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September 28, 2005
A Multicultural Nightmare
I've got about ten years or so until we have to start making real decisions about where our son will go to college. But judging by the current state of affairs, it will take all that time and more to find a school where he's not subjected to an Orwellian nightmare like the one that befell Athena Kerry. Athena applied to be a Resident Assistant (undergraduate student counselor) at a well-known Catholic university; her tale of the ensuing multicultural indoctrination is sobering:
As a student employee of the university, I have been force-fed diversity indoctrination non-stop.When I first interviewed for an RA job, a group of us were given the task of designing an ideal residence hall. Our interviewers observed our ability to work together.
When we presented our design [...], our interviewers were impressed by our creativity and enthusiasm. But they asked only two questions:
1) How do you address the needs of non-Christian students who may need worship space? and
2) How would you encourage any students who may not support GLBTQA to become "persons of care"?
GLBTQA?
Persons of care?
I almost got it...Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Asexual. I wonder what the difference between "gay" and "queer" is? (No doubt this question alone would label me as "intolerant" and subject to expulsion.) Athena wasn't hired on her first try; the next year she applied again (having caught on to the game) and was hired.
[After being hired] I also received a glossary of terms that are acceptable and not acceptable to use in my position. "Boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are out, unless used in conjunction—as in "do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend?" thereby avoiding the assumption of heterosexuality.
Athena goes on to relate tales of encounter groups in which she was pressured to sign a document in which she admitted to being the "product of a heterosexist culture"--a document that resembles nothing so much as a confession from a Lubyanka inmate.
I think there is an unmistakeable line of inheritance from the postmodern philosophy that continues to enrapture the liberal arts academy, to the crude facscistic multicultrual oppression imposed on students like Athena. No matter how deeply obfuscating their theoretical language, the end result has been a measurable degree of very real oppression.
The proof is in the pudding--that is, the experiences of our undergraduates like Athena.
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Comments
Note that the drive to present alternative viewpoints is entirely one-sided. One alternative is that it is okay to be gay. Another alternative is that it is not. Only one of these perspectives is accepted in today's universities and colleges. That is not a well rounded presentation of current ideology.
Let's keep one thing in mind: Universities and especially private colleges depend heavily on alumni donations to survive. This is the only message to which many administrations will listen, but it is a powerful one. Use it accordingly. Stay in tough with what your alma mater is up to and donate your hard-earned dollars according to how well you think they are achieving their goals as an educational institution and let them know you are doing so.
Posted by: Jim Voigt at September 28, 2005 07:41 AM
The proof is in the pudding--that is, the experiences of our undergraduates like Athena.
She wasn't just an undergrad - she was applying to be an RA, whose job it is to help make kids feel comfortable and at-home. She can be as big a paleoconservative homophobe as she wants to be or doesn't want to be, but she shouldn't be surprised that a welcoming, open attitude is a desirable trait in an RA. The "shocked! shocked!" tone of her article strikes me as a bit daft.
Posted by: jpe at September 28, 2005 09:34 AM
Sorry, jpe. I don't see you can conclude she's a "homophobe" from anything she wrote; she said nothing that maligned gays. I read nothing that said that she didn't have a welcoming, accepting attitude toward all students. I doubt she applied twice in two years solely to gather raw material for an internet article. Her gripe was with administraion practices.
It would be interesting to compare the cost of institutional resources spent on alt lifestyle eductation versus the actual number of gay and transgender students. And in addition, this begs the question of whether these official programs are the really most effective way of fostering a tolerant attitude in new RAs (which I agree is a worthy goal).
If being forced to admit that one is a "product of a heteros_xist culture" is not official oppression, then what is?
You've made some solid posts here arguing that postmodernism has much to offer--solid, but still highly debatable. There may be a big disconnect between the legit theorists and the small fry administrators, but I think that disconnect is causing a real stifling of honest debate.
Posted by: Jeff at September 28, 2005 10:09 AM
I don't see where all this postmodernism talk is coming from in this particular debate.
It strikes me that this is completely a libertarian issue -- and libertarianism is broadly aligned with modernism. If we are to call ourselves libertarians, it is quite proper that access issues for minority groups should be at the front of our [administrative] mind, not least because it has traditionally been such a problem all across the West at one point or another.
Protesting about positive action here shows us up to be anti-libertarian -- the rise of such authoritarianism is, interestingly, more a trait of postmodern polity.
Posted by: Newfred at September 30, 2005 05:17 AM
