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Our …..Educational System: Leaning Left As a Replacement for the Truth. 

K. C. Johnson, the other day [1]:

Beyond illustrating the flawed conception of academic freedom too prevalent in the contemporary academy, the Churchill case illustrates what happens when universities abandon excellence as the primary criterion in the personnel process. Well before Churchill ever uttered his “Little Eichmanns” line, the University of Colorado – a Tier I research university – had hired, then tenured, and then promoted to department chairman a woefully underqualified academic charlatan. In this respect, the affair provides a case study of “diversity” hiring practices gone awry.

Churchill was hired through a “special opportunity” position, designed by the university to help “recruit and hire a more diverse faculty.” He had an M.A. from little-known Sangamon State University and no Ph.D at all. As documents from the time [2]noted, his qualifications included only two items: strong lobbying from Evelyn Hu-DeHart [3], the chair of the Ethnic Studies program, and the now-disputed fact that “Ward is a Native American,” meaning his hire would contribute “to increasing the cultural diversity on campus.”

Johnson has it absolutely correct here.  But his point, I think, is even broader than he makes it.  This is not against Churchill specifically, but more about the politically correct and “diversified” process by which he umpteen his position.

A number of years ago, (June O3, I think) I posted an extended analysis [4] of the Bakke and Grutter decisions.  I discussed it more recently, here. [5].. in a slightly different context. Given Churchill’s unsubstantiated claim of Indian heritage, I suppose it could be argued that race Anderson to this.  But one of the subtexts of that entire discussion than I did not get into it that time, was the actual academic fitness of the students involved with those rulings.  Many argue that the time, and still do, that we are placing students into positions well beyond their ability, simply because they are of the right color, gender, or ethnic background.  This results in a lowering of academic standards, overall, because the unqualified people simply can’t cut it.  This, of course doesn’t do the student much good, nor does it do any good to those who hire said student after they are handed a diploma. (Notice, please, that I am reluctant to use the word “graduate” in that context.)

What Johnson is tacitly suggesting, here, (and, perhaps even he’s unaware he’s doing it ) is that the problems that are created for students involved in such “diversity” oriented escalation programs, are now clearly identified as causing the very same qualification issues involved in the same type of “diversity” escalation programs for faculty of our places of higher learning.

Churchill, clearly, exposed himself as being totally unqualified for the position that he held. Certainly, this brings up the question of whether or not academics are doing enough to police themselves, but inherent in that question, is whether not academics are being honest with both themselves and with us as regards the actual qualifications of the people so elevated…. Both students and faculty.

When I say honest, I mean as regards the politics of the situation.  As Johnson himself points out, the outcome of the Churchill situation, exposes the fact that ….

…in politicized fields such as African-American Studies, Women’s Studies, and Ethnic Studies, the message too often trumps quality. In this case, it appears that Churchill’s extremist arguments that the U.S. government engaged in genocide against Native Americans blinded his academic reviewers to the poor quality of his scholarship. Indeed, some Churchill sympathizers, led by Cornell professor Eric Cheyfitz [6], have continued to maintain that the former professor’s writings constitute appropriate scholarship for the field of Ethnic Studies.

The honesty, and integrity, of not only Churchill, not only of the faculty at Colorado university, but our entire higher educational system, is on the line here.  We now see clearly the wages of the sin of placing political correctness over the quality of scholarship.  Of “the message” over the truth.

Correcting this situation, is problematic at best.  That’s because the people who we are relying upon to change that situation, are responsible for dickering in the first place.  And, they got us into this situation, because of their predilection to placing political correctness over quality of scholarship.  Of “the message”, over the truth.  How, then, can they be depended upon, to solve the problem that they created, when their non-reasoning leftism behind what they created has not changed?