The View From 1776

The following excerpt from an essay by Alan Charles Kors, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, describes the transformation since the 1960s of our schools into seminaries of socialism.  Socialist collectivism entails inevitably the political tyranny of the statist Old World that led to our rebellion in the 1776 War of Independence.

From the Free Speech Movement to Speech Codes 

by Alan Charles Kors 
July 29, 2005

Student activists of the late 1960s and early 1970s had claimed that they wanted liberty: free speech, freedom of association, freedom of conscience, and the freedom to define themselves. Some indeed did want those things, but among those who remained on campus, far too many wanted them not as ends in themselves, but merely as means to advance a partisan, political agenda. They secured those things for themselves, destroying most of the in loco parentis functions of the university (universities standing in the place of parents). The students who followed them, however, did not look up to the aging heirs of the ’60s as gurus or as moral and political leaders; indeed, those new students often made fun of the ’60s, recoiled from its styles, and sought to define themselves. For the heirs of the ’60s, those new students had to be saved from themselves and from American society, and freedom for students was the first thing to be sacrificed to that agenda. 
 


Campus zealots have changed their motto on so many of America’s campuses from “Don’t trust anyone over 30” to “Don’t trust anyone under 30.” They have given up on the notion that students are young adults; instead they have institutionalized their views in the in loco parentis role of universities and so made their own particular ideological analysis of America the official secular religion of academic life. 
  


They believe that most undergraduates are intellectual and political children who enter universities inadequately aware of the effects of an American caste system of “race, gender, and sexuality.” They also believe—a patronizing perspective that is almost unchallenged in academic life—that most so‑called minorities (each of us, in fact, is a unique moral minority of one)—students of African or of mixed racial descent, students of Hispanic descent, gays and lesbians, native peoples, students of Asian descent, and, though they are in fact a majority, women—do not adequately understand the nature and methods of their “oppression,” and, indeed, often have internalized the very values by which society oppresses them. 
 


Leninists labeled this phenomenon of judging from the perspective of your oppressor “false consciousness” (what could workers know, compared to intellectuals, about what workers authentically want?), and their murderous contempt for those with false consciousness drowned the world in blood…

The children of the ’60s, in the ’60s, had asked, “What could our elders know, being the product of America?” The children of the ’60s, now elders, put the question a bit differently at the dawn of the 21st century: “What could our children know, being the product of America?” 
  


Thus, we have moved at more and more campuses from their Free Speech Movement to their speech codes, from their own struggle against mandatory chapel to their own struggle for mandatory diversity education and sensitivity seminars, from their struggle for racial integration to their efforts for new forms of separate racial programs, from their freedom to smoke pot openly on college lawns to their war against the spirits—literal and metaphorical—of undergraduates today. American students are victims of a generational swindle of truly epic proportions.

With gratifying frequency in the last few years, local and state school boards are awakening to the liberal-progressive educational corrosion that undermines the ethos that made the United States into a great nation.  The Wall Street Journal, in its July 13, 2009, edition, reports one campaign to salvage the unwritten constitution of our nation.

The Culture Wars’ New Front: U.S. History Classes in Texas

By STEPHANIE SIMON

The fight over school curriculum in Texas, recently focused on biology, has entered a new arena, with a brewing debate over how much faith belongs in American history classrooms.

The Texas Board of Education, which recently approved new science standards that made room for creationist critiques of evolution, is revising the state’s social studies curriculum. In early recommendations from outside experts appointed by the board, a divide has opened over how central religious theology should be to the teaching of history.

Three reviewers, appointed by social conservatives, have recommended revamping the K-12 curriculum to emphasize the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. Two of them want to remove or de-emphasize references to several historical figures who have become liberal icons, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall.

“We’re in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it,” said Rev. Peter Marshall, a Christian minister and one of the reviewers appointed by the conservative camp.

Three other reviewers, all selected by politically moderate or liberal members of the board, recommended less-sweeping changes to the existing curriculum. But one suggested including more diverse role models, especially Latinos, in teaching materials. “We have tended to exclude or marginalize the role of Hispanic and Native American participants in the state’s history,” said Jesús F. de la Teja, chairman of the history department at Texas State University.

Social studies teachers from Texas are meeting this summer to write new standards. They can accept, reject or modify the six reviewers’ suggestions, all of which were made individually. The teachers’ recommendations are sent to the 15-member board of education, a conservative-dominated body that has authority to revise standards.

The three reviewers appointed by the moderate and liberal board members are all professors of history or education at Texas universities, including Mr. de la Teja, a former state historian. The reviewers appointed by conservatives include two who run conservative Christian organizations: David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, a group that promotes America’s Christian heritage; and Rev. Marshall, who preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God’s judgments on the nation’s sexual immorality. The third is Daniel Dreisbach, a professor of public affairs at American University.

The conservative reviewers say they believe that children must learn that America’s founding principles are biblical. For instance, they say the separation of powers set forth in the Constitution stems from a scriptural understanding of man’s fall and inherent sinfulness, or “radical depravity,” which means he can be governed only by an intricate system of checks and balances.

The curriculum, they say, should clearly present Christianity as an overall force for good—and a key reason for American exceptionalism, the notion that the country stands above and apart.

“America is a special place and we need to be sure we communicate that to our children,” said Don McLeroy, a leading conservative on the board. “The foundational principles of our country are very biblical.... That needs to come out in the textbooks.”

But the emphasis on Christianity as a driving force is disputed by some historians, who focus on the economic motivation of many colonists and the fractured views of religion among the Founding Fathers. “There appears to me too much politics in some of this,” said Lybeth Hodges, a professor of history at Texas Woman’s University and another of the curriculum reviewers.

Some outside observers argue that curriculum analysts should be trained academics. “It’s important to have trained historians establishing the framework,” said David Vigilante, associate director of the National Center for History in the Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The conservative Christian reviewers, in turn, are skeptical of the professional historians’ emphasis on multiculturalism, views stated most forcefully by Mr. de la Teja but echoed by Ms. Hodges. Reaching for examples of achievement by different racial and ethnic groups is divisive, Mr. Barton said, and distorts history.

The standards that the school board eventually settles on won’t dictate day-to-day lesson plans; that is up to individual teachers. But they will offer clear guidelines for educators—and also for publishers.

Nearly every state has its own curriculum standards, and there are scores of social studies texts to choose from at most grade levels, so what happens in Texas won’t necessarily affect other states. But the Texas market is huge, so most big publishers aggressively seek approval from the board, in some cases adopting the majority’s editing suggestions nearly verbatim.

While the battle in Texas is just heating up, the tug-of-war over how to present history dates back nearly 150 years, said Jonathan Zimmerman, a New York University professor of education. A single paragraph in a third-grade text might seem insignificant. But it is a powerful symbol, he said, “because schools remain the most important venue for teaching our kids who we are.”