Former student “Lamar” transferred to a University of California campus this semester and was surprised to find himself ordered to attend two mandatory “workshops,” one on alcohol abuse and the other on sexual assault. “Lamar,” an adult in his 30s, Iraq War veteran, and parent, bridled at the paternalism/maternalism. “State law,” explained the school, referring him to AB 1088 (a compilation of cooked data, murky definitions, and propaganda which does not mandate "workshops").
What next?” asked “Lamar.” “An anti-tobacco workshop, a recycling workshop, an obesity workshop, a vegetarianism workshop? Already PETA made the college dining halls start a `Meatless Monday.’”
It may come to that. One neighboring community college just took an institutional position condemning the immigration law in another state. Apparently, embedding the progressive agenda in textbooks and curriculum is not enough in our postmodern world. Walter Truett Anderson says, “In education, postmodernism rejects the notion that the purpose of education is primarily to train a child’s cognitive capacity for reason . . . . [Instead, postmodern education] is to take an essentially indeterminate being and give it a social identity.” Mandatory workshops, it seems, are intended to bring that “indeterminate being” into conformance with “the campus culture” and “principles of community.” The sign on this clubhouse reads “No Unprogressives Allowed.” Just yesterday, “Jennifer” came to me desperate to get out of her Women’s History class. “I admit, I thought it would be an easy A,” she said, “but I also wanted to learn about the Enlightenment, and all I heard was how the Enlightenment oppressed women. Help!” Sorry, “Lamar” and “Jennifer;” you might have thought it died with the millennium but the baleful Political Correctness Zombie still stalks the halls of academe.
