Education or Proselytization?

The following comment was left by "bmartin" on the "Livin' in the AmeriKKKa" thread.

I have personally taken a class from Kelvin Monroe and it was one of the best classes I ever took. I used to have conservative views but after taking his class he taught us a different way to think opening our eyes to the truths of this world. He at no point forced us to take in his beliefs. He taught us how to think and no form of indoctrination took place. I find it funny that some undergraduate students think they know better then KJM or Hentges. The more you learn, the more you know just how dumb you are. Obviously, this isnt the case for college republicans. I think you guys need to take in Monroes advice and stop sipping the kook-aid fellas

peace and spread the love

I'm sure Mr. Monroe is a wonderful teacher. But let's imagine for a moment that he was teaching a religion class and bmartin had been a Muslim, Jew, atheist, etc. What if bmartin had become a born-again Christian as a result of Mr. Monroe's influence? I wonder how long he would be teaching classes after that?

I'm sorry. I'm not buying this whole "my eyes were closed until they were opened by the CES department" spiel. As the father/stepfather of five children ranging in age from a sophomore in college to a pre-schooler, I have seen firsthand the leftist, politically correct, "white men are evil" version of social sciences taught in our public schools. My kids can't tell you much about Pearl Harbor or D-Day, but they sure know about the Japanese-American internment camps. One kid even thought Martin Luther King had squared off against Robert E. Lee in the Civil War and saved the world.

Deja Vu All Over Again?

Dave Oliveria, an associate editor at the Spokesman-Review who runs the "Huckleberries Online" blog (and the blogfather of the Inland Northwest,) sent me this e-mail yesterday:

tom; you might be interested in following this one that i just posted:http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/hbo/archive.asp?postID=22455
-- dfo

It was about two weeks from ExStreamas utterance of "white shitbag" to Kiley Smith's appearance on Hannity & Colmes.

I'm feeling a similar dynamic building again with the fallout from Dinesh D'Souza's lecture and Ed Weber's column. Should be interesting.

"Intellectual diversity enlivens WSU debate"

Now here is a professor we can be proud of. Ed Weber, WSU political science professor and Director of the Thomas S. Foley Public Policy Institute, answered critics in in a guest op-ed in today's Spokesman-Review. He completely gets the idea of intellectual diversity and the tyranny of liberal fascism on campus. I hope his proposal for balanced speakers comes to fruition, and if it does, Danny Schanze, Alex Williams, Chris Del Beccaro, and the other WSU College Republicans will be entitled to a great deal of the credit. Thanks guys, for your courage. The "hegemony of the left-leaning liberal viewpoint" does give everyone who stands against them grief, as Weber states and I know firsthand. But we CAN make a difference by calling them out and not taking it any more, from Wal-Mart to free speech.

On March 26, noted conservative scholar Dinesh D'Souza presented a lecture titled "Racism is not the Problem" at Washington State University's main campus in Pullman. The event was co-sponsored by WSU's Thomas S. Foley Public Policy Institute, along with the Associated Students of WSU, WSU's Residential Housing Authority, and the WSU chapter of the College Republicans.

The question-and-answer period immediately following the talk and ensuing commentary in WSU's campus newspaper, The Evergreen, made clear that many took offense at D'Souza's message, going so far as to accuse D'Souza and, by extension, the Foley Institute of further polarizing the campus on the issue of race, and accusing the Foley of being irresponsible. The Institute has even been challenged to provide immediate "equal time" and to do so quickly lest its mission of, and reputation for, non-partisanship be tarnished.

Allow me to throw a few facts on the table in regard to these requests for turnabout as fair play and the goal of a balanced dialogue, and then draw out the implications.

The Foley was established in 1995 and I have led it since 2001. During that time left-leaning, liberal speakers have outnumbered conservatives in a ratio of four or five to one.

How can this be if we make our decisions based on expertise? In part it is a function of the fact, established by several pieces of social science research, that roughly 90 percent of all social scientists and humanities scholars are either card-carrying Democrats or those with left-of-center values and preferences. An equally illuminating point is that WSU, like so many college campuses today, and especially in the College of Liberal Arts, is clearly more receptive to speakers who espouse liberal Democratic politics and policy views.

While no one has ever stopped me from inviting a conservative speaker to WSU, the hegemony of the left-leaning liberal viewpoint is such that the only grief I've ever received from my advisory board or others is when I have invited John Ashcroft, John Sununu, Mr. D'Souza, and a handful of others to campus under the Foley banner. I have never been interrogated or otherwise questioned about any liberal speaker so invited.

The thing is, I've never cared what side of the intellectual diversity divide someone stands on -- my job is to bring in excellent speakers who will make us think, and perhaps rethink our established positions. But there is a cost, emotional and otherwise, to fighting the inevitable "geez, why did you invite that fascist Ashcroft to WSU?" or "are you sure the Foley should be associated with such an outlandish (i.e., conservative) view?"

As a result, I have shied away from inviting too many of "the wrong kind" of intellectual. For that lack of courage I must apologize to all of the conservatives on campus -- students, staff and professors -- and in the surrounding communities of Washington State. I should have fought harder to bring more conservative voices to campus.

So here is my first proposal to meet the request for fair play and a balancing of the intellectual scales so that true intellectual diversity comes to WSU. Over the next 10 years, the Foley Institute should dedicate roughly 70 to 80 percent of its considerable programming resources to respected and strongly conservative speakers.

On a second and more concrete level, I propose that WSU immediately commission a working group comprised of university leaders, students and staff to establish an annual high profile, world-class lecture series in Pullman devoted to the theme of intellectual diversity. The series should be run by the Foley Institute and will consist of two lectures each year with one devoted to the liberal side and the other to a conservative position. WSU will need roughly $130,000 per year to support the series. The Foley can contribute $30,000, WSU students (ASWSU) can add $30,000, and WSU's administration can contribute the remaining funds for the first five years. Everyone together will then accept the challenge of raising the roughly $3 million needed to endow the series.

As director of the Foley Institute, and as a scientist and teacher who embraces the marketplace of ideas, I am saddened by those who choose to characterize D'Souza's ideas as polarizing and some who challenge the very right of D'Souza to share his conservative views on race with WSU. One thing I am certain of is this: the Foley Institute did WSU and the state of Washington a great service by enlivening the debate over race precisely because it directly challenged and broke the monopolistic hold at WSU of a singular, politically correct view on the race issue.

This should be our mission in higher education. Why? Because great universities thrive and embrace rather than shrink from the marketplace of ideas. Nor do they allow "offended" parties to dictate the substance of dialogue. My challenge to WSU is simply this: which one will we choose to be?

Livin' in the AmeriKKKa

The WSU College Republicans sent the following e-mail to the faculty members of the WSU Comparative Ethnic Studies department:

CES Department,

I would like to cordially invite you and your students to an eye-opening guest speaker, Dinesh D'Souza. A former Reagan Policy Analyst, now one of America's best selling authors, Dinesh D'Souza is coming to Pullman to discuss the state of American race politics and other issues surrounding the modern era. This eye-opening speaker will be hosted on Tuesday, March 25, at 7:30pm in CUE 203. This is going to be a great learning opportunity for all of those in attendance. It may be conducive to offer extra-credit to your students to entice them away from their busy schedules to experience this prominent speaker. I hope to see you there!

Featured sponsors: The Foley Institute, Young America's Foundation, ASWSU, RHA and the WSU College Republicans

Kelvin Monroe, a CES instructor, responded as follows:

This is great learning opportunity indeed for our students to witness neo-conservative race politics (masquerading as Liberal universalism) in our modern era. D'Souza and his contemporaries--W. J. Wilson, F. Fukuyama, S. P. Huntington--are a great example--and indeed a good learning moment--of a revitalized enlightenment project (liberal at its absolutely best) in the Amerikkka. Lack of response to Katrina is only one many great examples of this country's Race politics. Reagan, I think of de-industrialization, New jack drug policies, trickle down economics, the list goes on....

I would suggest that the college republicans go learn some history. We got it over here in CES...

Our students should be more concern with the persistence of a War fought on ghostly premises. Do the research. Stop watching Fox, drink water and not Kool-aid.

Take care and see you there.
Peace
K.J.M.

Another CES instructor, Sarah Hengtes, forwarded the CRs e-mail and Monroe's response to her students with this note:

Dear Class,

Sometimes students take this class and want to hear "the other side." While this class presents a variety of opinions as well as "the other side" to much of what we learn in elementary and high school, there is also another "side" that we don't spend time on in class. This other side is the Neo-Conservative view of race and racism. While we don't discuss these views much, we have been discussing some of the effects of such views in class. (For instance, what happened in Tulia or Jena.)

This being said, there is a unique opportunity for you all to hear this "other side" and to get some extra credit in the process. In fact, you all have been invited by the College Republicans to attend a talk by Dinesh D'Souza entitled, "Racism is Not the Problem." March 25, CUE 203 7:30 pm. I highly reccommend this event and I would like to hear your thouhts about, and critical analysis of, D'Souza's talk.

Below is the e-mail invite from the president of the College Republicans as well as a response from a CES faculty member. I hope you will attend, ask questions, and formulate your own ideas.

Sarah

I don't know what's worse. Monroe's use of "Amerikka" or Hengtes' apparent acceptance of the term.

Your higher-education tax dollars at work....

An Evening with Dinesh D'Souza

First of all, major kudos to Danny, Alex, Chris and the other CRs for a dynamite event. It was standing room only in CUE 203 to hear Dinesh D'Souza discuss "Racism is Not the Problem.". I estimate that [edit]200-225 were in attendance tonight. It was nice to see a good community representation, including some of our local elected officials and Republican Party leadership. Paul Zimmerman was there along with some other regular Palousitics readers.

My evening got off to an interesting start. I was waiting in the parking garage for the elevator with my 15-year old daughter. The elevator doors opened, and the only person I could see was.......Dinesh D'Souza!!! Funny!! We got in the car and CR Chris Del Beccaro was nice enough to introduce me to Dinesh.

I'll get into much more detail about what was said later (with pictures,) but I'll conclude the way Dinesh concluded tonight: Universities need intellectual diversity the way they need racial, gender, cultural, and language diversity. It was obvious by the reactions and questions from some in the the crowd tonight that there is not very much of that at WSU. Dinesh challenged those liberals in attendance to open their minds to viewpoints that they don't hear very often, like his. If that was his goal, he was quite successful.

Danny, Alex, WSUCollegeRepublican, Paul: Please feel free to chime with your own posts and pictures if ya got 'em.