taxes for admission so if you have the money or the credit to get student loans, whammo, you can be a lawyer. And donāt worry about grades, some schools have also dropped them. VPOTUS Harris became a state attorney general even though she failed the California bar exam the first time around. Itās nice to have privilege and be unburdened by what has been.
But thatās not where it ends. After becoming a member of this exclusive and privileged club, a lawyer must ask a court for permission to practice her profession. The rules pertaining to this are very clear in excluding non-lawyers from pursuing anything other than their own suits. Pro se, itās called. Judges and real lawyers laugh at pro se plaintiffs, often bullying them into one-sided summary judgments or flummoxing them with regulatory and procedural gobbledygook to run the clock or win the contest.
When it comes to our government being of the people, for the people, and by the people, that pertains only to two branches: the Executive Branch and the Congress. The judicial branch is a private club whose dues are more than the average person can afford, even, assuming, that the average person would be allowed to join.
Yes, a lot of what we are seeing today with higher education is self-defeating. Liberal professors run their clubs for members only and non-members are shunned or worse, threatened with extinction. Lawyers are taught that winning by any means has become the rule of the profession and those who are not members of the club must be destroyed. It may be time for change.
The subject question is a very good one, and I do not regard it as at all rhetorical (I’m not entirely certain whether Prof. Turley does or not). Our two sons (now middle-aged), both quite intelligent, elected to acquire technical education outside of the traditional college environment (even though we were prepared to do whatever it took to send them to college), and both have fared quite well in their chosen careers, even before taking the lack of loans requiring repayment into account. It is beginning to appear as if our five grandchildren, who are, if anything, even more intelligent, will make similar choices, in spite of the fact that we have a generous college fund set up for them. No matter what ultimately becomes of that money, the woke jacka**** currently running these institutions are unlikely to ever see a penny of it.
I will NEVER Trust NYT, WAPO, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS….they have lied for DECADES!
I am fine with 50% of colleges disappearing…as 50% of what they teach is garbage! Gender Studies, feminist history, etc?
I have a ringside seat at one of the top small colleges in NY…sadly we allowed our child to go there. There are many very smart kids, but they are lead by lunatics!
The college president told the parents at parents weekend after The Supreme Court Ruled using Race for admission was illegal, that they WOULD IGNORE that and Continue to use RACE for admission! They KNOW they are breaking the LAW and PUSHING HATRED AND DEI… THEY WORK with STUDENTS to NOT REPAY LOANS.
It is a MAFIA…but much bigger and much more HARMFUL TO THE USA.
That College President was selected to Co President of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education after his statement!
ignorance is bliss
@guy
Yes, but they used to lie only some of the time. They are full blown Pravda now, nothing accurate or true is purveyed, as are our universities, and increasingly, our primary schools.
If ever there was a time to walk away from the mainstream, it’s now. I stopped watching/reading the MSM in the late 90s.
“If ever there was a time to walk away from the mainstream, itās now. I stopped watching/reading the MSM in the late 90s”
I pared down my “conventional”news consumption to a single daily browse of Google News headlines sometime in the 90s. It was quite biased even then, but the spin was easier to spot, and I would then go read alternate takes on current events of importance at sites such as Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor site (jerrypournelle.com) and Wendy McElroy’s libertarian/minarchist sites (her latest, which seems about to vanish, site is wendymcelroy.com). Long before that (before the advent of the Web, actually) I was a regular on the Byte Information Exchange (BIX) where opinions on just about anything from folks who, for the most part, were principal technologists driving the nascent personal computer industry at the time, and were nearly all way smarter than I am, were abundant. Usenet. although more variable, also had some very good forums going at one time (think “reddit” with far smarter, better informed posters, and far less attitude). There were a number of other worthwhile sites as well, but those are the examples I remember as the best. Unfortunately, nearly all of the web-based sources for intelligent, alternative interpretations of current events have blown away like dust in the wind. I’m certain that was not in any way an accidental development.
Oops! Looks like Google News started in 2002, so most likely it was the America Online news aggregator page (I was an AOL subscriber at the time.
How about we make college for smart people again? Remove Government funding and backing of loans. I have visited many of the top colleges in the mid and north east.
The focus is all about division and feminists garbage! The buildings are luxury and amenities are ridiculous …all you can eat sushi? They have 1000’s of staffers who focus is anything but learning…safe spaces, gender, DEI promotions, most courses are idiotic. JUST End All Federal Aid to colleges, cities, states, non-profits…it is just being used to push America DOWN!
Also if the non-profit college pays anyone $100,000 or more…THEY SHOULD PAY ALL TAXES…there is NO reason Harvard and Yale should be consider tax free non-profits!
The smarter kids will still go to college and FUND it at its value! Which is about 50% of current costs….top schools are $100,000!
Community College mostly exist because High Schools FAIL…hold them accountable! Cut 30% of pay if the school doesn’t meet goals. BAN PUBLIC UNIONS…they are destroying the lower education system!
The voices being silenced are the nuanced ones who piece together liberal goals for society (e.g. more thoroughly integrated social networks) with conservative principles (post-racial meritocracy).
Leftists give plenty of bandwidth to the most strident, conservative ideas through pernicious oppo-branding. The media craves gripping conflict theatrics, and so on any particular issue, cherry-picks opposing end-points as the ones to cover. This floods the public square with a forced false-choice (dichotomization trap). Those who are good at nuance (creative synthesis) are simply ignored. This is why nothing is getting done politically.
The latest example is what to do about the Senate filibuster. Because it came up in regards to Harris’ comment about abortion legislation, and the swift counter-position taken up by Republicans, your choices are either to 1) accept the “1 Senator” filibuster which can block a bipartisan consensus from ability to legislate, or 2) completely eliminating a check on one-party rule. In other words, the choice is between getting nothing done legislatively of any significance vs. oscillating ping-pong policy gyrations based on which party currently holds the Senate gavel.
Completely shrouded by this dichotomization trap is the fact that the current filibuster is not the traditional “talking filibuster”. That gave the fringe minority a tactic to delay votes, but you had to stand in the well and continue talking.
What happened? C-SPAN TV coverage. That level of visibility was not desired by the Senators filibustering. So, it became a silent filibuster, where you merely tell the Senate party leadership of your decision to withhold your vote to end debate, even though there’s no debate holding up a floor vote. In this way, you avoid casting a public vote on a bill. You gum up the democratic decisionmaking process, but outside the public’s view.
Lost in this battle between the 2 most extreme positions are middle-ground improvements. For example, why 60 votes for cloture? Why not 55? Or, why not bring back the talking filibuster, so the public can see for themselves exactly who is gumming up the works, and decide if that stridency is in their interest?
We have many more choices than media conflict-framing currently allows. The voices behind those choices are the ones being silenced. The most resolute fringe voices get air time, even though it boils down to “I could never agree to anything “they” want”.
Why is doing less bad? (Federal government)
Government acted and prevented a lot of gas production. Was that good?
Government acted and passed Obamacare which caused prices to rise and hard working people to pay more than before. Was that good?
Government supplied money to Iran. Was that good?
The federal government should be small with a much lower budget. That will prevent the polarization you talk about. The federal government should stick to its given roles. Maybe with less garbage flying around it could perform those roles better and save money.
Of course enrollment is on the decline. Who wants to pay their good money or go into massive debt to get indoctrinated? Some of these so-called professors think there are some ninety seven different sexes. Once someone who was a professor was someone to be respected. Now, often they are leftist loons with some rare exceptions. Estovir posted a op-ed by Dr. Amy Wax would be one of those exceptions. We need more like her, and less of these leftists.
The question is, when the money stops coming in, will those leftists do something about it? Or double down until ruin? I hope the latter.
OT but related, recently a report came out showing six of ten Gen Z grads have been fired by their companies within less than a year of their hire. The companies cite lack of effective communication, lack of professionalism, lack of motivation having to be told repeatedly what to do, and even chronic absence. These leftist colleges and universities may be training their students the theory but not readying them for real life in the work place. This is what leftists do. Promote failure.
Funny enough, I mentioned Dr. Amy Wax and yesterday The Free Press had an interview with her.
Penn Professor Amy Wax Punished for āInconvenient Factsā
This quote is the most important I think, āWhat do you think my reaction to it is? I think that our country and our university system are deteriorating in a very serious way. Itās becoming Third World.ā
https://www.thefp.com/p/penn-professor-amy-wax-suspended-race-free-press
As the good professor points out, not only are higher education suffering from a trust and even declining enrollment, MSM like the WaPo and NPR are laying off workers. Meanwhile, alternative media, like The Free Press, are gaining popularity and subscribers so much so, they have the capital to hire more reporters, editors and offer fellowships. I just re-newed my subscription to The Free Press.
@Upstate
Precisely. The alternatives are beginning to succeed; why else the onslaught against free speech? We can’t stop. Support independent everything. If the fascist left won’t get out of our business, we’ll just have to do it, and while we still can. If we tip the scales enough, we have a chance (‘we’ being everyone that isn’t a modern progressive and can see true liberalism is just about dead).
Why are we addressing them as āwoke and far leftā? Are we lying to ourselves to soften the reality that Marxist communist are teaching our children, working in our government and dominating our press? Today we donāt speak much about the disastrous life under communism since the Berlin Wall was dropped. The young who were forced to live under communism were taught lies, those who protested disappeared and all lived liked dogs. Itās time to name the snake.
“Why are we addressing them as āwoke and far leftā? Are we lying to ourselves to soften the reality that Marxist communist are teaching our children, working in our government and dominating our press?”
Collectivism/Marxism/communism is the disease, “woke” and (less distinctly), “far left” are some of the more recent symptoms.
The new CEO of Washington Post, is refreshing, if he stays, he was brought in to make money and expand readership vs the WOKE, tool of the Dem Party/Washington Elites. Tuff for the staff and reporters that do not like the change from Far Left writings etc. This is needed to be done in colleges and etc. Return to neutral position and real learning.
“The new CEO of Washington Post, is refreshing, if he stays, he was brought in to make money and expand readership vs the WOKE, tool of the Dem Party/Washington Elites. ”
Talk is cheap, and currently discounted from even its usual value. Let’s wait and see if this change actually impacts WAPO’s “reporting” and editorial content, or if it proves to be pure bovine excrement intended to buy a respite in negative PR and mollify stakeholders. My suspicions are that the latter hypothesis will prove valid.
yawn….99% of staff are hardcore Democrats who support the open destruction of America…pro drugs, illegals, infinite debt, crime, DEI, etc
It used to be that illegals who snuck over the border did so in order to better their lives, provide for their families, work, assimilate. Many are still of that variety. The Left prefers the degenerate, parasitic type, who come here not to enjoy freedoms, but to feed on the host and exploit its vulnerabilities. These remain reliably Democrat. The Left has been drastically importing those for the last four years. As a result, Academia and the mainstream media have lost significant market share in the America-hating industry. They no longer have a monopoly on it.
Small quibble, ” They no longer have a monopoly on it”. But they still control the purse strings and that is where the power and control remain. Until that control is ended any corrections will be at the margins.
“The Left prefers the degenerate, parasitic type, who come here not to enjoy freedoms, but to feed on the host and exploit its vulnerabilities.”
What, you don’t think that Tren de Aragua members are coming here with the intention to become productive members of US society?
Actually this is easy for me. Let it run its course. Those that change and get away from the agenda driven education will eventually push out the truly bad institution whether they are right or left focused. Lots of damage will be done in the meantime, but, the change will happen. At some point, the message will become clear. Remember, the message is already dying. How? Easy with all of the public discourse leaning only one way, half the country is still not listening. That means the message is either not getting through or being ignored if heard. This is a reverse of the 1960ās with the pendulum swinging to far the other way. It will swing back to the center.
” Those that change and get away from the agenda driven education will eventually push out the truly bad institution whether they are right or left focused.”
Your scenario presupposes an actual competitive environment for funding. If the left wins in November, and the wokistas continue or increase their dominance in DC, any private funding (including tuition) shortfalls to the institutions that are not academically competitive will just be made up by more and more subsidies.
The Quiet Man,
I mostly agree with you about the pendulum swinging. What I fear is, as we have seen, these leftist loons are extremely hyper emotional, giving in to their ID like six year olds. It may take giving them a good spanking to get them to snap out of their tantrums and grow up.
Quiet Man, I am not sure about your optimism. There comes a point when the battle is actually over and the war won. We are losing the battle, or should I say the battles when you consider education, the medical profession, the legal profession, the journalism “profession” and the major power centers in our government.
Once we get to a tipping point it may be too late. What happens after they weaken our military to a point where we have to appease China? What happens when our economy gets so weak that we have to stop being a force for good in the world? What happens when nations like the Philippines, Japan and Australia realize that they may be better off cozying up with China? What happens when Israel is wiped out by Iran and there isn’t anything we can do? What happens when we have 10 million illegals arrive for the next 4 years under a Harris presidency? What happens when we no longer produce enouhg energy for us and the west?
Every thing the left does is done in order to weaken us against our enemy. In the 70s and 80s it was anti-nuke because it assisted the Soviets and today it is THE CLIMATE because it weakens us vis a vis the CCP. Notice they never march at the Chinese Embassies, Chinese run businesses or Chinese power centers.
They want us weaker militarily, weaker energy wise, weaker morally and weaker through illegal immigration and crime. They are winning and this election is vital.
@Quiet Man
I think that time has passed. If the left are successful in fully implementing their agenda, there won’t BE alternatives (see their veracity in going after something as minor as Twitter/X). Alas, the free market also hangs by a thread. The COVID lockdowns are all the evidence necessary to see what they are willing to do.
There is zero room for sidelining much of anything now, IMO; we can’t afford to.
Even in the portion of the educational world that lacks walls, there is significant leftist bias. Google posts leftist sites to the top of every search query. An Internet searcher who wants to find conservative, or at least, neutral sources, must make the effort to scroll past many pages of search results.
You are right. A Google employee and I sat together on a flight some years ago. He jokingly said one could hide a dead body on page 2 and it would not be found.
“one could hide a dead body on page 2 and it would not be found.”
I do blame Google for that, but I blame the users performing searches even more. Before the advent of the web, how common was it to find the correct and complete answer to a complex question in the introduction or TOC of one text book? Google’s biases and lack of diligence are greatly compounded by the indolence of those searching.
I know that the fellow travelers in Congress talk about enforceable codes of conduct (for everyone but themselves), but perhaps it’s time for state legislatures to do the same for publicly funded colleges universities that fail to protect free speech and thought.
“The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.” (Carl Sagan)
Carl Sagan would not have been hired by Cornell today.
You’re not wrong
Poor Carl Sagan would have sipped the cool-aid and ended up just like Neil deGrasse Tyson, a PBS supported leftist fool.
I liked Sagan and I hate to say it, but he made hos money on PBS and PBS does not allow for any dissent from the leftist, radical insanity.
Try comparing Carl Sagan vs Neil Tyson DeGrasse…. Sagan was rejected for professorship at Harvard because he had too many good ideas….NTG was courted to Harvard because well you know.
NTG headed building the hayden planetarium at NY Museum of Natural History and do TV…as he isn’t a particular good astronomer or have top ideas.
Sagan courted NTG when he was young…but Harvard got him…and made him a second rate scientist with no real accomplishments beyond being a presenter and figure head.