Freefall Of The American University: How Our Colleges Are Corrupting The Minds And Morals Of The Next Generation

by Jim Nelson Black

It's happening in colleges all across the country. Instead of being educational institutions designed to encourage the free discussion of ideas, universities have become prisons of propaganda, indoctrinating students with politically correct (and often morally repugnant) ideas about American life and culture. This book exposes the liberal bias in today's universities, providing hard evidence, in clear and unimpeachable terms, that shows how today's colleges are covertly and overtly proselytizing with leftist slants on sexuality, politics, and lifestyles. By naming names and providing specific and credible insights from faculty members, administrators, professional observers, and analysts who have witnessed and chronicled the intellectual and ethical collapse taking place within the academy, this book offers a broad overview of the issues, the history of the problems, analysis from a broad range of academics and professionals, and also observations of the university students themselves, in their own words, from schools all across the nation.

Genres: Politics, Education

366 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2004

Reviews

[Jeff Shelnutt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why I wanted to give this book four stars:

There’s an obvious problem with our universities. The author delves into a number of these: political correctness gone absurd, a complete collapse of anything resembling traditional moral values, affirmative action equaling reverse discrimination, re-education sessions for those who don’t toe the accepted ideology, the dumbing-down of the curriculum, and a “no student left behind” grading mentality that refuses to fail anyone so long as the (exorbitant) tuition is paid. I mean, after all, a college degree is simply not what it used to be. Who doesn’t know people who possess one or even two degrees who are still forced to work a job that a middle-schooler could handle? And that job sure isn’t paying off the college loans, either.

American university graduates have fallen behind other countries’ college grads in almost every bracket in large part due to the about-turn in educational emphasis. At one time a liberal arts degree pretty much insured that a person was well-versed in the Western Canon so that they had a firm handle on the historical, philosophical, religious and political factors that have brought us as a civilization to this point in our cultural development. Today, classes of this nature are usually elective and in many cases aren’t even offered at all. Instead, the student finds himself forced to take classes about modern, irrelevant, unproven topics such as comic book studies (no offense to comic book lovers—just an example of what we could probably do without for $30,000 a year).

The author goes to lengths to point out that the university is not a place for the professors to propagandize the students toward their own political bias. This is especially disturbing when one notes that many who were self-proclaimed Marxists in the sixties are now tenured professors and policy-setters. Ideally, the university is a place where a person is taught to think for themselves by being exposed to the great writings and thinkers of the past—not only Marx, but Adam Smith; not only socialism, but classic liberalism. Only then is the individual on solid footing to form his own opinions and come to his own well-reasoned conclusions. But today there is no doubt that the so-called leftist agenda has taken over the universities, and more conservative views are either stifled or sneered at.

But this is why I’m giving the book three stars:

Throughout the author exhaustively documents the “liberal” agenda. But at the same time his solution seems to be that the Republican Party is the answer. In other words, if you didn’t support, say, the war in Iraq, or endorse everything that George W. Bush did, then you hate America and all that she stands for. While the author didn’t come right out and say this, it was certainly an underlying ideological strain throughout. This was disheartening because it went against a main thesis of the book: the university should promote free ideas in a free society. Why do I have to be either a Republican or a Democrat? Why can’t I have something other than Coke or Pepsi? In the author’s estimation, it was either/or. And though this book gave me a lot to reflect on, I found myself feeling like I was constantly being urged to register as a card-totin’ Republican. Although this book was supposed to be about the problems with higher education in America, the author couldn't seem to extricate himself from the two-party, red versus blue, political polarization motif.

[Peyton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like this book!!