College Gone Woke
Part one in our higher education series.
When parents send a child to college they expect that, in return for the huge financial cost, their son or daughter will receive significant academic benefit equipping them for a future career. However, instead of promoting educational rigor, many colleges focus on sports, cultural fads, or progressive memes.
In 2019 the University of Washington had 7,960 employees with an average salary of $72,025. The highest-paid professor that year was Christopher Murray at $795,000 per year. The highest-paid person on campus was the football coach with an annual salary of $3.9 million. The highest-paid football coach at a public university is Nick Saban of the University of Alabama with an annual salary of $9.7 million. I’m not saying there’s anything nefarious about these salaries. Many students go to college with the hope of a future in football or some other sport, but when parents pay taxes or their children’s tuition, they should know football is a large part of what they are supporting. However, if the salaries of football coaches were the biggest problem, Americans would probably celebrate the excellence of colleges and universities. Sadly, the situation is much worse.
A short video by Peter Boghossian
Peter Boghossian was a professor at Portland State University, one of the most liberal colleges in Oregon. In 2017, along with James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, he engaged in what came to be known as the Grievance Studies Affair to illustrate the widespread poor scholarship in the humanities and social sciences that are influenced by postmodernism, critical theory, and identity politics. The trio wrote ridiculous papers and submitted them to peer-reviewed journals for publication. One paper was titled, “Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon.” It supposedly examined rape culture as it relates to dogs. In another paper, Boghossian and the other authors rewrote Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf using feminist tropes and language. Four articles were published in these liberal “scholarly” journals and three others were scheduled for publication by peer-reviewed journals before the true identity of the authors was revealed.
Fake article sting operations against low-quality journals, including those in the hard sciences, have grown more frequent in recent years. University professors, graduate students, and researchers publish articles in peer-reviewed journals not only to share knowledge but to advance their careers. However, if nonsense can be published in these journals, what is their real value?
Instead of praise for doing his part to expose this peer-review failure, Portland State University conducted a research misconduct inquiry against Professor Boghossian and concluded that he had violated ethical and academic norms. PSU banned him from conducting research. Ultimately, Professor Boghossian resigned.
On the Conservative Alternative website, readers can view several videos by Peter Boghossian. I encourage everyone to check out his YouTube channel.
To promote inclusion and equity, colleges and universities increasingly apply restrictions to freedom of speech, religion, conscience, and due process. These limitations frequently target conservatives and their viewpoints. While progressive college administrators fight microaggressions, provide safe spaces, and encourage gender identity policies, conservative speakers such as Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter, George Will, and many more are banned from speaking on American campuses. You can find a long list of banned college speakers here.
In 1999 the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) was established as a nonprofit, nonpartisan civil liberties group to protect First Amendment freedoms and due process on college and university campuses in the United States.
FIRE in action
The Daily Beast reported in 2017 that “On today’s campuses, left-leaning administrators, professors, and students are working overtime in their campaign of silencing dissent, and their unofficial tactics of ostracizing, smearing, and humiliation are highly effective. But what is even more chilling—and more far reaching—is the official power they abuse to ensure the silencing of views they don’t like. They’ve invented a labyrinth of anti-free speech tools that include ‘speech codes,’ ‘free speech zones,’ censorship, investigations by campus ‘diversity and tolerance offices,’ and denial of due process. They craft ‘anti-harassment policies’ and ‘anti-violence policies’ that are speech codes in disguise.” The Daily Beast cites a 2014 report by FIRE, “Spotlight on Speech Codes,” where it is stated that, “close to 60 percent of the four hundred–plus colleges they surveyed ‘seriously infringe upon the free speech rights of students.’”
Since the founding of FIRE in 1999 and the Daily Beast report in 2017, the situation on many American campuses has grown worse. Ultimately, Americans pay for this nonsense masquerading as education. In the next report on American colleges and universities, I’ll look at some institutions fighting the trend.
Part two in our higher education series is titled Public versus Private.
Have you or a family member been denied freedom of speech, religion, conscience, or due process by a college administration? Share your experiences in the comment section below.
