Using ‘anti-racism’ to avoid teaching students
Post# of 51171
By Thomas Lifson < >
It’s almost as if some universities are trying to convince parents that it’s not worth spending more than a quarter of a million dollars on a degree. If you don’t learn how to write standard English and go from campus out on the job market, your will find your career opportunities limited. If not right away, then later on.
But the racial frenzy gripping higher education seems to insist that any standard that minorities have disproportionate difficulty meeting must be discarded. Even if it sabotages those students’ chances of future success.
Jeremiah Poff of The College Fix explains:
American University is hosting a seminar next month to teach faculty how to assess writing without judging its quality. In the seminar’s own words: “grading ain’t just grading.”
It’s led by Asao Inoue, a University of Washington-Tacoma professor, and the purpose is to pursue “antiracist ends” through writing assessments.
A national scholarly organization that preaches its “commitment” to academic excellence came out swinging against the seminar, telling The College Fix that Inoue’s ideas are “destroying the very idea that composition classes should teach all students to write well.”
In an email, National Association of Scholars spokesperson Chance Layton said Inoue is “substituting social justice ideologues’ bigotry for instruction in composition”:
The national dominance of social justice educators such as Prof. Inoue indoctrinates college graduates nationwide into social justice ideology and bigotry–but fails to teach them how to write a coherent sentence.
Jason Riley wrote a wonderful book that ought to be required reading for all academics (and for conservatives, it is highly worthwhile, too):