Flat-Earth Education: Part 1

For decades the radical Right has claimed that universities are havens for liberals who seek to brainwash American youth into hating the United States, but the fact is that there is a growing control of higher education by the Neo-Conservative movement that should trouble most Americans, especially those who value academic freedom, and sadly liberality shares in the blame. Neo-cons now occupy prominent positions on faculties and boards across the nation and they have been exercising their power. In addition, the Right has for some time now been developing a network of institutions designed to increase the visibility and clout of Neo-Cons on campuses. The actions and effects of this movement go largely undiscussed.

Liberality has a peculiar weakness....it is inclusive. At its worst, liberal inclusivity leads to a stringent, unthinking, reactionary political correctness like that which washed across campuses during the 1990s. Unfortunately, the Neo-Cons knew how to take advantage of this weakness and still do. It is not a coincidence that there has been a rise in the activity of what Russell Jacoby writing for The Nation coined "Crybaby Conservatives." Liberals, even those with tenure, now fear for their jobs because of threats of lawsuits by pseudo-conservative students backed by right-wing money who don't "like" what their professor has to say. It has had a chilling effect on academic discourse in many classrooms and has even affected left-wing student movements that fear retaliation from the university administration.

Liberal political correctness has also furthered the Neo-Conservatism that attacks true liberality. One must first ask a basic question. "How do so many Neo-Cons continue to have degrees conferred upon them?" The liberal penchant for tolerating different ideas and approaches combined with apprehension of retaliation from the Right has led to the practice of labeling Right-wing rhetoric antinomically valid. Therefore, Neo-Conservatives continue to win degrees, awards, positions and other honors when their work is based upon patently false premises. The rationale that is utilized by universities says that, even though academia, in general, disagrees with Neo-Conservative arguments and logic, they must confer degrees because Neo-Cons have a right to their opinions and, ludicrously, their arguments are logically valid within the context of the work, false premises or not. In other words, in order to appease the snivelling self-righteousness of Neo-Cons , universities now consider work in a factual vacuum. How else does an Antonin Scalia get a law degree? How does a John Yoo attain a position at Berkeley? How does a Paul Gigot receive a Pulitzer? Why is Republican supply-side economics still taught? In affect, academic institutions are extending honors to people whose dissertation in geology would be on the flatness of the Earth.