“The extremely liberal environment on many college campuses is often attributed to the influence of aging hippie professors intent on indoctrination rather than education,” Patricia Daugherty writes at The Federalist today.
As Daughtery writes, however, that’s only half the story: a recent campus administrator’s conference showed her that “indoctrination isn’t confined to the classroom.”
The conference, titled “American College Personnel Association: College Student Educators International,” revealed an administrative machine chock-full of “far-left, social-justice politics,” Daugherty says. Ahead of the conference she got an idea of its content when she learned of its theme: “Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization.” Organizers drilled into attendees the idea that “racism and colonization are real, present, enduring, intersectional, and systemic forms of oppression,” and that “advocacy and social change require us to work to dismantle racism and colonization in higher education.”
Pre-conference reading material included “Racial Justice & Decolonization Can’t Happen Without Disrupting Monoracism” and “White People Owning Our Whiteness & Resistance.”
Attendees were also encouraged to show solidarity with transgender individuals. Administrators were encouraged to “pledge” to “pay attention to the struggles and triumphs of trans people both in the national news and in my community” and “speak up against injustice.”
The conference also featured “designated ‘All-Gender Restrooms'” due to the alleged fact that “[h]istorically, restrooms have been a way to reinforce sex assigned at birth (female/male) and gender (woman/man) identities and expressions.”
The day I arrived at this convention moored in the principles of tolerance and inclusion, I was greeted by a large, laminated poster at the registration tables touting the “ACPA Convention Equity and Inclusion Information Booth.” At this booth one could report any “bias incident . . . believed to have a negative impact on ACPA members, particularly across marginalized social identity group membership.” So if I asked a question that violated the thought police regulations, I might be reported? Welcome to Communist China.
It didn’t get any better. Just before the welcoming video and keynote speaker began, a trigger warning flashed up on the screen that there might be “disturbing scenes of activism” in the video. Duly warned, we then listened to Keala Settle’s “This is Me” (a great song, by the way) as pictures were shown, not of happy college students of every background experiencing the many different aspects of life on a university campus, but Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, and the Women’s March on Washington. I could have been at an Service Employees International Union convention.
The keynote speaker was a professor who expounded on “White Fragility: Why It Is So Hard for Whites to Talk about Our Racism.” I suppose she was selected to kick everything off because according to the convention program, “white supremacy culture permeates in (sic) the United States, with higher education and our campuses. Additionally, there is no doubt racism and colonialism exists (sic) on colleges campuses.” I was emotionally exhausted, and this was only the first day.
“This type of dogmatism and tunnel vision is profoundly unhealthy for our students,” Daugherty claims. “Young people are more fragile now than they have ever been, and I’m afraid student affairs is playing a major role in the angst.”
“The political self-absorption I saw promotes not emotional growth and resilience but rather distrust, anxiety, and victimhood.”
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