The Campaign to Stamp Out Academic Heresy

Back in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, church officials felt it necessary to scrutinize every book or pamphlet for the slightest hint of heresy. If the work deviated from doctrine, it would be banned, burned, and the author could be punished.

The Enlightenment brought a change in attitude toward freedom of speech. In Britain, America, and a few other nations, most of the people came to accept that censorship was bad. Even though few of them had read John Stuart Mill, they absorbed his argument that the way to find the truth was to allow everyone the freedom to speak his mind. Of course, people would sometimes say things that were mistaken (even deliberate lies), but the way to combat them was for other people to use their freedom to argue against them.

Accordingly, the United States wrote a ban against government interference with freedom of speech and press into the First Amendment to the Constitution. And in the academic world, it was accepted that scholars must be allowed to publish their thoughts and research findings without hindrance.

If other scholars disagreed, they should formulate counter-arguments and present them. That’s what academic freedom boiled down to—unrestricted competition in the marketplace of ideas.

Sadly, the consensus in favor of that is rapidly eroding. There’s abundant evidence to show that and I’ll focus on one recent case.

Glenn Geher is a psychology professor at SUNY–New Paltz, where he directs the New Paltz Evolutionary Psychology Lab. During his academic career, professor Geher has published more than 100 papers. He’s familiar with the trials and tribulations of getting research published, but never ran into such trouble as he encountered with a paper the explored the underlying political beliefs and motivations of the professoriate.

As professor Geher writes here, “I truly believe this research was generally well-thought-out, well-implemented, and well-presented. And it actually has something to say about the academic world that is of potential value.”

How Geher was inspired to delve into the underlying beliefs of professors is an interesting tale. It began in 2016 when, following numerous campus disruptions (including at New Paltz), he was asked to head up a Free Speech Task Force that was meant to help the school come to grips with matters that shouldn’t have been controversial: academic freedom and tolerance.

Geher invited professor Jonathan Haidt, founder of Heterodox Academy and a firm believer in freedom of speech for all, to give a talk at the school. Haidt gave his presentation, arguing that academia cannot be devoted to the search for truth if it also has a political agenda. Geher found Haidt’s talk to be very enlightening and persuasive and was shocked to find that quite a few people in the New Paltz academic community were outraged by it.

For some reason, many people were “genuinely angry” over Haidt’s arguments for academic objectivity and tolerance.

Wanting to learn why many on campus reacted as they did, Geher and his research team came up with an idea to study the motivations of faculty members. Their concept was to survey academics, asking them how they prioritize five academic values: academic rigor, knowledge advancement, academic freedom, students’ emotional well-being, and social justice. The objective was to see if academic values were related to the individual’s field, political orientation, gender, and personality.

Geher and his team obtained responses from 177 professors. The results were not at all surprising. They showed, inter alia, that women had a stronger commitment to social justice and student emotional well-being than did men, and faculty who regarded themselves as “agreeable” placed more emphasis on student well-being and social justice than did those who didn’t see themselves as especially agreeable—those in the latter group placed greater emphasis on student learning and academic rigor.

What the research seems to show is that professors who have an underlying devotion to social justice are not particularly interested in academic rigor and the advancement of knowledge.

That fits hand-in-glove with the many observations of hostility by “progressive” professors toward arguments that the programs and policies they support to achieve social justice are actually counter-productive. Those who contend, for example, that minimum wage laws do more to harm low-skilled workers than benefit them, are apt to suffer ad hominem attacks while the substance of their arguments is ignored.

“After some point, it started to seem to us that maybe academics just found this topic and our results too threatening.”
The study’s findings hardly seem controversial. Would anyone doubt that professors who identify as politically liberal would say that they rank student emotional well-being and the pursuit of social justice as their top goals, above student learning and the advancement of knowledge? Or that faculty in fields like business and accounting would rank academic rigor and student learning as higher priorities than social justice and student emotions?

Nevertheless, when professor Geher sought to get his research published, he ran into a brick wall. It was summarily rejected at one journal after another. When he inquired why, he only received vague comments about alleged “methodological problems.” He observes, “After some point, it started to seem to us that maybe academics just found this topic and our results too threatening.”

I suspect that’s exactly it. Research showing that many faculty members care more about how their students feel than whether they have actually learned course material and that they’re more devoted to the amorphous cause of “social justice” than to the advancement of knowledge could sour supporters on funding higher education.

From their perspective, Geher’s study has no upside and considerable downside. It would be better that it never be published and discussed.

Since the paper was completely rejected, how do I know about it?

At the suggestion of professor Clay Routledge, Geher simply posted the paper on his own blog under the title, “Politics and Academic Values in Higher Education: Just How Much Does Political Orientation Drive the Values of the Ivory Tower?” He acknowledges that the work has not undergone peer review, writing, “I figure people can do whatever they want with that information.”

Geher’s study ought to be read and discussed. It raises some important questions about the value that Americans are getting for the huge amount of money we put into higher education.

We are fortunate that scholars like Glenn Geher still have the option of posting their research on the internet, bypassing the censors in the world of academic publishing. But recent events where the big-tech firms like Twitter and Facebook have moved to silence discussion of topics that “progressives” didn’t like (e.g., Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings) should give us cause for concern.

Will the internet remain a bastion of free speech, or will it eventually fall under the sway of people who are determined to control what we read? It is clear that there are powerful forces working to do exactly that.

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2021/01/the-campaign-to-stamp-out-academic-heresy-2/

Parents Must Fight Educational Indoctrination

There is still hope in combating the leftist agenda in our schools.

For two decades, this writer has sounded the alarm about the progressive dogma being disseminated in America’s classrooms. Dogma presented as irrefutable fact and defended with a single strategy: If you dare to challenge any aspect of that dogma, you’re racist, transphobic, or — as President Joe Biden’s inauguration speech and its laughably hollow call for “unity” made clear — a potential “domestic terrorist.”

Thus in Cupertino, California, a class of third graders was forced to “deconstruct” their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” “Based on whistleblower documents and parents familiar with the session, a third-grade teacher at R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School began the lesson on ‘social identities’ during a math class,” columnist Christopher Rufo reveals. “The teacher asked all students to create an ‘identity map,’ listing their race, class, gender, religion, family structure, and other characteristics. The teacher explained that the students live in a ‘dominant culture’ of ‘white, middle class, cisgender, educated, able-bodied, Christian, English speaker[s],’ who, according to the lesson, ‘created and maintained’ this culture in order ‘to hold power and stay in power.’”

It gets worse. A book titled This Book Is Antiracist teaches students that “a white, cisgender man, who is able-bodied, heterosexual, considered handsome and speaks English has more privilege than a Black transgender woman.” Moreover, based on the principle of intersectionality, “there are parts of us that hold some power and other parts that are oppressed,” even within a single person.

In Illinois, “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards” is a blatant attempt to turn students into de facto community organizers for leftist causes. It has already been approved by the Illinois State Board of Education and awaits final approval by The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules of the Illinois General Assembly. As columnist Stanley Kurtz warns, if it gets the green light, teachers will be mandated to make self-assessments regarding their racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc., with the possibility of being required to attend white fragility training sessions the committee characterizes as an effort to get teachers to “move past their whiteness.”

To where? To an educational system poisoned by blatant racism sold as anti-racism. To a system, like so many others across the nation, wholly debauched and distorted by Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project with one overarching agenda in mind: To teach American children that their own nation is a fatally flawed construct unworthy of preservation. To teach American children that the content of their character is completely subservient to their color, their gender, and their ethnicity. To teach half of American children they are permanent victims with no ability to make a life for themselves, or permanent oppressors who should be forever ashamed of their “privilege.”

The transgender dogma — just re-approved by our “unity” president — is equally contemptible. “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports,” Biden asserts. Translation: Boys who self-identify as girls will be given access to women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams. Any school that refuses to kowtow will be denied federal funding. Biological women who object? “TERF is an acronym for ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’ and is considered a slur against people who espouse feminist beliefs and distinguish biological women from trans women,” columnist Ebony Bowden explains.

In other words, you’re the radical if you believe in biological and chromosomal reality, dislike the idea of boys having unfettered access to girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms, or believe that the evisceration of women’s sports in service to a bankrupt political ideology is a bad thing.

And just in case one might be wondering whether there might be any pushback, Biden also signed an executive order rescinding the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission that focused on the “ideals of the American Founding as well as the centuries-long quest to live up to them,” as commission member and esteemed historian Victor Davis Hanson explained.

What undoubtedly pushed progressives to dismiss it? “The commission was no more sympathetic to the current popularity of identity politics or reparatory racial discrimination,” Hanson adds. “It argues that using race, ethnicity, sexual preference, and gender to define who we are — rather than seeing these traits as incidental when compared with our natural and shared humanity — will lead to a dangerous fragmentation of American society.”

For leftists and the corporate oligarchy that supports them at every turn, that’s a feature, not a bug. Millions of automatons taught what to think, not how to think, are more easily ruled by those who brook no dissent whatsoever to their despicable agenda.

Yet there is hope. “As American primary and secondary education’s dysfunction became painfully apparent, parents of all races have fled the public schools as fast as they could,” explains columnist Angelo Codevilla. At R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School, parents fought back and forced the school to suspend the program. The effort was led in part by Asian parents, one of whom likened it to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The first lawsuit of what is hopefully the beginning of an avalanche of them has been filed by a black American mother who does not want her biracial son to be forced to attend mandated classes teaching “anti-white” race theories.

In other words, parents are the key here. They must understand they can no longer simply send their children to school and assume what they’re learning is OK. There must be pushback not just against school officials but against the feckless politicians who enact state laws prohibiting parents from opting out of these progressive indoctrination sessions.

Moreover, they need to become familiar with cases such as West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette and Tinker v. Des Moines School District. In the former, the Supreme Court ruled that “no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” In the latter case, the Court made it clear that students do not surrender their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door, unless such speech “significantly disrupts school discipline or invades the rights of others.”

Thus, no school in the nation should be able to force a student to “confess” their support for progressive dogma that is presented as unassailable. And while there are limits to how students can respond, it is clear that polite, respectful rebuttal of such dogma is permitted.

Yet again, nothing meaningful will be accomplished without parental involvement. They must view the cancerous ideology being disseminated to their children with the same alarm as they would a drug dealer standing at the schoolyard gate. What’s going on inside those gates is far more alarming and damaging.

The ball is in your corner, parents. Don’t let your children be taught to hate America. Or themselves.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/77240-parents-must-fight-educational-indoctrination-2021-01-25

Recover and revitalise Australian education

As Australia’s 4 million school students and their educators kick off a new school year, it must be free of educational complacency for the path ahead.

It’s fitting that back to school coincides with this week’s UNESCO International Education Day —themed around ‘recovery and revitalisation of education for the covid-19 generation’.

Recovery and revitalisation are certainly worthy aims for policymakers in light of last year’s educational disruption. School closures undeniably resulted in learning losses and forced educators, policymakers, and parents to challenge existing schooling practices and priorities.

The task of recovery — in scope and scale — mustn’t be dismissed.

Last year, CIS research found that around 1.25 million students in the eastern states — over 40% of them — were likely to have fallen behind.

The plan of attack in NSW and Victoria is centred on marshalling a thousands-strong army of tutors to provide catch-up support. However, it’s expected this will assist only around one in five students — or around half those that will likely need it.

And while schools will welcome the help in remedying lost learning, to date there’s been limited quality assurance and considerable uncertainty over expectations of catch-up tutors.

The scale of learning loss is also likely to eclipse previous — relatively benign — predictions.

Late last year, the results of a pseudo-NAPLAN test found NSW students had fallen behind by months rather than weeks. This means that while schools were closed — around 7 weeks in NSW — students not only progressed more slowly, but effectively went backwards. This bodes poorly for Victoria’s status as the education state, since students were out of class for up to 18 weeks.

Among the key events of the 2021 education calendar will be May’s NAPLAN exams — results of which will paint a national picture of student progress following the pandemic.

But just as recovery will not be for the education policy faint-hearted, so too will be the challenge of revitalisation. This will largely hinge on learning key Covid lessons to better harness parental engagement and technology in schools.

In 2020, home-based learning gave many parents a closer look at, and interest in, their child’s schooling. CIS polling shows a majority now have more positive views on teachers and schools. A key task for educators this year will be to capitalise on this goodwill via more constructive engagement between school and the home.

In addition, 2020 saw educators embrace increased uptake of technology in schools — many with a view to entrenching a more permanent place for digitalising course content, collaboration, and assessment. While innovation is welcome, this will require smarter and more discerning applications than has been typical in the past.

The Covid-19 generation will need to muster all the available support this year to ensure they don’t become educational casualties of the pandemic.

If 2020 will be remembered for its educational disruption, 2021 must be equally characterised by recovery and revitalisation.

https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/recover-and-revitalise-education/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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