I remember how it was -- JR
Why Do Colleges Dislike Men? The Disappearing Collegiate Male
By RICHARD K. VEDDER
The estimable National Student Clearinghouse recently released data on spring 2021 enrollments. The press accounts stressed continuing decline; total numbers were down 3.5% from spring 2020 to spring 2021. By exploring the NSC website in greater detail, I learned that since spring 2011, total enrollment has fallen over 14 percent. In 2011, there were about 63 college students for every 1,000 American population; now there are less than 51, a decline of nearly 20 percent. As colleges shrink in immediate importance in people’s lives, support for colleges wanes.
Yet the aggregate numbers disguise a striking additional trend: the decline in male enrollment is dramatically greater than that for women. In the 2020-21 year, for example, the number of women enrolled declined by nearly 203,000, but the male decline was nearly double that, over 400,000. In the 2011-21 decade, spring enrollment for men fell strikingly more than 18%, nearly double the female decline.
If recent trends continue, we will soon reach a milestone: there will be more than three female students for every two male ones. Girl students may find it hard to get dates with guys!! Ironically, the reverse was the case a half century earlier; almost 60% of students in the 1969-70 school year were male. At that time, the burning issue was: should elite Ivy League schools admit female students! They did, and the number of all-male schools is approaching zero.
Some potential explanations seem unsupported by evidence. It is true, for example, that more young men are incarcerated than women, but that does not work as a good explanation of most of the changes of the last decade or two (possibly partially offsetting that, for example, both the number and proportion of young men in the armed forces has declined as a proportion of the population).
Let me throw out another, no doubt controversial possibility: young men increasingly feel colleges don’t want them. Professors and student activists rant about “white male privilege.” Colleges are trying to literally throw prominent dead white male alumni off campus, taking their names off buildings or even removing statutes. A group at Washington and Lee tried (unsuccessfully) to even take the name of a white male (Lee) out of the university’s name.
Assumed in all of this: our male ancestors, especially white ones, did lots of evil things that the present, more morally upright and sensitive generation needs to correct. Our largely male dominated past is not a good one. The diversity and inclusion bureaucracy on campuses are mainly preoccupied by racial issues, but also go out of their way to promote women as well. Men may be increasingly viewed by incoming college administrators as necessary evils, cash cows to help pay the bills.
As a consequence, some young guys are perhaps saying “the hell with it, I will get a good job in construction, as a computer coder or as a medical technician with limited non-collegiate postsecondary occupational training, avoiding the implicit campus ostracizing, while also escaping a ton of student debt.” I haven’t seen comprehensive gender breakdowns in enrollment in coding academies or welding schools, but a relative of mine graduating recently from truck driving school was in a class 81% male. I bet that is pretty typical. I suspect vocational schools take racial/gender bean-counting of students less seriously than universities trying to show their wokeness and politically correct commitment to eliminating racial, ethnic and gender barriers.
There are perhaps other good reasons for surging female enrollment relative to males. Girls on average do better in school, for example, and therefore may be better prepared for college. I also suspect that such sad modern trends as the decline in two parent families has led to dysfunctionalities in boy teen-agers more than girl ones. Fewer young women become dope dealers then men, for example.
If I were a college president at a school struggling for students, I would examine enrollment trends by gender and, if males have declined in numbers more than females, ask: what are we doing to turn men off to our school? Should “diversity and inclusion” mean numerical equality between men and women? Should we putting more pictures of happy male students in our brochures and internet promotions?
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13617&omhide=true
*************************************The Purists of the Campus
Mark Bauerlein
A couple of years ago, while doing a week of lectures in Australia, I was told by my hosts of an initiative to start a small Western Civilization degree program at the University of Sydney and other colleges in the nation. The program would be but one portion of the giant slate of offerings to undergraduates each term, a fledgling initiative that surely wouldn’t draw more than a handful of students in the first few years of its existence.
Traditional programs such as English and history would barely notice the program as it moved forward. Also, money to support the program would come from an outside source, so no loss of funding would be suffered by other campus units. (People off-campus should not underestimate the degree to which humanities departments see one another as competitors for scarce resources, not as colleagues in a mutual enterprise.)
But, my hosts told me, the proposal had been shot down. Activist faculty members mobilized against it, sending dire messages across the campus and forewarning administrators that this plan would become an irritating controversy if it proceeded. The basis for the protest was all too predictable. The profs decried the focus on Western Civilization, which by 2018 was routinely characterized as white supremacy. They objected as well to the private funding, which they treated as a cheap bribe aimed at inserting conservative content into the curriculum without undergoing faculty oversight. Worse, the professors might find some conservative teachers hired behind their backs. It had to be killed.
We needn’t go into more detail, only remark on the disproportions. (You can find more faculty responses to the proposal with a quick internet search.) On one side we had a modest effort to add a traditionalist element to the vast array of humanities courses available at the schools every term, a good portion of them taking a progressivist angle on the materials. The slice of the pie that Western Civ would take amounted to barely a sliver of the whole. And on the other side, we had a faculty reaction that treated this effort as if it were a Fifth Column, the first step in an insidious indoctrination, the machinations of dark forces out to undermine the very integrity of higher education. The advocates of the program were modest and conciliatory; the professors were fearful and indignant. Why the outsized response?
I’ve seen it before, this strange impulse to keep the conservatives and traditionalists out, to keep them away, expel them all and for good. The Western Civ faction at Sydney would never be more than a tiny piece of ground on the campus, and it would have virtually no institutional power at all. If the program did manage to hire a few traditionalist teachers, in a college-wide faculty meeting they would be outnumbered 50-to-1. Their votes on curriculum and other matters wouldn’t change anything. Ideological control by the left would not be jeopardized.
Clearly, though, control wasn’t enough, nor was domination. This was more extreme, and it was wholly familiar. I’ve observed it again and again in four decades on campus. At academic conferences and within many institutions I’ve seen people with advanced degrees and in secure positions bristle at the bare presence of a conservative voice in the proceedings, though it be one voice out of 20, powerless and solitary. They’ve sat in uncomfortable silence in contemplation of that disagreeable figure on the other side of the table, and they’ve risen to speak in righteous tones if the conservative himself took an opportunity to give an opinion.
The dynamic makes you think less of politics and more of purification. Better to interpret it with the eyes of an anthropologist than those of a political scientist. That’s what it looks like as it unfolds, a group psychology in action. The professors act as if conservatism is just that, a contaminant, an impurity, a bad apple that will, indeed, spoil the whole bunch. The invasive vine must be weeded out; the hallways must be cleansed.
What do calls for intellectual diversity mean in this climate? Absolutely nothing; or, no, they mean something much worse: the allowance of a toxin into the system. Conservatives typically understand leftist anti-conservatism as a form of political arrogance, but the attitude runs deeper than that. It’s visceral. Conservatives aren’t just wrong, confused, misguided. No, they’re noxious. The logic is elementary: Why should a deliberative group admit morally repugnant members? No, they can’t be introduced to the polity, not a single one of them. They can’t be fixed or cured. They’re irredeemable, as Hillary Clinton stated quite bluntly.
Everyone recalls the “deplorables” part of her infamous remarks, but not so much that follow-up verdict: “Now, some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.” In concluding that “they are not America,” Mrs. Clinton frames them as a foreign element, a virus within the body politic. The language is unmistakable. It says, “You conservatives—not all of you, I grant, but a lot of you—you may live in this country, you may pay taxes and own property, but you don’t really belong here, you’re not really American.”
The irony in this is, of course, that conservatives are the ones accused of a nativist attitude, who are said to be anti-pluralist and xenophobic. If I had a dollar for all the times I have heard leftist academics say that conservatives are “threatened” by the advance of women and minorities in the professions, that they’re “afraid” of postcolonialism and other innovations, I’d be in a much higher tax bracket. I recall a faculty dinner long ago when a professor at the table said that very thing (relative to Queer Theory), and I replied, “No, I think they just disagree with it.” That brought a pause to the conversation, with no follow-up, and we moved on to other subjects. We had to. If liberal professors accepted conservative responses to left-wing developments as having intellectual grounds, the norms of academia would demand an intellectual rejoinder. That in itself would grant conservatism a seat at the table, a legitimacy it doesn’t deserve. If conservative opinion is emotional, however, if it has a neurotic basis, then it doesn’t merit any substantive consideration at all. It must be cancelled.
Yes, cancellation was the process. Conservatives were not beaten in debate, defeated in the marketplace of ideas, or persuaded of the superiority of liberal aims. No, they were simply removed, displaced, not hired and not encouraged to try. Campus liberals and leftists had to get rid of all the old-fashioned ones, because the continuance of a single one of them suggested that the position was, perhaps, a viable one, if a minority preference. It would jeopardize the categorical dismissal of conservatism.
Hence, the overreaction of the professors at Sydney and a thousand other campuses. As with so many other innovations of the Age of Woke, the campus was a testing ground for social transformation. It proved that pluralism was not a binding ideal. Leftist professors could ramp up the tensions to dire threat levels, frame conservatism as a poison, and act in wholly illiberal ways with full justification—and moderate center-left professors wouldn’t object. This is why the conservative/libertarian calls for free speech and intellectual diversity accomplished nothing. They assumed a First Amendment-based culture that no longer exists.
Conservatives are never going to out-argue and out-debate their academic adversaries. They must develop other methods, all of which begin with this premise: they despise us—they abhor us—they don’t want us around … and they guard the gates, the portals, and the pipeline with ever greater vigilance
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/the-purists-of-the-campus_3881464.html
******************************************Educators around the country have come out to condemn a 'Dismantling Racism in Mathematics' program which tells teachers not to push students to find the correct answers to math problems because doing so promotes white supremacy.
The program is centered around a workbook for teachers entitled 'A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction' which asserts that America's education system – even mathematics instruction – reinforces the dominant power structures of white colonizers.
Grading students, asking them to show their work, requiring participation and even pushing them to get the right answer are depicted in the workbook as harmful to minorities.
The workbook was created by Oakland, California-based advocacy group The Education Trust-West under its 'Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction' initiative, which is funded through a $1million grant from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
So far, the workbook is being used by school districts in Georgia, Ohio, California and Oregon, according to education news site The 74 Million.
It's part of a larger push nationwide to have students learn about critical race theory, which teaches that racism against minorities is embedded in every aspect of life - even in something as seemingly cut-and-dry as math.
But many critics of the workbook say it actually reinforces negative stereotypes and drives wedges between students according to their race.
'The workbook's ultimate message is clear: Black kids are bad at math, so why don't we just excuse them from really learning it,' Erec Smith, a professor of rhetoric and composition at York College of Pennsylvania and co-founder of Free Black Thought, told The 74 Million.
Despite its use by districts in California, state board members recently voted against using it in the redesign of the state's math curriculum.
And while The 74 Million reported that Georgia schools have used it in, the state's board of education recently passed a resolution banning critical race theory from being taught in its schools.
Supporters of critical race theory say it helps illuminate the obstacles faced by BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color) individuals in every aspect of life, including the classroom, which their white counterparts do not have to worry about.
But critics claim it is unnecessarily divisive, and teaches children that they are either victims or oppressors from an early age.
Georgia joined Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Montana and Idaho in banning the teaching of the theory. There are 10 other states discussing a ban, including Texas, Arizona, Iowa, Missouri, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, West Virginia, San Dakota, North Carolina and Louisiana.
Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Education hosted a seminar on antiracism in education in February, which featured the controversial math workbook.
'The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,' reads the manual. 'Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates "objectivity." '
Instead, it encourages teachers to have more than one answer for math problems, refrain from calling on students to answer problems for the class, relate math to minority students' experiences and provide examples of how math is used by political revolutionaries.
'Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.' The workbook reads.
'Math enjoyed this notion that it was somehow above the influence of the cultural and political issues of our time,' Rachel Ruffalo, the director of educator engagement at The Education Trust-West, told The 74 Million.
'We live in a toxic culture that affects us all; one dynamic of the culture is that we are discouraged from seeing it,' reads a stand-out introduction to the book. 'One of our tasks is to learn to see our culture and how it teaches us to make normal that which is not and should never be normal.'
Williamson Evers, who worked for the U.S. Department of Education under George W. Bush, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal after the workbook started trending among educators in California, shortly before state board members recommended nixing it.
If adapted into curriculum, Evers said that it would discourage students from succeeding in math class and put them behind students in other countries.
'If California education officials have their way, generations of students may not know how to calculate an apartment's square footage or the area of a farm field, but the 'mathematics' of political agitation and organizing will be second nature to them,' he wrote.
But even proponents of teaching antiracism have said that the book contradicts the very ideas it's trying to promote.
John McWhorter, a Free Black Thought contributor and professor of linguistics and music history at Columbia University, recently published a blog post denouncing the workbook.
'It claims to be about teaching math while founded on shielding students from the requirement to actually do it,' he wrote. 'Humans may sacrifice the black kid from the work of mastering the gift of math, in favor of showing that they are enlightened enough to understand that her life may be affected by racism and that therefore she should be shielded from anything that is a genuine challenge . . . this is not pedagogy; it is preaching.'
David Barnes, the associate executive director of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, also shared reservations about the workbook.
'Are we building bridges or throwing grenades?' he asked. 'When you get to page two and what's bolded is "dismantling white supremacy," there are some people that cannot read past that.'
But supporters of the workbook say that its message is being taken out of context.
They argue that its teachings are more about making math more relatable and understandable to every student in the classroom.
Josie McSpadden, a spokeswoman at the Gates Foundation, defended the project in an interview with The 74 Million.
'At times, research has shown that racial bias and student mindsets can affect student academic achievement,' she said, adding the workbook, 'highlights a critical discussion — how students arrive at answers and demonstrate their understanding and conceptual grasp of important math concepts.'
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Now 'trigger warning' is banned by Brandeis University along with the 'offensive' phrases 'picnic', 'rule of thumb' and 'take a shot at it'
A liberal arts college in Massachusetts has warned its students and faculty against using 'violent language' - even banning the phrase 'trigger warning' for its association with guns.
Brandeis University in Waltham has created an anti-violence resource called the Prevention, Advocacy & Resource Center which provides information and advice to students and staff.
It lists words and idioms, including 'picnic' and 'rule of thumb,' which it claims are 'violent' and suggests dreary alternatives such as 'outdoor eating' for the former and 'general rule' for the latter.
The college claims that 'picnic is often associated with lynchings of black people in the United States, during which white spectators were said to have watched while eating, referring to them as picnics or other terms involving racial slurs against black people.'
Picnic is derived from the French 'pique-nique,' originally used to describe the taking of one's own wine to a meal, which later evolved to encompass the sharing of food outdoors and started being used in England in the 18th century.
Lynchings were often public spectacles and could be described as taking place in a picnic-like setting. A project by the Equal Justice Initiative entitled 'Lynching in America' notes that during the late 1800s and early 1900s, 'white men, women, and children present watched the horrific murders while enjoying deviled eggs, lemonade, and whiskey in a picnic-like atmosphere.'
However, the word picnic itself is not derogatory and has no intrinsic links to slavery, lynchings or racism.
Brandeis also disagrees with 'rule of thumb' which it claims 'comes from an old British law allowing men to beat their wives with sticks no wider than their thumb.'
But this is another spurious etymological interpretation which has been wrongly attached to the phrase by myth and rumour.
The precise origins of the phrase are unclear but it is meant in the sense of approximating something using the thumb rather than a specific tool - there is no evidence of a legal application to wife beating.
It was first used in print in 1865 by Scottish preacher James Durham who writes: 'Many profest Christians are like to foolish builders, who build by guess, and by rule of thumb (as we use to speak), and not by Square and Rule.'
Among the most absurd phrases that the university objects to is 'trigger warning,' the very term which was coined to help those who might be offended by language.
Brandeis suggests that instead of 'trigger warning,' speakers should use 'content note' or 'drop-in.'
'The word "trigger" has connections to guns for many people; we can give the same head's up using language less connected to violence,' the anti-violence group says.
In addition to its page of 'violent language' the college has a whole section dedicated to 'oppressive language,' which includes 'identity-based language,' 'language that doesn't say what we mean,' 'culturally appropriative language' and 'person-first language.'
For example, the phrase 'abusive relationships' is not appropriate because 'relationships don't perpetrate abuse; abusers do. It is important to name that someone is responsible.'
Instead we should say, 'relationship with an abuser.'
Other linguistic leaps are to be found for 'disabled person', which is corrected to 'person with a disability'; 'addict,' which should be phrased 'person with a substance use disorder'; and 'prostitute,' where the phrase 'person who engages in sex work,' is recommended.
The university provides a form where students and faculty members can submit further 'oppressive words' to be added for consideration.
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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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