The Social Justice Syllabus Project

Social Justice, Indoctrination, and Political Correctness

Published Sep 18, 2013  printer-friendly

           Friedrich Hayek : "What we have to deal with in the case of 'social justice' is a quasi-religious superstition . . ." (The Mirage of Social Justice, 1976, p. 66).

          Balint Vazsonyi: “If millions upon millions have been deluded into searching for ‘social justice,’ it is because ‘social justice’ displays the irresistible charm of the temptress and the armament of the enraged avenger; because it adorns itself in intoxicating clichés and wears the insignia of the highest institutions of learning.

          The ultimate nonsense is the search for social justice. This is not to insult the millions of highly respectable persons who have been deluded into adopting social justice as their goal. But the truth is, if subjected to honest scrutiny, the very concept flies in the face of both reason and experience. Worse still is the presumptuous implication that, were social justice possible, certain persons are better able than others to judge what it is” (America’s Thirty Years War, 1998, pp.56-57).

          Ben O’Neill: “What is remarkable here is not the errors of the young people on the video, many of whom probably have no reason to know any better about the nature of rights. What is remarkable is that the obvious reductio ad absurdum that the video demonstrates is adopted by esteemed social-justice advocacy groups and proudly advertised as an endorsement of their philosophy. It is clear, under these circumstances, that these are intellectually bankrupt movements“ (”The Injustice of Social Justice” http://mises.org/daily/5099, accessed Sept 13, 2013).

          Craig Biddle: “Social justice is what Ayn Rand called an ‘anti-concept.’ An anti-concept is unnecessary and rationally unusable term that is designed to and intended to obliterate a legitimate concept in people’s minds and replace it with an illegitimate concept. In the case of social justice, the idea is to obliterate the concept of justice – the idea that people should be judged rationally and treated accordingly and granted what they’ve earned – and to replace that idea in people’s minds with the notion that the forcible redistribution of wealth is moral.” (“’Social Justice as an Assault on Justice”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hln-st_DN3k&feature=youtu.be, accessed Sept. 22, 2013).

          Kenneth Minogue: “It is necessary to make these points strongly, in order to convey the remarkable unreality in which the whole idea of social justice is imbedded. There is on the one hand, the logical pretension of an abstract theory claiming mankind for its domain, and on the other hand, the concentration on the operation of justice purely in terms of the distribution of wealth, without any concern, in all the talk of rights and utility, for the costs and conditions of its production. . . . It would be no surprise to a sociologist of knowledge that the social location of  belief in social justice was in academic and civil bureaucracies: basically, that is, among a set of people who (until recently) hardly knew how difficult it is how to create wealth, and who understood an economy as a static structure in which entrepreneurs make unfair profits out of the sweat of the worker” (“Social Theory in Practice” in D. Bucher and P. Kelly Eds. Social Justice From Hume to Walzer,1998, p. 255).

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          “When social justice meets political correctness, the old liberal idea that relations between individuals are a purely personal matter is overridden. There is a right thing to do, and the state will make sure it is done. Democracy today is becoming rather intolerant of moral and political disagreement” (The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes The Moral Life, 2010, p. 129).

          Leonard Read: “Morally and ethically motivated citizens can condone a philosophy of so-called social justice only if they fail to see its terrible injustice” (Who’s Listening, 1973, p. 97).

          David Horowitz: “The new political orthodoxies insinuated into our universities by the left are quite different. They do not derive from the traditions of a shared American heritage and culture, but are sectarian attempts to subvert both—by deconstructing the nation’s identity and by dividing its communities into warring classes, genders and races—into victims and oppressors. For academic radicals who hope to ‘change the world,’ teaching is not a disinterested intellectual inquiry but a form of political combat. The banner of this combat is ‘social justice,’ the emblem that signifies to the post-Communist left the triumph of the oppressed over the oppressors” (Indoctrination U: The Left's War Against Academic Freedom, 2009, Kindle Locations 284-285).

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          "An academic movement for ‘social justice’ has inserted its radical agenda into the very templates of collegiate institutions and academic programs, and into the curricula of secondary schools as well. Pursuit of this goal both requires and justifies indoctrinating students in the ideas that radicals regard as ‘trans-for mative’ and ‘progressive.’ Far from being a consensus that supports the pluralistic community of the American social contract, the political correctness of the left is the orthodoxy of one social faction seeking to impose its agenda on all the others—a new and disturbing development in the educational culture" (Indoctrination U: The Left's War Against Academic Freedom, 2009, Kindle Locations 289-293).

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          “Women’s studies is not alone in exhibiting these problems. Dozens of fields have been corrupted in a similar manner. At Kansas State, the Social Work Program—to take but one arresting example—describes itself to students this way: ‘Social work is a profession for those with a spark of idealism, a belief in social justice, and a natural love of working with people.’ The term ‘social justice’ may seem a neutral term, but only for someone not familiar with the code of the radicalized academy. The phrase does not mean ‘justice for all’ in the legal sense, but encompasses an ‘economic justice’ that the free-market system allegedly denies and that the welfare state is required to redress. It is also a term that embraces racial and gender preferences, ‘living wage’ and ‘equal pay’ programs, and other ‘progressive’ schemes. In other words, it is a partisan code for many of the most polarized political debates in our democracy. The Social Work Program at Kansas State, funded by taxpayers who are on either side of this debate, is training students to be partisans of only one side. This is hardly healthy for the democratic process; it certainly is not compatible with an academic program or with the principles of academic freedom” (Indoctrination U: The Left's War Against Academic Freedom, 2009, Kindle Locations 1510-1520).

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          Tom Wolfe: “People in academia should start insisting on objective scholarship, insisting on it, relentlessly, driving the point home, ramming it down the gullets of the politically correct, making noise! naming names! Citing egregious examples! showing contempt to the brink of brutality! The idea that a discipline should be devoted to ‘social justice’ is ludicrous. The fashionable deconstructionist doctrine that there is no such thing as truth, only the self-serving manipulation of language, is worse than ludicrous. It is casuistry, laziness, and childishness in equal parts.” (“A Critic in Full: A Conversation with Tom Wolfe,” Academic Questions, 2008, 21:138–163, pp.162-63).

          Thomas E. Wood: “Harding and Calvin Coolidge usually wind up near the bottom in presidential rankings compiled by the votes of historians. This is no surprise; these presidents engaged in no large-scale social engineering, embarked on no vast legislative program like the New Deal or the Great Society, and involved the United States in no major foreign war. Since most historians favor an activist government committed to ‘social justice’ at home and abroad, they have little sympathy for chief executives who simply leave the American people alone. Yet America prospered during the 1920s. American business set production records. Wages increased and working hours declined. And as if to underscore yet again the irrelevance of labor unionism, these outcomes occurred at a time when labor union membership was undergoing a rapid decline”(The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, 2004, p. 133).

          Sandra Stotsky: “This approach conveniently lends itself to teaching nothing about the political, legal, and educational institutions that the English created in this country, because they are culture-specific. Students may also study in detail the highly developed indigenous cultures in the Americas--the Aztec, Mayan, and Incan civilizations--on the grounds that they should see native cultures in the New World (even if extinct by 1620) as more advanced than the early colonies. Topics like ‘Explorers and Indians’ are also popular in the early grades with teachers who believe that social justice requires making sure that the Indians are seen as the victims of cruel European invaders and unknown diseases. In effect, sociocultural approaches tend to obliterate the origins and development of our civic culture, to devalue the groups that advanced individual rights, and to create sympathy for cultures, extinct or not, that don't value individual rights” (“When History Teachers Forget the Founding,” Academic Questions, Sept. 2004, vol. 17, p. 28).

          Paul Cantor: “But unfortunately, the broadening of what is taught in English departments has often been accompanied by a narrowing of how it is taught. To oversimplify an admittedly complex situation: literature on our college and university campuses today is predominately analyzed in terms of the categories of race, class, and gender. Authors are viewed as participating in the exploitation of various minorities and subordinate groups, or rebelling against it. Works of literature are generally read not as expressions of genuine insights, but as reflections of the racial, social, and sexual prejudices of their authors, their countries and their times – unless, of course, the authors can be shown to be challenging these prejudices, in which case they are said to be still capable of genuine insights. This is how literature departments have found a way of participating in the overall political agenda of the contemporary academy – to advance the cause of social justice and in particular the goal of racial, social, and sexual equality” (“When Diversity is Not Diversity: A Brief History of the English Department, in R. Maranto, et. al. (Eds.) The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope, and Reforms, The AEI Press, 2009, p. 160).

          Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne: “[W]e think it is rather unlikely that any reputable program dealing with the philosophical, legal, economic, and other aspects of justice would at this moment in our history decide to label itself as a program in ‘social justice’ . . . [The term social justice] has now become in common use just a slogan tossed around in the pep rallies of the campus left. It presumably imparts a flavor of righteousness to the daily grievance mongering, but in character it is an anti-intellectual gesture. Many, perhaps most of the people mouthing it have no larger understanding of the nature of society or culture” (“A Degree in Agitprop,” Aug. 11, 2008, http://www.nas.org/articles/a_degree_in_agitprop, accessed Sept 18, 2013).

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          “In all cases, social justice is a roomy term that encompasses a large set of political mantras about racism, sexism, and the rest. Since it invokes justice and a sense of right and wrong, the term is a call to battle against bias. But it is a movement with biases of its own and no capacity to step outside them. Rather, it exemplifies the classic closed circle of ideology: those who point out its inconsistencies, lapses, or contradictions are dismissed as apologists (or worse) for the manifestly unjust power structure. Critics are attacked for being speakers from ‘positions of privilege,’ or worse—this being a movement with ready access to invective and terms of abuse” (“A Degree in Agitprop,” Aug. 11, 2008, http://www.nas.org/articles/a_degree_in_agitprop, accessed Sept 18, 2013).

          Peter Wood: “Applebaum’s article is so rich in rhetorical sleights-of-hand that it is like watching a professional magician at work. Noting that critics of Leftist indoctrination complain that an ‘ideology’ is being imposed, Applebaum says the word is ‘an empty slur against any political position that is opposed to one’s own.’ No, an ideology is a system of ideas that short circuits questions and countervailing evidence by ruling in advance that the questions are illegitimate and the evidence irrelevant.

         But Applebaum allows that ‘ideology’ isn’t always an ‘empty slur.’ Sometimes it is meant to point to ‘falling short of the standards of rationality.’ But this can be dismissed too, because the people who say such things assume they have ‘privileged access to the truth.’ Applebaum isn’t denying that ‘social justice’ is an ‘ideology.’ She just thinks it is a good ideology” (“Bias Isn’t Bias If Its Ours,” Feb. 18, 2009, http://www.nas.org/articles/Bias_Isnt_Bias_If_Its_Ours, accessed Sept. 18, 2013).

         John Agresto: “[T]he broadest and most public reason for turning away from the liberal arts had to do with how all the finest aspects of liberal studies were strangled by the professoriate in the name of destroying the legacy of dead white males. The whole story is too long, too painful, and too familiar to recount here. But when the academy itself said that the core subjects of the liberal arts were not good, that they were the homes of oppressors rather than enlighteners, who would wish to pursue them? We knew they hardly helped one form a good career or land a good job; now we were told by our universities that the liberal arts were worse than useless—they were bad.

          [And], when our students and their parents were shown that in the place of these old white, racist, and elitist studies would be substituted courses designed to teach Jake and Suzie to see the world as their professors envision it—with teachings that instruct them in the views of the new social justice, with courses that show them the evils of a country most of them admired, and with literature designed to proselytize for the various isms that made up the social ideology of the academic class—well, then, the bubble finally burst” (“The Liberal Arts Bubble,” Academic Questions DOI 10.1007/s12129-011-9250-y,also available here: http://www.nas.org/articles/the_liberal_arts_bubble).

          John Fonte: “Multicultural ideologists have incorporated this essentially Hegelian Marxist ‘privileged vs. marginalized’ dichotomy into their theoretical framework. As political philosopher James Ceaser puts it, multiculturalism is not ‘multi’ or concerned with many groups, but ‘binary,’ concerned with two groups, the hegemon (bad) and ‘the Other’ (good) or the oppressor and the oppressed. Thus, in global progressive ideology, ‘equity’ and ‘social justice’ mean strengthening the position of the victim groups and weakening the position of oppressors-hence preferences for certain groups are justified. Accordingly, equality under law is replaced by legal preferences for traditionally victimized groups. In 1999, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission extended antidiscrimination protection under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to illegal immigrants” (“Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism: The Future of the Ideological Civil War Within the West,” http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/transnational_progressivism.pdf).

          Peter Berkowitz: “To realize its utopian dreams, the new pragmatism makes use of a fundamental deception. Purporting to focus on practical consequences, it equates what works with what works to increase government's responsibility to promote social justice in America. Although it reduces morality to interest and dismisses the distinction between true and false as a delusive vestige of an obsolete metaphysics, it treats the progressive interpretation of America as, in effect, good and true. Under the guise of inclusiveness, it denigrates and excludes rival moral and political opinions.

          So too it seems for Obama's pragmatism: it appears to be another name for achieving progressive ends; flexibility is confined to the means. This helps explain the sometimes glaring gap between Obama's glistening postpartisan promises and his aggressively partisan policies” (“Pragmatism, Obama Style,” Defining Ideas May 4, 2009, http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/5478, accessed Dec. 8, 2011).

         Herbert London: “It is instructive that so-called progressives want to gain control of the state in order to bring about social justice. However, whenever this effort has been successful the progressives or radicals end up rewarding themselves and impoverishing those they claim to represent. Poor people are invariably subject to this political protest chant, but most know that it is a fiction borne of demagoguery.

          Life is not fair — an observation everyone understands intuitively. The rich want something they cannot buy and the poor covet what the rich already have. If there is psychic justice, it is found in religion where every believer is equal in God's eyes. But in the City of Man, social justice is a chimera, often sought but impossible to attain.

          Perhaps it is time to inter this notion, bury it deep into the past. Of course, that isn't likely to occur when so many are committed to its retention. They will parade across our streets calling for social justice as if they had any idea what it is they are seeking.

          This is the lamentation of our age, a chant of frustration and desire. As long as governments seek to address this apparent concern manifest as passion, there will be reinforcement for the employment of these empty words. Listen carefully and you will hear the words ‘social justice’ at any protest rally. This is a case of reifying fake ideology” (“What is ‘Social Justice’ Anyway?” http://www.herblondon.org/6507/what-is-social-justice, accessed Sept 16, 2013).

          Theodore Dalrymple: “One definition of decadence is the concentration on the gratifyingly imaginary to the disregard of the disconcertingly real. No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems – economic, social and cultural. Its public services – which already consume a vast proportion of the national wealth – are not only inefficient but completely beyond amelioration by the expenditure of yet more money. Its population is abysmally educated, to the extent that in a few more years Britain will not even have a well-educated elite. An often cynical and criminally-minded population has been indoctrinated with shallow and gimcrack notions – for example, about social justice – that render it singularly unfit to compete in an increasingly competitive world. Not coincidentally, Britain has serious economic problems, the cracks of which the government managed to paper over for a considerable time, before they were cruelly exposed a few months ago. Unpleasant realities cannot be indefinitely disguised or conjured away: for reality is still reality, no matter how much spin is applied to it” (Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics & Culture of Decline, Kindle Locations 1987-1993).

          Robert L. Paquette: “Social justice activism has not only infiltrated college campuses, it pervades academic culture at many of this country's elite institutions of higher learning. For the Doubting Thomases, perform this simple test. Go to the website of your alma mater. Click on the news-and-events page. Activate the search engine by plugging in social justice and such auxiliary words as diversity, multiculturalism, sustainability, environmentalism, ecological crisis, activism, and identities. Total the references. Now perform a similar search for, say, conservative, Western civilization, Shakespeare, Christian, and entrepreneur. Get the point” (“War Over a Trojan Horse,” May 26, 2009, http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2009/05/war_over_a_trojan_horse.html, accessed Sept. 16, 2013).

          Peter Augustine Lawler: “As a professor of political science, I can't help but be concerned with all the enthusiasm about ‘civic engagement’ as some radically transformative, disruptive, ‘Copernican’ revolution in higher education.  All the literature that makes such bogus claims is rife with management-speak barely masking progressive ideology.  It makes the agenda-driven proclamation that the point of higher education is to make students into citizen-activists all about transforming communities, nations, and even the world in the name of removing inequities, fighting for inclusive diversity, achieving social justice, and fending off the impending catastrophe of global warming.  All those activist engagement might be praiseworthy, but it is highly partisan--reflecting the opinions of professors and administrators and dissing the allegedly false consciousness of so many ordinary Americans” ‘(Civic Engagement: Teaching Students to Be Partisan Activists,” http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/06/civic_engagement_teaching_stud.html#sthash.RPgSe0sA.dpuf, accessed Sept 16, 2013).

          Mary Grabar: “Academics have been at work for decades systematically destroying and subverting the literary canon for college students. Colleges of education have also done their part.  Now the federal government with Common Core is finishing off the job for K-12 by mandating the replacement of literary works with ‘informational texts,’ with proportions for informational text taking up 70 percent of the readings by high school.  In place of Eliot and Shakespeare, students will be reading such things as EPA directives and non-fiction books about social justice” (“Cats, Comedy and Common Culture,” March 21, 2013,  http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/03/cats_comedy_and_common_culture.html#sthash.G5EemSgu.dpuf, accessed Sept 13, 2013).

          Mark Bauerlein: “For a few years now, distinguished literary scholar Gerald Graff has been disputing with ‘social justice’ professors and ‘radical teachers’ over the proper use of authority in the classroom. While president of the Modern Language Association, he spoke forcefully against the stigmatizing of conservatives, and in the pages of PMLA and Radical Teacher he has argued several times that an insidious coerciveness underlies the leftists' claim to promote critical thinking, challenge hegemonies, and foster a more just society” (“The Defense of Radical Teaching,” September 14, 2010, http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/09/the_defense_of_radical_teachin.html).

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               “Graff replies. ‘Gullette's logic,’ he says, ‘is a good example of the self-righteousness and insularity I attacked in my address: since history has now demonstrated the truth of ‘radical critique,’ we have the right or even the obligation to try to radicalize our students.’ He proceeds to detail a case in which social justice education does, indeed, slip into coercive education, a new psychometric scale developed by Boston College educators to measure how fully ed school students have embraced social justice values and pedagogies” (“The Defense of Radical Teaching,” September 14, 2010, http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/09/the_defense_of_radical_teachin.html).

          Wendy McElroy: “Political correctness (PC) is a term used by the New Left to refer to policies that aim at achieving ‘social justice’ and respect for minorities. (Minorities are defined in various ways, including racially and sexually.) PC policies encourage speech or behavior that promotes these goals and discourage speech or behavior deemed to be counterproductive. Thus political correctness is a powerful tool through which schools can impose a social agenda. In this context, cultural competence acts as a filtering mechanism by which only those who agree or at least comply with the specific agenda can expect to be licensed, hired, or advanced within the system” (“Cultural Competence and Your Child,” The Freeman, September 2007, http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/cultural-competence-and-your-child/, accessed Nov. 29, 2011).

          Richard Fonte: “At many times, the reader is led to the conclusion that America will be deemed less worthy of defending if students are not galvanized into an activist political platform of Left liberal change under the banner of universal human rights and ‘social justice" (“Educating Citizens: Preparing America’s Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility,” Academic Questions, 2008, 21:464–471; p. 465).

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          “There is clearly a long tradition advancing the civic republican model with democratic participation by informed citizens. Higher education can play a role in moving us toward this objective. At the higher education level, citizens can acquire the knowledge that will encourage open debate of the critical issues facing a self-governing nation. They should not, however, be indoctrinated or encouraged into political activism to achieve a specific ‘social justice’ agenda. Higher education leadership must remember that even if they take on an increased responsibility for the education of citizens, America must rely upon the workings of the entire civil society to educate its citizens, rather than solely on a self-appointed elite” (“Educating Citizens: Preparing America’s Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility,” Academic Questions, 2008, 21:464–471; pp. 470-71, DOI 10.1007/s12129-008-9077-3).

          Will Fitzhugh: “Education, for example, doesn’t seem to be paying attention to student reading and writing. If you take the time to look over the research interests of Harvard’s ed school faculty you will find, as I did, that no one seems to be interested in the academic work of students, whether in history, physics, literature, foreign languages, chemistry, or the reading of nonfiction books and the writing of real term papers. Instead, they are interested in issues of race, gender, community, leadership, ethnicity, poverty, disability, management, psychosocial difficulties, social justice, and the like. All fine pursuits no doubt, according to many, and no doubt well-funded. But this is more evidence of the ignorance and inattention among edupundits when it comes to basic academic work for our students” (“High School Flight From Reading and Writing,” Academic Questions, Oct. 11, 2011).

         Adam Kissel: “A freshman at Delaware couldn’t escape the ideological, highly politicized messages about consumerism, social justice, affirmative action, world redistribution of wealth, and so on. The messages were woven into the fabric of the very place where students slept or talked late into the night. The door decorations were not the usual ‘Hello, My Name Is,’ but featured the ‘three interlocking circles’ of ‘sustainability’: ‘social justice,’ ‘healthy environments,’ and ‘strong economies’”(“Sex, Lies and Residence Life: Delaware’s Thought Reform,” Academic Questions, 2009, 22:181–199; p. 184, DOI 10.1007/s12129-009-9099-5).

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          “The pressure to conform to particular standards included mandatory ‘social justice’ activities. For instance, at the Dickinson complex, ‘Each student would be asked to make a commitment to reduce their [ecological] footprint by at least 20% before the next one-on-one meeting.’ In the Christiana Towers, all juniors were to ‘act on the internal belief that societal problems are everyone’s responsibility.’ Each student was expected to experience a ‘cultural plunge,’ namely, ‘an experience that forces the student to leave his/her comfort zone and surround him/herself with people of which [sic] s/he has never interacted on a personal level before.’ And at various points throughout the year, Russell Complex students were required to advocate for a ‘sustainable world’ and for an ‘oppressed’ social group” (“Sex, Lies and Residence Life: Delaware’s Thought Reform,” Academic Questions, 2009, 22:181–199; p. 185, DOI 10.1007/s12129-009-9099-5).

          Roger Kimball: “In the wake of the nationwide scandal over Ward Churchill, the Kirkland project finally reaped some of the obloquy it deserved. In response, the college, together with the protagonists of the Kirkland Project, engaged in some serious soul-searching. The result was a long-winded report and, in place of a change of heart, a change of name to-it is almost too good to be true, but it is true-the Diversity and Social Justice Project. So: slightly repackaged sclerotic anti-American leftism-that is to say, business as usual in academia these days” (Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education, Kindle Locations 3294-3296).

          Naomi Riley: “The distinction between academic researcher and policymaker is thus lost. The emphasis on ‘service learning,’ which has recently become all the rage in higher education, contributes to this trend. It means that faculty members are no longer simply engaged in teaching and learning and research. Rather, they are supposed to lead students into the field to accomplish particular ‘progressive public policies.’(One imagines that Herbert Croly would have approved.)

          A similar trend may be seen in women’s studies departments (many of which have become gender studies departments in recent years, in order to include queer studies and the study of sexuality generally). At Columbia College in South Carolina the women’s studies program ‘encourages students to advocate for social justice for women.’ At Iona College in New York the department is supposed to ‘promote social justice for women through the practical application of theory [and] . . . develop proactive responses to the differential impact of gender-based bias in the lives of women from diverse backgrounds and experiences’” (Faculty Lounges, 2011, pp. 39-40).

          Kyle Olsen: “Another video has surfaced of Ayers describing his meeting with the North Vietnamese to discuss his ideas for a socialist American revolution. This man does not believe in the America we do.  But he’s using trying to use our schools to change it, one generation at a time. Peterson and Ayers’ associates are using our schools as social justice indoctrination camps to develop new foot soldiers for the army we see occupying Wall Street, Chicago, Oakland and so many other places across America” (“Bill Ayers Dishes on Hosting a Fundraiser for Barack Obama,” Nov. 28, 2011, http://kyleolson.org/, accessed Dec. 5, 2011).     

          Ted Nugent: “Idiots are easily manipulated. They are useful pawns, and that’s about it. Consider the stooges of the fledgling movement ‘Occupy Wall Street.’ These useful idiots are clamoring for social justice, as if they don’t have enough of that already” (“Nobody Needs Michael Moore’s Hypocritical Advice,” The Washington Times Oct. 14, 2011, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/14/nobody-needs-michael-moores-hypocritical-advice/, accessed Dec. 14, 2011).

         Carol Ionnone: “Ashley Thorne, a recent graduate of The King’s College and NAS’s director of communications (‘Beating the Apple Tree: How the University Coerces Activism’), describes what is being offered in the curriculum in place of all that has been lost—current preoccupations such as ‘social justice’ and ‘sustainability,’ not taught legitimately as subjects needing analysis and definition, but as unbalanced propaganda with an eye to recruit activists for the Cause” (“Uncultured Campus Culture,” Academic Questions, 2010, 23:152–155).

          Joy Tiz:  “The goal of social justice teaching is to convince students that they are victims of an ‘unjust, oppressive and racist America.’ A few years of this kind of ‘education’ and the kids are primed for a takeover by community organizers who will mobilize them to vote for the far left.

         The plan is working. In 2008, seven out of every ten voters between 18 and 29 favored expanding the role of the government and believe that the government should be doing more to solve our problems. Future teachers are fully indoctrinated into radical leftist ideology. Teaching materials are provided by special interest groups with distinctly left wing agendas. School districts invite these groups to conduct ‘professional development’ training, at tax payer expense” (“Ayer’ed Out: How Bill Ayers is Influencing Your Kids.” March 29, 2009, http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/7157, accessed Sept. 18, 2013).

          Sol Stern: “Backing the conference is another ‘social justice’ teachers’ organization: the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE.) Last October, I attended one of the group’s public meetings on the NYU campus, where about 80 public school teachers gathered to discuss approaches to social justice education. Literature, posters, and T-shirts displayed NYCoRE’s official slogan: ‘The struggle for justice does not end when the school bell rings.’ Inspirational quotations from some of NYCoRE’s heroes, including Che Guevara and Marxist historian Howard Zinn, covered the walls of the room.

You might think that public boasting about indoctrinating fourth-graders with canned Marxist agitprop isn’t the best way for a public school teacher to advance either his career or the radical cause. Nor would a former domestic terrorist make the best poster girl for social justice teaching. Surely someone responsible for safeguarding public education in New York City has stepped forward by now, to say that the social justice curriculum violates every accepted standard of ethical and professional responsibility for public school teachers!” (“Radical Equations,” March 19, 2007, http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-03-19ss.html).

          Phyllis Schlafly: “Many voters didn't think it important when it surfaced during the presidential campaign that Barack Obama's friend, the 1960s radical William Ayers, is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Ayers' preoccupation with inserting his ideas of ‘social justice' into public school curriculum didn't seem an issue to make tracks in a national election.

          Now we find that in the election week, the most respected education journal, Education Week, featured a front-page article on ‘social-justice teaching.’ This confirms that accusations about ‘social-justice teaching’ are not inventions of John McCain's partisan consultants, but are matters that vitally concern everyone who cares what the next generation is taught with taxpayers' money.

         ‘Social-justice teaching’ is defined in Education Week as ‘teaching kids to question whoever happens to hold the reins of power at a particular moment. It's about seeing yourself not just as a consumer (of information), but as an ‘actor-critic’ in the world around you. This revealing explanation comes from Bill Bigelow, the curriculum editor of a Milwaukee-based organization called Rethinking Schools, which publishes instructional materials relating to issues of race and equity . . .

          It is clear that ‘social-justice teaching’ does not mean justice as most Americans understand the term. Those who use the term make clear that it means the United States is an unjust and oppressive society and the solution is to ‘spread the wealth around’” (“Teaching ‘Social Justice’ in Schools,” Human Events, Nov. 4, 2008).

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          “'Social-justice’ lessons highlight past mistakes in U.S. history rather than our accomplishments and opportunities. Emphasizing problems and injustices rather than achievements is given the highfalutin label ‘critical pedagogy’” (“Teaching ‘Social Justice’ in Schools,” Nov. 7, 2008, http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2008/nov08/08-11-07.html).

           Luann Wright, Mike Ratliff, and Anne D. Neal: “Social justice’ is, in actuality, a political term. When it becomes part of a mission statement or course syllabus, it serves as a requirement--a requirement of conformity to a particular commitment of social justice. Women's Studies Departments are notorious for embracing particular ideologies and advocating political activism” (“Pernicious Politicization in Academe,” Academic Questions, April 22, 2006, p. 60).]

          Michelle Madher Kamhi: “I doubt that many, much less most, of the NAEA's 20,000 or more members share the radical viewpoint of Ms. Desai and Ms. Quinn. But it is all too common among those training the next generation of teachers, as well as among those in leadership positions in the association. And given its illusion of moral superiority, in an educational environment largely devoid of competing viewpoints, social-justice art education is likely to gain adherents.

          Parents and others who want to keep the visual arts in K-12 education under challenging economic conditions should let Congress and the NAEA (not to mention their local schools) know that they support genuine art education—but reject the ‘social justice’ and ‘visual culture’ models of spurious art and misguided politicization” (“The Political Assault on Art Education, Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575322860798054430.html, accessed Sept 18, 2013).

          Ashley Thorne: “These are the sorts of visceral “now I get it” reactions for which tunnels of oppression aim, and show how students who immerse themselves in rehearsals of guilt can be the ones pushing to make 'social justice' the focus of their education" (“Beating the Apple Tree: How the University Coerces Activism,” Academic Questions May 4, 2010, p. 220).

____________________

          "We even find this kind of indoctrination at public research universities. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, for example, offers a master’s and a doctoral degree in social justice education in its school of education. The program boasts of being ‘theory oriented’—that is, oriented exclusively to the claims of oppression pronounced by the progressive Left such as ‘anti-Semitism, ableism, classism, heterosexism, racism, and sexism’” (“Beating the Apple Tree: How the University Coerces Activism,” Academic Questions May 4, 2010, p.214-15).

          The Goldwater Institute: “Sen. Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, is correct about one thing. Our state universities have too many1 left-wing faculty members who propagandize rather than teach. But censorship isn't the right answer. . . .

          Campus radicals of the 60s set in motion cultural changes that have created a much different climate on campus. College faculty members today often share the views of the UCLA education professor who claimed, I believe in a militant form of advocacy. Pedagogy (teaching) is a form of political advocacy.

          Many university departments no longer even bother to pretend that they present diverse points of view or support open academic inquiry. The University of Alabama College of Education, for example, openly claims a commitment to preparing individuals to promote social justice, to be change agents, and to recognize individual and institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia and classism. By change agent, you may rest assured they mean nothing so humble as changing an illiterate youngster into a reader” (“A Wrong Road to Rights,” April 13, 2007, http://goldwaterinstitute.org/article/wrong-road-rights-0, accessed Dec. 8, 2011).

          Michelle Malkin: “The two most important questions for society, according to the Greek philosopher Plato, are these: What will we teach our children? And who will teach them? Left-wing celebrities have teamed up with one of America’s most radical historians to take control of the classroom in the name of ‘social justice.’ Parents, beware: This Hollywood-backed Marxist education project may be coming to a school near you. . . Zinn and company have launched a nationwide education project in conjunction with the documentary. ‘A people’s history requires a people’s pedagogy to match,’ Zinn preaches. The project is a collaboration between two ‘social justice’ activist groups, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

          Rethinking Schools recently boasted of killing a social studies textbook series in the Milwaukee school system because it ‘failed to teach social responsibility.’ A Rethinking Schools guide on the September 11 jihadi attacks instructs teachers to ‘nurture student empathy’ for our enemies and dissuade students from identifying as Americans. . .

         No part of the school curriculum is immune from the social justice makeover crew. Zinn’s partners at Rethinking Schools have even issued teaching guides to ‘Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers’ — which rejects the traditional white male patriarchal methods of teaching computation and statistics in favor of p.c.-ified number-crunching . . .

          Our students will continue to come in dead last in international testing. But no worries. With Howard Zinn and Hollywood leftists in charge, empty-headed young global citizens will have heavier guilt, wider social consciences and more hatred for America than any other students in the world” (“Hollywood and Howard Zinn’s Marxist Education Project,” Dec 14, 2009, http://frontpagemag.com/2009/michellemalkin/hollywood-and-howard-zinns-marxist-education-project-by-michelle-malkin/, accessed Sept 19, 2013).

          Bruce Thornton: “More dangerously, schools of education impose ‘political litmus tests’ on those who want to become public teachers. They vet students’ ‘dispositions,’ especially their commitment to the left-wing notion of ‘social justice.’ One of the most prestigious education schools in the country, Columbia University’s Teachers College, tells its students that teaching is a ‘political act.’ Aspiring teachers are expected to be ‘participants in a larger struggle for social justice’ and ‘to change the system and make schools and societies more equitable”  (“College: Where Free Speech Goes to Die,” Defining Ideas, February 28, 2013, http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/141356, accessed Oct 9, 2013).


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