Public schools are failing their responsibility to educate. Meanwhile, California makes it virtually impossible to home school your child to impart a decent education. This is just another example of the slow death of freedom in California. Read Tom Barrett's latest article for more about how public schools are educating less and less while brainwashing more and more.
One of my major goals for ConservativeTruth.org is to do everything in my power to stop schools and colleges from brainwashing our children. Kris Wampler is doing his part. He sued the University of North Carolina and forced it to stop requiring incoming freshmen to read Islamic propaganda.
Nationwide, students from grade school to college report that they are persecuted and ridiculed by instructors if they don't agree with the liberal and socialist agenda that is presented. College students have been blacklisted by professors and, as a result, have been denied jobs and admission to graduate school because they expressed Christian or conservative views. An 11-year-old has even been persecuted by his teachers because he supports President Bush (see LINK below).
At Columbia University in New York, a documentary film alleging that teachers intimidate students who support Israel has finally drawn the attention of University administrators. The film, "The David Project," alleges some faculty members violate students' rights by using the classroom as a platform for anti-Israeli political propaganda. One Israeli student reported that a professor taunted him by asking, "How many Palestinians did you kill?"
And a California principal has ordered a teacher not to use any materials in his class that mention God -- including the Declaration of Independence (see LINK below)! Principal Patricia Vidmar (Stevens Creek School, Cupertino, Ca.) ordered fifth-grade teacher Steven Williams to submit all his lesson plans to her. She has censored all materials that mention God (including excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, George Washington's journal, John Adams' diary, and Samuel Adams' "The Rights of the Colonists"). Stevens says he has been singled out for censorship by Vidmar because he is a Christian.
In the past, students have kept quiet about abuses by professors for fear of receiving bad grades or even being expelled. But increasingly religious and conservative students are speaking out and even filing lawsuits to protect their rights.
Kris Wampler objected when all incoming students at the University of North Carolina were assigned to read a book about the Quran before they got to campus. "A lot of students feel like they're being discriminated against," he said. But unlike hundreds of other students who also objected, Kris did something about it.
Kris and two other students sued the University to make them take the Islamic propaganda off the required list. While the lawsuit failed, it still accomplished its purpose. The resulting bad publicity forced the University to remove the word "Required" from the list.
Dr. Daniel Klein and Charlotta Stern have conducted a large-scale survey of the political affiliations of American academics using academic association membership lists from six fields (see LINK below). The results are shocking. There are thirty Anthropologists registered as Democrats for every one registered as a Republican. Economics professors are the least liberal; in their field, the ratio is only three to one. Overall, among the six academic disciplines, the ratio is fifteen Democrats for every one Republican.
The disproportionate number of liberals to conservatives would not be so distressing if the professors kept their politics to themselves, as they claim they do. However, when the liberals and socialists control all the oversight mechanisms, it is difficult for them to do the right thing. Why not brainwash and indoctrinate instead of teaching when the only ones who can discipline you for it are fellow liberals?
In a survey of students at 50 top schools by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a group that has argued there is too little intellectual diversity on campuses, 49 percent of students reported that professors frequently commented on politics in class even if it was outside the subject matter. And 31 percent said they felt there were some courses in which they needed to agree with a professor's political or social views to get a good grade!
David Horowitz was once a liberal campus activist who has become a conservative. He helped found Students for Academic Freedom (see LINK below). The organization now has branches on 135 campuses. It is promoting an "Academic Bill of Rights" designed to protect students from abusive professors who trample on their rights of free speech and expression.
The banner on the Parents and Students for Academic Freedom website reads. "You Can't Get a Good Education if they're only Telling You Half the Story." Even liberals believe that to be true. But if conservatives were to do what liberal "educators" are doing to our children, liberals would burn American flags and protest in the streets.
But liberals, Democrats and Socialists are firmly in control of academia at all levels. In many states grade-school children are not allowed to talk about their faith with other children even during non-academic time, such as at lunch or during recess. Teachers have been fired for having a Bible on their desk. The National Education Association is controlled by the Democrat Party, and is one of its largest contributors. And as we have seen, independent studies show that the vast majority of college and university professors are extremely liberal, and persecute students who have differing opinions.
The eleven-year-old Massachusetts boy I mentioned earlier (see LINK below- PLEASE read this story) tells of intense brainwashing in his school. Students are encouraged to jeer whenever President Bush's name is mentioned. His music teacher wrote a song criticizing Bush that students had to sing in a concert.
He goes on to say, "We are lectured every day about how President Bush has failed us. When we recently studied Islam, the instructor discussed the current Israel-Palestine conflict (which was irrelevant to what we were studying). She of course only showed us the side of the Palestinians and eventually asked the Jewish people in the class to raise their hands."
If it is this bad in grade school, where parents have at least some influence over what their children are taught, imagine how bad it is at the college level, where we have no influence.
It is far past time for parents to take their heads out of the sand and find out what is happening to their children. The only way to describe it is institutionalized brainwashing. When lies are repeated over and over by authority figures; when students are ridiculed or disciplined for speaking their minds; and when no dissent is allowed: It is nothing less than brainwashing.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans died for our freedom and that of the world. And now we are desecrating the memory of those brave soldiers by allowing the enemy to destroy us from within. Nikita Khrushchev boasted that he and his comrades would defeat America without firing a shot by infiltrating our institutions and changing the way we think. It is starting to look like he was right. I pray that we wake up in time to prove him wrong.
Dr. Tom Barrett has been an ordained minister for 30 years. He has written for local and national publications for most of his life, and has authored several non-fiction books. He has been interviewed on many TV and radio programs, and speaks at seminars nationwide. Tom is the editor and publisher of Conservative Truth, an email newsletter read by over fifty thousand weekly which focuses on moral and political issues from a Biblical viewpoint.
Cover
•
Commentary
•
Books & Reviews
•
Climate Change
•
Site Links
•
Feedback
