One month ago, a nationally-known and highly-regarded organization named the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) issued a fairly damning summary of enforced political correctness at Washington State University in Pullman. Rich with links to internal documents and e-mails, it detailed the travails of conservative Christian teaching degree candidate Ed Swan, a 42-year-old landscaping company owner. Swan was running into real problems for failing to swallow hook, line and sinker the WSU education school's political and "diversity" agendas. The FIRE memo (link above) also discusses the University's purchasing of tickets for students who heckled actors at a production of a politically incorrect play written by a black conservative WSU student, Chris Lee. This FIRE page has links to no less than 21 MSM and campus media reports - since mid-July - on the bad juju at WSU. Today, for the first time, Ed Swan's story showed up in the Seattle Times, two days after it ran in the Seattle P-I. Another example why it was so easy to cancel my one remaining newspaper subscription.
Read on.....(Mac Safari users click on time stamp to continue).
On October 22, World Magazine reported on Ed Swan's story.
Employing "dispositions theory," a new method of student evaluation advanced by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), WSU officials threatened in August to terminate Mr. Swan's enrollment due to his political positions. Mr. Swan had expressed opposition to pacifism, gun control, and affirmative action—ideas several professors said violated requirements that WSU education students promote a "positive climate," be "sensitive to community and cultural norms," and value "human diversity."When asked to sign a contract stating he would either change or face expulsion, Mr. Swan contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). A FIRE letter warning WSU of its illegal political litmus test triggered a quick note of apology to Mr. Swan, in which Director of Student Services Linda Chaplin called the incident a "misunderstanding."
The evaluations are designed to identify future teachers who might introduce inappropriate material — whether about politics, religion or other hot-button issues — or would be uncomfortable among some groups in classrooms. "We want prospective teachers to realize they are going to be teaching all children," said Judy Mitchell, (WSU) dean of education. "We want to make sure a teacher appreciates and values human diversity and others' varied talents and perspectives." Among other questions, the WSU form asks professors to evaluate whether a student exhibits an understanding of the complexities of race, power, gender, class, sexual orientation and privilege in American society.
In the fine, modern-day liberal arts tradition, let's do some deconstructionist "textual studies" for a moment here. "Inappropriate" is code for "conservative," and "others' varied...perspectives," means liberal perspectives. "Race, power, gender, class, sexual orientation" and my favorite, "privilege," stand at the ready as potential excuses for low performance by certain minority groups, and serve to facilitate virtuous self-imagery for white liberal government payrollers unequipped to compete in the private sector.
In Pullman's halls of academe, the prevailing worldview is that hard work, determination, and discipline don't determine much of anything anymore. I wonder why.
Ed Swan, by the way, has finished his classes and will be student-teaching in the predominantly Hispanic Washington state town of Othello.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 14, 2005 09:48 AM | Email ThisJust be sure to celebrate somewhere else, like Antartica!
Posted by: Libertarian on November 14, 2005 10:21 AMInteresting to note that Miss. Mitchell acknowledges that her University is a liberal one by referring to its students as, "all children."
Gotta love it.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on November 14, 2005 10:41 AMNow Gallegos is up on charges of sexual harassment and facing a lawsuit from a former student.
His penalty: Counseling and a PAY RAISE!!
And now even more students in the College of Education are coming forward.
So much hypocrisy and BS is flowing out of the halls of Pullman's academe these days, we townspeople are having to wear hip waders to get around.
Posted by: Tom Forbes on November 14, 2005 11:49 AMJust more of your taxpayer dollars at work at WSU.
Posted by: Tom Forbes on November 14, 2005 12:16 PMTheir footall team could use a good "Hail Mary"!
On the other hand the Huskies could too!
So where do we start :)
Posted by: GS on November 14, 2005 12:40 PMGod, this is such an obvious PC litmus test. This is highly subjective, but there is so obviously a "right" answer.
I was in a UW course 15 years ago that was supposed to be about Human Resources and Organizational Development. Instead, it was a quarter long soapbox for a woman professor preaching to us about "diversity" in the work force.
At no point could this woman seem to entertain the possibility that "diversity" as a business goal is nonsense. Companies will hire people that get the job done. If those people are white, yellow, black, or whatever, the company doesn't care.
I eventually learned my lesson about debating this topic with someone that had blinders on and just towed the PC party line. I think I wrote a term paper that the word "diversity" in it over 100 times. I advocated all sorts of government involvement in ensuring "diversity" and made sure never to mention any sort of legitimate business goal.
Needless to say, I got an A in the course.
Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on November 14, 2005 12:58 PMUnfortunately the reason he had the courage to challange them is because he's a 42 year old businessman who's been out in the world for a couple of decades and doesn't have the awe of a professor more near his own age than most students would. It's a lot harder for an 18 year old who's away from home for the first time.
Jesse Taylor
Senior, WSU
By the way -- who decides what "community and cultural norms" are? Do the have data, or do they simply rely on how they Think Things Should Be?
Posted by: starboardhelm on November 14, 2005 01:36 PMYou've got that right Jesse.
Geez, I'm pleased you made it through that soup so well.
Posted by: Danny on November 14, 2005 02:48 PMI am concerned this quarter however, as I am writing a critique of King County's 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness for my Geography of Poverty class. When discussing the paper my professor kept pushing me towards including liberal ideals in the analysis. I am worried that his self-proclaimed bias will disallow him to see the validity of my arguments. I will have no qualms about filing a complaint if I feel I am graded unfairly based on my non-conformist stance.
I am used to bias on the UW campus, and am disappointed that my friends at WSU, including Jesse Taylor, are being subjected to the same conservative-hating rhetoric and behaviour.
Posted by: KKS on November 14, 2005 09:39 PMThe schools are already full of people who can't teach their way out of a paper bag, but since they preach the diversity and cultural sensitivity agenda they get to stay around. Golly, it sure is nice to know that being about to teach kids to read and write is a secondary objective.
Bravo to Ed Swan for refusing to back down. I am sure the college is quite stunned that a lowly student would question the man behind the curtain and even more stunned that he got outside help to back him up. I personally think it should be a requirement for all professors to work out in the real world a minimum of 5 years before joining the Ivory Tower group.
Posted by: Burdabee on November 14, 2005 11:53 PMFYI for those who are involved with homeschooling. Hillsdale puts out some curriculum guides that are first rate. You won't find hip hop lyrics listed as great literature.
Posted by: Burdabee on November 14, 2005 11:58 PMIt's amazing how much better the news information is on the internet.
Posted by: jaybo on November 15, 2005 06:34 AMLiberal college administrators and professors tend to assume that their views and values are universally held by the "educated". People who disagree but stay silent enforce that view. Furthermore, they enhance the liberal view of conservatism as the ideology of ignorant rednecks. The entire college community would benefit from hearing from the "other side" - if only because it makes them aware that another perspective exists in an "intellectual" environment.
Posted by: Peggy U on November 16, 2005 10:13 AM…or our Columbus Day celebration being replaced by Killumbus T-shirts
http://www.dailyevergreen.com/disp_story.php?storyId=14764
…or nearly as ridiculous editorials defaming the same explorer. http://www.dailyevergreen.com/disp_story.php?storyId=14831#
It's comforting to know that like-minded people exist.
Posted by: Ed on November 17, 2005 05:42 PMAnd if any college or university pulls this shit, the US government should cut off ALL of their federal funding. Let them operate their Nazi campauses without our tax dollars.
Posted by: Alexander Alt on November 18, 2005 09:00 AMBest quote: "'Pee-Wee's Big Adventure' articulates a central premise of post-modernism--the impassioned, erotic, inevitable love affair with technology. And it does so using an elegant pastiche of film and literary versions of the Neo-platonic, dream-visionary, questing romance--what we might call the true romance, with all that phrase's resonance of cheap drugstore magazines as well as medieval poetry."
Posted by: Will Cummings on November 27, 2005 11:21 AM