Ali Malekzadeh, president of Chicago’s Roosevelt University, has joined the “My Bad” School of Higher Education. In criticizing the election results, Malekzadeh is only the latest academic leader first to discard core principles of neutrality and inclusion and then offer a shrugging apology.After the GOP election victories, various university presidents and academic leaders denounced the results, and some pledged to join “the resistance.”Wesleyan University President Michael Roth was, if nothing else, honest. He called for universities to openly support Kamala Harris and resist Trump.Others signaled that they were appalled by the majority of voters in this country and then asked for forgiveness. This includes the heads of academic journals. The most bizarre was Laura Helmuth, the editor-in-chief, of Scientific American who posted a profanity-laced attack on the majority who voted for Trump and the Republicans. She then asked people to disregard her diatribe (She later resigned).It is obviously a complete jettisoning of the core political neutrality expected from presidents, and some, after currying favor with the political left, issued perfunctory apologies.
According to Campus Reform, after the election, Malekzadeh wrote, “Like many of you, I am discouraged by the final results and disheartened that many voters selected a candidate who casts aside unity and empathy in favor of divisiveness and fear.”
He denounced the “alarming trend” of not “welcom[ing] new immigrants,” “romanticizing the past” instead of “look[ing] forward,” and moving away from “reinforc[ing] democratic norms.”
This was an official statement coming from a university president to all faculty, students, and staff. Even in the solidly democratic Illinois, roughly 44 percent reportedly supported Trump. Harris won the state by roughly 55 percent. That means many voters associated with Roosevelt University likely voted for the GOP, particularly those on the Schaumburg campus.
These university statements are usually the subject of considerable drafting and editing. They are not simply dashed off like a posting on X. Malekzadeh was fully aware of the criticism of bias and intolerance at universities and the deep divisions in this election. However, he chose to pander to one side and then offer a muttering “my bad” response to criticism.
Malekzadeh’s biography states that he is “passionate about women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, [and] affirmative action.” That is all well and good. However, as university president, he is tasked with representing all those who teach, work, and learn at his institution.
Malekzadeh must have known that his statement would thrill the left and alienate the right. He is not a clueless halfwit. He did it anyway and then asked for forgiveness. In that way, he showed the flag to the political left while maintaining the pretense of regret.
Imagine if a president issued statements after the election praising Trump and celebrating the rejection of liberal policies on immigration or transgender issues. The response would be overwhelming and likely result in removals. No shrugged apology would suffice.
The message to all those who voted for the GOP could not be more clear. They are not particularly welcomed in the “inclusive environment” described by Malekzadeh. Like most universities in the country, the sense of orthodoxy and intolerance is unmistakable and unavoidable.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Throughout all of this discussion, here and in media about the downfall of the American education system, and few if any see the connection to Marxist ideological infiltration of our societal, cultural, and infrastructural entities, if not the government itself!?! Good luck fixing that by focusing exclusively on the American politic.
“Harris won the state by roughly 55 percent.”
I think this meant to say Harris won “with” 55%, because otherwise it’s like the following algebra problem: if x + y equals 100% and x – y = 55%, then what percentage did Harris get?
X+y=100. X+(-y)=100.
There’s only addition 😂
Objection. x+y=100
x=100+(-y)
X+(-y)=55
35?
Average and mean? Is that you?
* You have a point “with”. The difference between active killing and letting die. George Floyd and Chauvin is a case. If Chauvin had done nothing he would have let Floyd die. Instead Chauvin added restraint while Floyd died.
It was also Chauvin’s duty to administer Narcan. The duty may have tipped the case. All officers are designated to administer Narcan. There’s no info on that.
It’s not always apparent. Trump lost with 45%.
I am not personally surprised on this reaction by educators. I went back to college late in life. I was a married man with a child and twenty years in my field. I was looking for the paperwork to give me legitimacy and the ability to promote. I was stunned to find how petty professors can be and vindictive some of them actually turned out. I think they can become so full of themselves they actually forget there are differing opinions and those opinions can be every bit as legitimate as their own.
Now add Trump Derangement Syndrome (yes I believe it is real) and one wonders why the academics all looked unhinged. They double down because they cannot be wrong and they have the papers that say they are educated and smart. They also live in Ivory towers and only speak to each other thus reinforcing their narrow opinion. So they do not hear the other side at all. The other side must be the uneducated and hoi palloi.
The tide has turned for the time being, do not worry Professors, your day will return at some point as the pendulum swings back sometime in the future. The good ideas will survive and the bad ideas die after much destruction. Have faith Trumpism will die with Trump. Remember we did not have another Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, or Obama.
While the academics and “thinkers” believe one way and are loud, the doers and producers said the opposite louder. Maybe you need to listen and not talk so much. If nothing else is learned from this election, learn that when people are being talked at, ridiculed, laughed about, livelihood threatened, and bullied, they tend to go quiet, but their resolve does not leave, it just hardens. For those that cannot understand why they were so off of the election, maybe they should look in the mirror and get their hearing checked.
“Malekzadeh must have known that his statement would thrill the left and alienate the right. He is not a clueless halfwit.”
*****************************
Debatable
If you curtail the flow of students who lack critical thinking skills into universities by allowing separate states to create their own educational philosophy, (placing greater emphasis for many to pursue careers in the trades and other useful skills), you might find that there is a drastic decline in willing sheep to follow these radical faculty members down their dark holes of progressive, multicultural insanity.
Not that many years ago, this same crowd that Malekzadeh represents was actively backing themselves into the “forgiveness” hole by asking such for their life accomplishments acquired through ‘white privilege’. Now, they inject fierce partisan politics to the point of threatening to lead “resistance” movements in their roles as university faculty and leaders. And when confronted with the contradiction of their actions with their jobs they again ask for “forgiveness”?
If you admit you obtained your position in life by participating in racist activities and your employer is OK with that, it says much. You can seek to minimize that participation by asking “forgiveness” but “forgiveness” is likely to be granted only on the basis that you were ignorant. So now, the same ‘ignorant’ crowd wants “forgiveness” again? How much ‘ignorance’ can be tolerated in what is presumed to be well educated people before you pull the plug on their scam?
White privilege = morality
A nonsensical statement.
* it’s true and not nonsense at all… you just don’t see it. Meh
One word: “Defund”
* Of course defend of public money. Defend of foreign donors, as well. You’ll need to track it through money laundering of course.
Defund…my phone doesn’t like the word because it buys and sells speech. Some like foreign money in American education. Not a fan…
* some things aren’t for sale?
The real question is whether such statements continue to strategically align with today’s environment or whether these universities will eventually see declining enrollment. Will progressive social-justice-oriented universities driven by such divisive agitators even exist thirty or forty years from now? Amazing to me, too, that those here in America who stage such display of their “doth protest” are generally those who’ve suffered least, or, comparatively little, relative to the world stage. They exist as mere caricature of actual suffering. And more typically for money, deriving even their own existence from the donations emotionally plied via the guilt of others.
“… disheartened that many voters selected a candidate who casts aside unity and empathy in favor of divisiveness and fear.”
HAHAAHAHAHA!
Who was it who was calling anyone who supported Trump MAGA extremists? Who has been peddling the ‘democracy is in danger’ fear for months?
Democrats.
I am glad they continue to put on full display their lack of self awareness for us all to see.
Another so called higher education institution to add to the boycott list.
time to END Federal Aid and loan backing for Colleges! Along with cities, states, non-profits.
Let democrats fund their own failure and hatred
* the math dept needs more funding.. engineering more.
These academics have no hope of ever repenting. They are wrapped up in their little academic cocoon and as yet have not stuck their heads out in to the real world. You know where real people live, work, try to earn a living, raise their children in a safe manner and hope they are not gunned down on the mean streets of Chicago. These academics will not change. The only way this change will ever occur is when the students stop coming, the governing boards fire some presidents of the private schools and the state starts to prune the costs of the public universities.
Imagine academics with no secretaries, universities where the individual has to hook up their own computer to the network, get the printer to work, refill the paper tray (gasp!) of the laser printer, and lastly pull the printer cartridge and put in a new one. And then we get to the lab where the grad students do the work, write the papers and sometimes get a thank you from the august professor.
I had a great friend who is unfortunately deceased but was the chairman of a large university based Vet School. You might say SO! For those that don’t know Vet schools and their graduates do a large majority of human studies with animal models that are a major player in understanding human disease and advancing therapeutics for treatment.
He had to deal with his faculty and tenure and as he told me “I can’t fire them but I do have absolute control over office and space allotments and the secretarial pool”. Using those assets he found he could remake his dept as he desired it to be. You have to get creative and use the oblique approach and often you can have success at change that the head on approach will never accomplish.
Some legislatures and governing boards need to learn this and from time to time also just fire people.
This election proves that Obama’s “fundamental transformation” was neither fundamental nor transformative. The “bitter clingers,” holding tightly to their God and guns, went silent, but they never surrendered.
We survived a Leftist minority culture that was downstream from tyrannical politics. We have revealed that our Conservative majority culture is a force to restore our constitutional republic.
Those like this university president are now the bitter clingers, but they have nothing to hold tight to, other than a failed political ideology that has no place in our culture.
God is good.
* I’ll be the devil’s advocate. If you’re an average person with a mean intelligence (like how I did that?) born into poverty in the backwoods, father unknown, mother drug addicted your opportunities are slim to none or born in a poverty crime stricken ghetto still slim to none. Education won’t make up the difference. In this sense opportunity is unequal.
Should government intervene at all? The Constitution limits the role of government. Can poverty and crime be labeled as a handicap the same as the lame, blind and deaf and others? It can be labeled as such and has been. Now the left wants to level it all. Is that right? No, it’s envy.
Interesting. First of all, I don’t believe we can just assume “opportunities” to mean just one thing. We have the natural right to the pursuit of happiness, however that happiness is defined by the individual. I was raised in poverty with 4 sisters by an abusive, alcoholic mother. I had one goal; leave a soon as possible. My public high school had kids from some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Minneapolis. Many of them were my close friends. While I envied their place in life, I never saw myself as handicapped by any of the circumstances in my life. I looked for realistic opportunities and then pursued them. I graduated high school, I got myself into college and in one semester, I blew that opportunity. I found my next opportunity was to enlist in the Navy.
Can poverty and crime be labeled as a handicap the same as the lame, blind and deaf and others? It can be labeled as such and has been.
Can it be? Sure. Should it be, no. I’ve proven and countless others have as well, that those circumstances are not insurmountable barriers to the pursuit of realistic happiness. That is if our government just gets the he!! out of the way.
These so-called academic leaders continue to provide ample logical reasons to steer clear of attending and investing in their “hollowed” advocacy assembly line model of miseducation.
Absolutely Don!
They think the Trump Restoration will leave them untouched.
Well let’s see just how much they love democracy by suiting up and head off to the Ukraine. Their choice for the WH has placed this nation and the world minutes from catastrophe. It’s time to deal with these academics who are causing chaos in our schools, enough is enough.
You’re online early.
So, what exactly do you propose?
The problem is that Mr. Malekzadeh’s community, the academics he is surrounded with, is probably so uniformly on the left that he does represent them all with his statement.
Hmmmm……I guess all that talk about ‘defending Democracy’ only applies if the majority of American voters choose THEIR candidate. Sorry, the election was Democracy in Action. You win sometimes, other times not. THAT is Democracy!!
*You know hmm, democracy most often means a concensus. It isn’t a majority minority concept nor a compromise concept. It’s about what affects ALL people. Food is a democratic idea for instance. It also has the effect of limiting the government.
The one thing I found very encouraging about this last election, is that it looks like the young people are starting to question authority and the rhetoric they have been fed. It is our only last hope for this country because people in my age group only have so much time, and frankly, we are growing weary after decades of fighting and trying to expose the truth. I was heavily involved in the Tea Party movement and this latest election was the fruit of our labor- and believe me, labor we did. The media almost squelched the movement but it is alive and well.
How ironic. I remember when “Question Authority” was once the rallying cry of the left.
* Young people generally grow out of the altruistic phase. Someone has taken advantage of that.
Ever since I was young, it was an axiom of politics that to castigate someone’s religion or politics would incur their wrath and lack of both respect and intelligence. This simple sentence sums the recent election. When academic leaders do this, they lose and take their institutions with them. Attention Academia, your IQs are slipping, if not fallen off completely.
We all, as citizens, taxpayers and voters spend a fortune to support entities such as Roosevelt University. I think we need to rethink that support.
Amen
“Blackbeard says:
We all, as citizens, taxpayers and voters spend a fortune to support entities such as Roosevelt University.”
Roosevelt is private. You as a taxpayer spend nothing to support that school.
You can’t rethink when you never started in the first place.
“You as a taxpayer spend nothing to support that school.”
That is false.
Its students get federal loans. It get tens of millions in government grants for buildings, education programs, faculty.
You might want to know something about taxpayer support for private colleges, before venturing an opinion.
False. Some students get federal financial grants. That enables more students to attend, increasing the amount the university collects in tuition (and also results in tuition inflation). Private universities often apply for and get government grants to build new or different academic programs. Grants are a way to bribe the university to go in a direction the government wants them to go.
This one, for example, is blatantly unconstitutional because it favors Hispanic people and discriminates against everyone else.
https://www.roosevelt.edu/stories/news/roosevelt-receives-28-million-grant-expand-programming-hispanic-and-low-income
Re:”Grants are a way to bribe the university to go in a direction the government wants them to go.” Certainly speaks to taking a neutral position and grant no one.
* untrue public money is given in grants for research purposes to private colleges… do some homework.
* The hate is homegrown? It’s quite amazing isn’t it.