America's disgrace

Ward Churchill is not an anomaly in American education. In fact, he is a common product of today's educational establishment. Nor are his views that ordinary citizens should be murdered as they go about their daily activities – "little Eichmanns," as he referred to them – uncharacteristic on today's leftist-dominated college and university campuses.

In fact, anti-Semitism, Marxism, and anti-Christian hatred have all found a home on some of America's most prestigious campuses and state-supported institutions. Today, such views are what passes for intellectual enlightenment. Our colleges and universities are masters at training technicians. They are equally masterful failures at educating students.

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An educated person has knowledge of the history that gave birth to his or her culture, understands the most important philosophical and religious ideas that nurture it, and is able to carry on the intellectual inquiry and debate necessary to sustain and grow that culture. Today's students, trained under the mind-numbing poison of political correctness, are ignorant of their own history, incapable of examining the great intellectual movements that gave birth to the West, and unable to defend their ignorance in reasoned debate. When challenged intellectually, they have learned only to respond with cries of "racism" "sexism" or "insensitivity," and then demand that the offending irritant be removed from their morally superior presence.

Those who disagree with the views most prevalent on today's campuses are largely silent. Why? Because they have learned the hard way that "academic freedom" – the freedom to be a Jew-baiter or Christian-hating communist – exists only for those on the left. Only professors and students "courageous" enough to toe the politically correct line advance their careers. Tenure remains under the control of like-minded "-ism" worshipers.

The establishments where these views prevail are not a few out-of-the-way leftist equivalents to the one or two odd "white supremacist camps" in America. No, today those views have made themselves at home in America's most trusted and prestigious private universities, and at many state-supported institutions. Yet every week, the proponents of this status quo of ignorance and hatred descend from their ivory Tower of Babel to cash their paycheck. A paycheck that bears your signature, dear taxpayer. You and I are subsidizing some of the most vile and ignorant views ever to poison a culture and destroy a nation.

The educational process that culminates in the Ward Churchills of the nation receiving tenure starts early, as documented by the Wall Street Journal in "Senior Blues," by Robert Tomsho (page A1, Feb. 8, 2005). The article profiles the "injustice" of an "eight-page [research] paper, an oral presentation and the creation of a related 'product' – anything from a survival snow cave to the gold ring Jason made." This is for students who have spent 12 years in school. Among the program's "outrages" were that papers under eight pages received no credit, nor did papers handed in late. As the Journal noted, "Because Cedarcrest students had little experience writing long, annotated papers that defended a point of view, failure on first drafts was common, even among honors students."

By way of contrast, during the late 1970s, I lived in England. Our neighbor was a seventh-grade teacher. I remember watching her grade essay tests one evening while we were at her house for dinner. This particular question was, "Explore the causes of the American revolution." Seventh-graders.

Had Ward Churchill graduated from an educational system that demanded this level of thought and writing ability, he would have been forced to confront the nonsense he travels around the country lecturing others in before it poisoned his mind, leached out into the classroom and infected his students. But he didn't. He apparently graduated from Sangamon State University in Illinois, where the instructors didn't issue grades. "Don't want to diminish the little darling's self-esteem, you know." How convenient for them – just one big, happy, ignorant family, supported by a grateful taxpayers who had no idea they were just "little Eichmanns" who should be murdered to advance the leftist agenda.

When Mr. Churchill (he apparently has no doctorate) "graduated" he was hired by the University of Colorado to staff a made-up department that needed a phony "Native American" for its affirmative action report. Apparently, the university finds this department useful. Perhaps it is where they warehouse their flunkies and radicals until the college has bled parents, relatives, scholarship funds and the federal government dry of grants and loans. At that point, the "product" has been "educated" and is turned loose on society. They can't think, they can't reason, they are ignorant of history, religion and culture – yet they know what America needs to move forward into a new century.

It's going to take a lot more than Ward Churchill's head figuratively rolling down the hallway to clean up America's educational cesspools. Nevertheless, it's a start.