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How Do We Reverse the Tidal Wave of Woke in Academia?

How Do We Reverse the Tidal Wave of Woke in Academia?

“The woke mentality is unapologetically invasive.”

Wenyuan Wu, the executive director at Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, has some ideas and writes at Minding the Campus:

Can We “Long March” Back through the Institutions?

Recently, a San Diego school district superintendent attempted to explain the overall good educational performance of Asian students by highlighting these students’ alleged rich immigrant backgrounds. She said: “people who’re able to make the journey to America are wealthy.” Once her bigoted comments were exposed, the superintendent first apologized and then doubled down and advocated for more diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming. Confronted by parents calling for her resignation, said education leader then absolved herself of any responsibility, accused the dissenters of public lynching, and threatened legal action. The woke mentality is unapologetically invasive.

The firm conviction that DEI presents an unquestionable model for success and virtue reflects a bigger, national quagmire—America has become obsessed with race, captured by dressed-up fringe ideologies and paralyzed by the urge to equalize outcomes. The current state of affairs is a result of deliberate institutional changes, which have step by step hijacked liberal designs of individual rights, equal opportunity, free speech, and critical thinking. Teachers unions inject political agendas and activist demands into normal education policymaking through collective bargaining and terrorizing non-conforming members. Higher education programs such as education colleges produce ideologues rather than free thinkers by promoting invasive new pedagogies, such as critical race theory (CRT) and culturally responsive teaching. A major American political party is so smitten with the dogma of DEI that most recent federal policies, whether on national defense or homeland security or banking, have been tinged with its pursuit.

It seems that the strategic vision of a “Long March through the Institutions,” shared by Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci, and Mao Zedong, has come alive in America in the 21st century. The logical follow-up question is obvious: can we long march back through the same institutions, originally designed as part and parcel of the longest uninterrupted experiment of liberal democracy, to undo the damages? If so, how? Let’s consider three possible routes in turn.

Read the whole thing.

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Comments

The Gentle Grizzly | May 12, 2022 at 10:36 am

Stop government backed student loans. The styrofoam majors – all woke – will disappear overnight.

    Mr Grizzly. You are on the right path. We have a University Professor in our organization. I asked him if he was retired since he was always around. His answer was, “No, I’m tenured”.

      Dimsdale in reply to billi. | May 14, 2022 at 12:15 am

      You would think that all the deadwood that tenure produces in colleges would be enough to offset the Biden fuel shortage.

      Of course, the hot gases and particulates in the smoke would bar us from its use.

henrybowman | May 12, 2022 at 1:32 pm

As kids, they all got trophies, and therefore never learned how to lose. They’re incapable of being wrong in their own minds, and nothing is ever their fault. And their superior generation never learned how to discipline them effectively.

I would suggest all tenured educators be reviewed every five years to determine if they should continue in their positions. If at a University with a “publish or perish” position. This would be fairly easy. Show me what scholarship you have published and in what Journal!

    Dimsdale in reply to dr. frank. | May 14, 2022 at 12:17 am

    Unfortunately, knowing universities the way I do, the review committees would just use their power to oust conservatives.

    Recent spoofs on journal reviews in presumably legitimate publications have shown that the peer review process is as corrupt as anything else in academia.

Stop mindlessly sending your children to these schools. There are (mostly smaller) schools that still retain conservative values. College of the Ozarks instantly comes to mind. If the kiddies refuse because they want a four year party terminating in a worthless degree, let them pay for it. Money still talks!

Philosopher1 | May 13, 2022 at 10:52 am

“…a San Diego school district superintendent attempted to explain the overall good educational performance of Asian students by highlighting these students’ alleged rich immigrant backgrounds. She said: “people who’re able to make the journey to America are wealthy.” Once her bigoted comments were exposed…”
Why was that “bigoted”? I have lived through decades of increased numbers of Indians moving to the U.S. for IT jobs. They did not represent the average of the Indian population, and the children they had in the U.S. were not endowed with average parental support, financially or otherwise. Many Chinese students have been studying for years at U.S. universities, but they do tend to come from advantaged Chinese backgrounds. I have known a number of Africans who came to the U.S. but were not of average advantages in their African origins. Of the Southeast Asians who were able to get to the U.S. late in the Vietnam War era, many were not affluent but managed to produce educationally-successful children in the U.S.
Overall, though, would it not be reasonable to believe that a relatively high percentage of Asian immigrants to the U.S. were wealthier than their average countryfolk? Is is “bigoted” to make such a claim?
(Higher ed, is, though, of course ridiculously “Woke”. The people populating it are not victims of Woke-ism. If thinking is a response to blocked goals, they have not had their goals blocked by Woke-ism.)