OPINION:
I want you to use your imagination for just a moment.
Imagine we live in a day where we surgically remove a student’s frontal lobe and then demand he explain an algebraic formula. Imagine we live in a time and place where we remove a co-ed’s legs and expect her to run a race. In other words, imagine we now live in a culture and a country where, as C.S. Lewis warned, we have “gelded the stallion and bid him be fruitful.”
Well, if this past week’s news proves anything, you don’t need to imagine this any longer. The day is here and it has come to you courtesy of my industry: The American educational enterprise.
Here are just a couple examples of what is now considered standard fare for our nation’s “best” schools.
Students at the University of Louisville have called for the removal of an archive gallery, honoring Sen. Mitch McConnell and his wife, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. The reason for the petition? This couple, who are exemplars of interracial marriage and cross-cultural inclusion, is moderately conservative and, therefore, makes “multiple student communities” at the University of Louisville “feel unwelcomed and uncomfortable.”
Amherst College has released its “common language guide” and, thus, has proven beyond question its commitment to stifle rather than encourage the free exchange of ideas, open debate, and what used to simply be considered a staple of good education.
Portland State University, eager to follow suit in paying homage to George Orwell, proudly published its list of “speech codes” this past week. One has to wonder when this bastion of intellectual inquiry will begin telling us which books will be burned in its annual bonfire.
The University of South Carolina announced in early March it will resist legislation that would make a requirement for graduation the successful completion of a class on our country’s founding documents otherwise known as the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers.
Not to be outdone, Michigan Technological Institute just posted signs in its women’s restrooms telling its female students that if they “feel like someone is using the wrong bathroom” they should not “stare at them, challenge them, insult them, or purposely make them feel uncomfortable.” What should be done then, you ask?
Well, according to this school that purportedly believes in and teaches the sciences (which I presume still includes biology), these women should “respect the privacy” of the intruding male, and “carry on with your day.” In other words, women at this university will no longer be granted the dignity of having their own toilets.
Forget teaching something as basic as how to live as a free people in a constitutional republic and how to tolerate a different idea rather than cower and cry in the corner when someone says something you don’t like. Apparently, indoctrination in sexual nihilism, safe spaces and the upside-down world of men denying women the right to their own restrooms is now clearly more important.
But wait, lest you think I am being biased, let me be clear. This is not just at our public schools. Christian universities are rushing to join their Big Brothers in the secular academy in this parade led by an emperor who is naked as a jaybird.
The University of Northwestern in St. Paul, Minnesota, just banned Star Parker, founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, from speaking on their campus because her pro-life and pro-responsibility-based ideas are too “sensational” and not in keeping with this school’s educational goals.
Whitworth University, in Spokane, Washington, has just denied the Daily Wire editor in chief, Ben Shapiro, an invitation to speak on its campus. The reason for banning Mr. Shapiro (who happens to be Jewish) the right to speak at Whitworth? Mr. Shapiro’s ideas are verboten and unwelcome and will not be heard at the school that promotes itself under the banner of “lovers of truth and learning.”
I could go on and on and on. This list of lunacy is endless. You don’t have to imagine this nightmare any longer because such a day is here. This cultural lobotomy comes to you without apology from the cultural establishment that arguably has more influence over our sons’ and daughters’ moral and intellectually development than any other entity in their lives. Stop and think about it — what place has more influence over your child just in terms of raw quantitative hours than where you send them to school? None.
But for a handful of schools left that actually believe in what is good and true, and beautiful as the only foundation for any meaningful education, my industry is working to remove, not only your sons’ and daughters’ minds, but their very souls. And yet we expect them to stay out of this ugly hell of our own making?
Why would any parent want their own children exposed to this, and furthermore, why do you continue to pay for it?
• Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, is the author of “Not A Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery 2017).
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