The Myth of Political Correctness

The Myth of Political Correctness PDF

Author: John K. Wilson

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780822317135

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The classics of Western culture are out, not being taught, replaced by second-rate and Third World texts. White males are a victimized minority on campuses across the country, thanks to affirmative action. Speech codes have silenced anyone who won't toe the liberal line. Feminists, wielding their brand of sexual correctness, have taken over. These are among the prevalent myths about higher education that John K. Wilson explodes. The phrase "political correctness" is on everyone's lips, on radio and television, and in newspapers and magazines. The phenomenon itself, however, has been deceptively described. Wilson steps into the nation's favorite cultural fray to reveal that many of the most widely publicized anecdotes about PC are in fact more myth than reality. Based on his own experience as a student and in-depth research, he shows what's really going on beneath the hysteria and alarmism about political correctness and finds that the most disturbing examples of thought policing on campus have come from the right. The image of the college campus as a gulag of left-wing totalitarianism is false, argues Wilson, created largely through the exaggeration of deceptive stories by conservatives who hypocritically seek to silence their political opponents. Many of today's most controversial topics are here: multiculturalism, reverse discrimination, speech codes, date rape, and sexual harassment. So are the well-recognized protagonists in the debate: Dinesh D'Souza, William Bennett, and Lynne Cheney, among others. In lively fashion and in meticulous detail, Wilson compares fact to fiction and lays one myth after another to rest, revealing the double standard that allows "conservative correctness" on college campuses to go unchallenged.

Political Correctness and Higher Education

Political Correctness and Higher Education PDF

Author: John Lea

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-05-26

Total Pages: 491

ISBN-13: 1135895872

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How many times have you heard the phrase: `it’s all political correctness gone mad!’ Do you ever wonder whether colleges and universities are really awash with trivial concerns about the use of language or whether they are actually trying to address serious concerns about discrimination and harassment? Have you ever wanted to get to the bottom of what all the fuss is about? This book is the first major study of political correctness in post compulsory education to be published in the UK. For readers in the UK unfamiliar with the nature of the controversies in US college campuses this book offers a comprehensive assessment of the key themes, including who and what was behind key campaigns. For readers in the US unfamiliar with how this cultural export has faired in the UK this book looks at the significant similarities and differences in the ways that the phrase has been used in both societies. Apart from addressing the roots of political correctness the book seeks to show how the phrase has helped to complicate the traditional boundaries between those on the political Left and those on the political Right. The book also demonstrates in clear terms how the phrase is integral to understanding key themes in cultural theory, such as postmodernism and identity politics. This book is intended to be of interest to a number of readers: Teachers working in colleges and universities; Teacher educators and student teachers working on programmes of initial teacher education; Students studying undergraduate programmes in comparative politics and/or sociology and cultural studies Finally, the book will seek to capture the reflections of prominent academics and educationalists bon both sides of the Atlantic, who have worked in environments where the phrase has impinged on aspects of their work over the last twenty five years. If you think that `political correctness’ simply amounts to what jokes you are allowed to tell in a classroom, hopefully this book will challenge you to think again.

Safe Enough Spaces

Safe Enough Spaces PDF

Author: Michael S. Roth

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-08-20

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 0300248725

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From the president of Wesleyan University, a compassionate and provocative manifesto on the crises confronting higher education In this bracing book, Michael S. Roth stakes out a pragmatist path through the thicket of issues facing colleges today to carry out the mission of higher education. With great empathy, candor, subtlety, and insight, Roth offers a sane approach to the noisy debates surrounding affirmative action, political correctness, and free speech, urging us to envision college as a space in which students are empowered to engage with criticism and with a variety of ideas. Countering the increasing cynical dismissal—from both liberals and conservatives—of the traditional core values of higher education, this book champions the merits of different diversities, including intellectual diversity, with a timely call for universities to embrace boldness, rigor, and practical idealism.

The Politically Correct University

The Politically Correct University PDF

Author: Robert Maranto

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 0844743178

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Political correctness if one of the primary enemies of freedom of thought in higher education today, undermining our ability to acquire, transmit, and process knowledge. Political correctness limits the variation of ideas by an ideologically driven concern for hue rather than view. This volume is not simply another rant; there are good data here, along with well-crafted, hard-to-ignore logical interpretations and arguments. It is the sort of work that those who adhere to idea-limiting notions of the university will try to trivialize. That alone should make it important reading. --Michael Schwartz, president emeritus, Kent State University and Cleveland State University

Political Correctness and Higher Education

Political Correctness and Higher Education PDF

Author: John Lea

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 9780415962582

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How many times have you heard the phrase: `it's all political correctness gone mad!' Do you ever wonder whether colleges and universities are really awash with trivial concerns about the use of language or whether they are actually trying to address serious concerns about discrimination and harassment? Have you ever wanted to get to the bottom of what all the fuss is about? This book is the first major study of political correctness in post compulsory education to be published in the UK. For readers in the UK unfamiliar with the nature of the controversies in US college campuses this book offers a comprehensive assessment of the key themes, including who and what was behind key campaigns. For readers in the US unfamiliar with how this cultural export has faired in the UK this book looks at the significant similarities and differences in the ways that the phrase has been used in both societies. Apart from addressing the roots of political correctness the book seeks to show how the phrase has helped to complicate the traditional boundaries between those on the political Left and those on the political Right. The book also demonstrates in clear terms how the phrase is integral to understanding key themes in cultural theory, such as postmodernism and identity politics. This book is intended to be of interest to a number of readers: Teachers working in colleges and universities; Teacher educators and student teachers working on programmes of initial teacher education; Students studying undergraduate programmes in comparative politics and/or sociology and cultural studies Finally, the book will seek to capture the reflections of prominent academics and educationalists bon both sides of the Atlantic, who have worked in environments where the phrase has impinged on aspects of their work over the last twenty five years. If you think that `political correctness' simply amounts to what jokes you are allowed to tell in a classroom, hopefully this book will challenge you to think again.

The Assault on American Excellence

The Assault on American Excellence PDF

Author: Anthony T. Kronman

Publisher: Free Press

Published: 2020-08-11

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1501199498

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“I want to call it a cry of the heart, but it’s more like a cry of the brain, a calm and erudite one.” —Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal The former dean of Yale Law School argues that the feverish egalitarianism gripping college campuses today is a threat to our democracy. College education is under attack from all sides these days. Most of the handwringing—over free speech, safe zones, trigger warnings, and the babying of students—has focused on the excesses of political correctness. That may be true, but as Anthony Kronman shows, it’s not the real problem. “Necessary, humane, and brave” (Bret Stephens, The New York Times), The Assault on American Excellence makes the case that the boundless impulse for democratic equality gripping college campuses today is a threat to institutions whose job is to prepare citizens to live in a vibrant democracy. Three centuries ago, the founders of our nation saw that for this country to have a robust government, it must have citizens trained to have tough skins, to make up their own minds, and to win arguments not on the basis of emotion but because their side is closer to the truth. Without that, Americans would risk electing demagogues. Kronman is the first to tie today’s campus clashes to the history of American values, drawing on luminaries like Alexis de Tocqueville and John Adams to argue that our modern controversies threaten the best of our intellectual traditions. His tone is warm and wise, that of an educator who has devoted his life to helping students be capable of living up to the demands of a free society—and to do so, they must first be tested in a system that isn’t focused on sympathy at the expense of rigor and that values excellence above all.

The Politically Correct University

The Politically Correct University PDF

Author: Robert Maranto

Publisher: AEI Press

Published: 2009-10-16

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 1461660475

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The Politically Correct University shows how the universities' quest for 'diversity' has produced in too many departments a stifling uniformity of thought. Required reading for those who want American universities to eschew political correctness." — Michael Barone, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Beyond Political Correctness

Beyond Political Correctness PDF

Author: Stephen Richer

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

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"The term 'political correctness' has lately been transformed into a weapon of neoconservatism. Once used to poke fun at social movements and civil-rights groups for occasional lapses into rigidity, it has since become a popular handle for the neoconservative critique of higher education. Aimed at anti-racist and anti-sexist initiatives within universities, colleges, and other major social institutions, the term is used to discredit such innovations as employment equity, selective recruitment of students from groups that have suffered systemic discrimination, sexual harassment policies, and women's studies programs, casting these as forms of tyranny that destroy academic freedom and merit." "This anthology is the first sociological analysis of political correctness and the first study of the phenomenon in Canada. Contributors argue on behalf of an inclusive university, showing that recent reforms not only work toward broadening human rights, but provide a welcome reorganization of knowledge. All but two papers have been written specifically for this text."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Shadow University

The Shadow University PDF

Author: Alan Charles Kors

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1999-07-15

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0684867494

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Universities once believed themselves to be sacred enclaves, where students and professors could debate the issues of the day and arrive at a better understanding of the human condition. Today, sadly, this ideal of the university is being quietly betrayed from within. Universities still set themselves apart from American society, but now they do so by enforcing their own politically correct worldview through censorship, double standards, and a judicial system without due process. Faculty and students who threaten the prevailing norms may be forced to undergo "thought reform." In a surreptitious aboutface, universities have become the enemy of a free society, and the time has come to hold these institutions to account. The Shadow University is a stinging indictment of the covert system of justice on college campuses, exposing the widespread reliance on kangaroo courts and arbitrary punishment to coerce students and faculty into conformity. Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate, staunch civil libertarians and active defenders of free inquiry on campus, lay bare the totalitarian mindset that undergirds speech codes, conduct codes, and "campus life" bureaucracies, through which a cadre of deans and counselors indoctrinate students and faculty in an ideology that favors group rights over individual rights, sacrificing free speech and academic freedom to spare the sensitivities of currently favored groups. From Maine to California, at public and private universities alike, liberty and fairness are the first casualties as teachers and students find themselves in the dock, presumed guilty until proven innocent and often forbidden to cross-examine their accusers. Kors and Silverglate introduce us to many of those who have firsthand experience of the shadow university, including: The student at the center of the 1993 "Water Buffalo" case at the University of Pennsylvania, who was brought up on charges of racial harassment after calling a group of rowdy students "water buffalo" -- even though the term has no racial connotations. The Catholic residence adviser who was fired for refusing, on grounds of religious conscience, to wear a symbol of gay and lesbian causes. The professor who was investigated for sexual harassment when he disagreed with campus feminists about curriculum issues. The student who was punished for laughing at a statement deemed offensive to others and who was ordered to undergo "sensitivity training" as a result. The Shadow University unmasks a chilling reality for parents who entrust their sons and daughters to the authority of such institutions, for thinking people who recognize that vigorous debate is the only sure path to truth, and for all Americans who realize that when even one citizen is deprived of liberty, we are all diminished.

Tenured Radicals

Tenured Radicals PDF

Author: Roger Kimball

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13:

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Since Tenured Radicals first appeared in 1990, it has achieved the status of a minor classic. Trenchant and witty, it lays bare the sham of what now passes for serious teaching and research in the humanities at American universities Mr. Kimball names his enemies precisely....This book will breed fistfights.--Roger Rosenblatt, New York Times Book Review. All persons serious about education should see it.--Allan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind