During my weekend perusal of the New York Times, I came across an Op-Ed piece entitled “I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead”. It’s written by Emma Camp, a senior at the University of Virginia. I expected it would be another in a growing series of articles featuring the demand for groupthink on college campuses and the dearth of conservative points of view in higher education. And for the most part it was. The main difference is this article was written by a self-described liberal (or what is considered liberalism nowadays) who is genuinely concerned about the lack of philosophical diversity and the ostracization of those with different beliefs or opinions.
Camp writes of the usual public shaming of a white person that tries to offer advice to those talking about “suppression” and is told that they should only be there to “listen–not speak”. And the person that uses a now-outdated term and is scolded as part of diversity training for a student group. And how doors to bedrooms have to be closed when discussing a controversial lecture on campus that the founder of UVA–Thomas Jefferson–should not be judged by 21st Century standards for race and gender equity lest roommates be “offended”.
But what really caught my attention was when the author spoke about her own experiences in classes. Camp notes that an entire Feminist Theory class turned against her when she stated that non-Indian women can criticize the practice of “suttee”–the historical practice of ritual suicide performed by Indian widows at the funeral services for their dead husbands.
I read that and I thought “What?” And not because I feel strongly about a person’s right to criticize mythological Indian traditions–but why mythological Indian traditions are being taught and argued in a college course on Feminist Theory. Camp quotes another senior on campus–Abby Sacks–who told of the backlash she endured from a professor when she questioned the instructor’s assertion that “Captain Marvel” was a feminist movie in a class on Sexism in Media. According to Sacks, every other student in the class sided with the professor in an increasingly aggressive “pile-on” as the kids call it now.
Again, I had to stop and think “A professor is arguing about the feminist tones of a Marvel superhero movie? As part of the curriculum?” Was this one of those end of the semester classes where you’ve already completed everything in the syllabus and everyone is just sitting around talking about random stuff? Or are we seriously looking for social statements in a movie about an Air Force pilot that breaks the speed of light, ends up on another planet in the form of a different person, and then returns to Earth with villains in tow and computer-generated mayhem ensues?
In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s there were reports on some of the classes that were beginning to show up on college campuses. “The Mythology of Star Wars”, “The Sociology of Seinfeld”, “Philosophy and Star Trek”, and one taught at UW-Madison: “Daytime Serials: Family and Social Roles”. While widely mocked, professors claimed that the TV shows and movies of today are more important to students than the musty old classics written by Plato, Shakespeare, Swift and Twain.
About a decade ago, I was trying to hire a news reporter and I interviewed a young man fresh out the Medill Journalism School at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois–one of the most prestigious J-Schools in the country. I asked if in his internships or part-time jobs he had covered any court cases (as that is something you do in local journalism). He replied that he had never been in a courtroom–but that he “looked forward to reporting on the racial inequities of the justice system”. So I engaged him in a short discussion on the legal process. Had he learned about bond hearings, preliminary hearings, arraignments, trials, or sentencing hearings? The answer to all of those were “no”. And yet, he truly believed that he knew how the legal system works because of what he was taught in school.
If I was a student today, I would be begging college administrators to teach me what I actually need to know to be successful in the “real world”–especially if I was borrowing tens of thousands of dollars for that education. That does not included deep discussions on ancient suicides in India or plot summaries of summer blockbuster films. And as a current employer, I do beg college administrators to teach their students what they actually need to know to do their jobs. And that includes writing and speaking in complete sentences–with proper grammar–the ability to do simple math in their heads, and that everything that happened before they were born is not inherently illegitimate
